#and I hate that dynamic of 'that's so fucked up I can't feel any sympathy for you and now YOU'RE disturbing'

[harbingrs]

I actually got off-topic on my last post. What I originally meant to talk about was the fact that my abuse is supposedly 'unrealistic', but it only takes one look at some of these Wikipedia pages and it's right there.

The irony is that everyone has probably heard of at least one news story re: these practices. But when it happened to someone you know, suddenly that's unrealistic (because you feel uncomfortable about it).

Anyway, I wish I didn't feel like I had anything to prove, but here are screenshots from the Attachment Therapy Wikipedia page - substantiating the physical practices AND the kind of demonisation behind it

Obviously heavy content re: abuse below the read more

The principles / background:

Attachment therapy is primarily based on Robert Zaslow's rage-reduction therapy from the 1960s and 1970s and on psychoanalytic theories about suppressed rage, catharsis, regression, breaking down of resistance and defence mechanisms. Zaslow, Tinbergen, Martha Welch and other early proponents used it as a treatment for autism, based on the now discredited belief that autism was the result of failures in the attachment relationship with the mother.

Matthew Speltz of the University of Washington School of Medicine states that the roots of attachment therapy are traceable to psychologist Robert Zaslow and his "Z-process" in the 1970s. Zaslow attempted to force attachment in autistic children by creating rage while holding them against their will. He believed this would lead to a breakdown in their defense mechanisms, making them more receptive to others.

Zaslow thought attachment arose when an infant experienced feelings of pain, fear and rage, and then made eye contact with the carer who relieved those feelings. If an infant did not experience this cycle of events by having his fear and rage relieved, the infant would not form an attachment and would not make eye contact with other people. Zaslow believed that creating pain and rage and combining them with eye contact would cause attachment to occur, long after the normal age for such developments.

Holding therapies derive from these "rage-reduction" techniques applied by Zaslow. The holding is not used for safety purposes but is initiated for the purpose of provoking strong negative emotions such as fear and anger.

Speltz cites child psychiatrist Martha Welch and her 1988 book, Holding Time, as the next significant development. Like Zaslow and Tinbergen, Welch recommended holding therapy as a treatment for autism. Like Tinbergen, Welch believed autism was caused by the failure of the attachment relationship between mother and child. Mothers were instructed to hold their defiant child, provoking anger and rage, until such time as the child ceased to resist, at which point a bonding process was believed to begin.

The physical practices:

(1) therapist 'forces control' by holding (which produces child 'rage'); (2) rage leads to child 'capitulation' to the therapist, as indicated by the child breaking down emotionally ('sobbing'); (3) the therapist takes advantage of the child's capitulation by showing nurturance and warmth; (4) this new trust allows the child to accept 'control' by the therapist and eventually the parent.

Attachment Therapy almost always involves extremely confrontational, often hostile confrontation of a child by a therapist or parent (sometimes both). Restraint of the child by more powerful adult(s) is considered an essential part of the confrontation." The purported correction is described as "… to force the children into loving (attaching to) their parents; … there is a hands-on treatment involving physical restraint and discomfort. Attachment Therapy is the imposition of boundary violations – most often coercive restraint – and verbal abuse on a child, usually for hours at a time; … Typically, the child is put in a lap hold with the arms pinned down, or alternatively an adult lies on top of a child lying prone on the floor.

Cline's privately published work Hope for high risk and rage filled children also cites family therapist and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson as a source, and reprints parts of a case of Erickson's published in 1961. The report describes the case of a divorced mother with a non-compliant son.

Erickson advised the mother to sit on the child for hours at a time and to feed him only on cold oatmeal while she and a daughter ate appetizing food. The child did increase in compliance, and Erickson noted, with apparent approval, that he trembled when his mother looked at him.

Cline commented, with respect to this and other cases, that in his opinion all bonds were trauma bonds. According to Cline, it illustrates the three essential components of 1) taking control, 2) the child's expression of rage; and, 3) relaxation and the development of bonding.

The psychological stuff & demonisation:

In contrast to traditional attachment theory, the theory of attachment described by attachment therapy proponents is that young children who experience adversity (including maltreatment, loss, separations, adoption, frequent changes in child care, colic or even frequent ear infections) become enraged at a very deep and primitive level. This results in a lack of ability to attach or to be genuinely affectionate to others.

Suppressed or unconscious rage is theorized to prevent the child from forming bonds with caregivers and leads to behavior problems when the rage erupts into unchecked aggression.

Such children are said to fail to develop a conscience, to not trust others, to seek control rather than closeness, to resist the authority of caregivers, and to engage in endless power struggles. They are seen as highly manipulative and as trying to avoid true attachments while simultaneously striving to control those around them through manipulation and superficial sociability.

Such children are said to be at risk of becoming psychopaths who will go on to engage in very serious delinquent, criminal, and antisocial behaviors if left untreated. The tone in which the attributes of these children are described has been characterized as "demonizing"

The Attachment Disorder Symptom Checklist includes statements about the parent's feelings toward the child as well as statements about the child's behavior. For example, parental feelings are evaluated through responses to such statements as "Parent feels used" and "is wary of the child's motives if affection is expressed", and "Parents feel more angry and frustrated with this child than with other children". The child's behavior is referred to in such statements as "Child has a grandiose sense of self-importance" and "Child 'forgets' parental instructions or directives".

Children are labeled as "RADs", "RAD-kids" or "RADishes". They are seen as manipulative, dishonest, without conscience and dangerous. Some attachment therapy sites predict that attachment-disordered children will grow up to become violent predators or psychopaths unless they receive the treatment proposed. A sense of urgency is created which serves to justify the application of aggressive and unconventional techniques. One site was noted to contain the argument that Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, and Jeffrey Dahmer were examples of children who were attachment-disordered who "did not get help in time". Foster Cline, in his seminal work on attachment therapy, Hope for High Risk and Rage Filled Children, uses the example of Ted Bundy.

[nfcv-saltmine]

Arikado gushing about Trevor

The comments:

I will never understand why some people think Alucard shitting on Trevor is an improvement over Trevor and Alucard respecting each other

I fucking hate this with all my heart ❤️ NFCV fans be like "why do you feel the need to compare the games with the adaptation? Why can't you see it as it's own thing and let people have fun?" and then pull off shit like this.

Why can't NFCV fans keep their NFCV shit to their NFCV spaces? 🤡 Why do they feel the need to go on GAMES spaces and act as if their show could even remotely fit? 🤡 Not to mention... Haha yeah, isn't it so funny that Trevor is a drunk and an idiot? Isn't it so funny that the noble bloodline who have dedicated their lives to protect the same people that fear and reject them, probably because they understand they're scared and weak and don't know any better and just want to survive, are reduced to some rich guys with a leather whip and a collection of books about penises? Isn't it so HILARIOUS that Alucard express no sympathy and no respect for Trevor and his dead family??

The fact those fans see no problem not only with how purely mean and petty N!Alucard is to N!Trevor, but also with making fun of N! Trevor's drinking habit when it's a coping mechanism for his trauma...! I get that the show itself doesn't care about this fact, but for the love of God is it too much to ask fans to think for themselves??? Is it too much to ask them to CARE about how poorly their favorite show handles trauma?? And everything in general?? Do they HAVE to blindly follow the "haha drunk man funny" train??

I am not against the very idea of Trevor being a drunk and having fun banter with Alucard. But that's the thing. Not only Trevor being a drunk is only there for jokes and never truly explored, and he never gets to process or get over his trauma of SEEING HIS HOME AND ENTIRE FAMILY BURN AS A CHILD... But his "funny banter" with Alucard isn't actually funny banter. Alucard is mean, straight up. I mean Trevor says one bad joke about Alucard's parents around a campfire, but next to that, Alucard constantly shits on him and his bloodline!! As if the framing and the very story wasn't doing it enough already!!

The "eat shit and die" "yes fuck you" moment could have been funny... IF THEY FUCKING KNEW EACH OTHER. THEY LITERALLY JUST MET. THEIR ONLY INTERACTIONS SO FAR WAS THEM FIGHTING EACH OTHER. THEM SWEARING AT EACH OTHER AND THEN LAUGHING AFTERWARD ISN'T EARNED, THEY'RE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH FRIENDS FOR THAT AND THEY WILL NEVER BE. NOT WITH N!ALUCARD'S SHITTY ATTITUDE. It's not a fun dynamic to have two manchildren saying fuck yous at each other! It's not a fun dynamic to have one of them insult the other's dead family while the other isn't even allowed to talk back because "oh he has to be the bigger person" according to Sypha!! It's not a fun dynamic to have NO ACTUAL BONDING MOMENT BETWEEN THE MAIN CHARACTERS and instead, have them spend their screentime being assholes to each other, with their mom friend having to be the braincell that keep them in line!!

I hate that Netflixvania felt the need to pretend to be an adaptation of CV3 and CoD(?). That's why we get shit comments like this and shit takes pretending their characters are improvements from the games they know nothing about. At least with Lords of Shadow, it is VERY OBVIOUS that it's an alternate universe. It doesn't pretend to want to change or "improve" anything from the classic timeline, it does it's own thing on it's own little corner, and it's very easy to appreciate it along with the OG timeline thanks to that. Even if it uses familiar names like Trevor and Simon and Sypha, no one with a braincell would even think to compare them to their classic counterparts (at least not in a "this version is better than the other" way), because it's not the same universe.

NFCV isn't like that. NFCV pretends to take place in the classic timeline. NFCV pretends to bring improvements to it. When all it does is destroy. And I'm not saying this just because it changed a lot of stuff. I'm saying this because everyone, Ellis the first one, just HAVE to shit on the games to praise the show. It was intentional for it to be percieved as being "better than the games". 🤡

Anyway game Trevor and Alucard my beloveds I love you and your respectful and wholesome relationship 🥺

[frazzledsoul]

So whenever people used to say Gilmore Girls was their "comfort show", I never quite got it.

There have been so many situations on the show that have seemed cribbed so heavily from my life that I had a lot of trouble enjoying see them play out on the show. They culminated in painful incidents that I didn't want to experience twice. I've also fought the narrative on many occasions, because what ASP wanted me to think wasn't what I believed. I didn't believe that characters I liked more had to be hurt so Lorelai and Rory could feel better about themselves. I found very little comfort in that, and I've rage quit the show a couple of times in response, only to come crawling back. I don't find a great deal of the show to be a panacea for what bothers me about the modern world.

However, I think there is a period when it doesn't feel so dark, and that's season 2. I feel Stars Hollow is more defined as an actual community by this point, and Jess shakes up the show in just the right way, and most of the drama he causes is petty AF and not something that's uncomfortable to watch. Jess and Rory are adorable, Luke and Lorelai are adorable, and Luke somehow gets even more sexily grumpy when he has actual family members to bounce off of. I don't love the way that drama culminates in Jess leaving town, but I feel no one's relationship is seriously damaged as a result of that drama (which it seems to be after S3).

But you know what I don't love? The goddamn Christopher drama. It's not as if it wasn't bad enough to have to hear Lorelai tell Rory that Christopher is going to come and go as he pleases and they just have to put up with it because they have no option with him other than to be doormats. But we see so much bad behavior in this dynamic that ASP praises during S2, from Lorelai throwing herself at Christopher the (1) time he does something remotely paternal, to her deciding that she's been waiting for him to change for twenty years the minute he finds someone else who asks him to (maybe if you hadn't been such a doormat in the first place, Lorelai, things could have worked out, but let's be honest: you didn't want him until someone else had him) to her calling Christopher for help because Luke rejects her raging at Jess as the final word in the situation to my absolute favorite part, the denouement, where Lorelai decides it's okay to fuck Christopher because he's fighting with Sherry and we have to watch her giggling over it with Sookie (WTF) and then parading Christopher all over town as her shiny new boyfriend and telling everyone she knows about her burgeoning relationship before Christopher has even broken up with his last girlfriend....and then ASP wants me to feel sorry for her when Christopher finds out Sherry is pregnant and decides he can't leave. Gross, gross, gross. Ick, ick, ick. And yeah, I don't feel one ounce of sympathy for Lorelai in that situation. She got what she deserved. And I hate that it's juxtaposed with Rory and Jess's first kiss, not only because that starts a pattern of behavior of Rory's infidelity, of her treating Jess shabbily because she can't let go of her other relationships, of Rory and Lorelai cheating at the same time. It shouldn't have been like that for them and it's disgusting that it was. I don't find comfort in any of that at all. I think that's why I can't really pinpoint any episode this season as my favorite, because the Christopher drama overshadows so much of it.

Before we got there, though? It was pretty cozy. Maybe the real reason I can't pinpoint a favorite is because so much of that coziness is a continuum, not confined to any one episode, and I enjoy the whole of it, before it all goes to hell.

[madtomedgar]

Confession: I've nearly dropped out of CQL fandom because people have gotten so much Worse about Nies vs JGY in the last year or so that I can't stomach it. I like JGY and NHS but really really do not like NMJ, and it seems like the latter is a dealbreaker with all parties because I feel bad for NHS insofar as NMJ also victimizes him and he's so fucking In It that his family treating him like shit completely consumes his life in a dead-end revenge quest in which he takes it out on everyone else while attempting to target JGY, and everyone else is like. Well that clearly just means he loves his brother so much, OR he's just complicit/willing to accept anything from NMJ. Either way these two are joined at the hip forever, Do Not Separate, and any inclination that maybe NHS would've been better off, and done far less harm, if he was less Stuck with his own family (going down with the ship there!) is shot down because he Sided With NMJ In The End (and is privileged enough to *checks notes* live with someone who is explosive/abusive towards him but also dotes on him allegedly, which cancels the former out), so everything else is impossible to have ever changed, unnecessary or undeserved. It's like if he liked or was loyal to NMJ then he deserves no sympathy for having been collateral in NMJ's outbursts, or he wasn't hurt enough compared to others for that to count. I don't like the brother who terrorizes his sibling, I'm upset by the scenes in CQL and FJ of him blowing up at NHS, destroying his stuff, terrifying him, AND the scenes of him attacking JGY. I'm sensitive to the ~less bad~ stuff with NHS because they are siblings. I feel bad for both the terrorized-but-loyal sibling and the even-more-terrorized and more-threatened sworn brother, and that's got no place anywhere.

Anyways confession goes here bc you're the only person I've ever seen talk about NMJ in terms of explosive anger for which he does bear some responsibility in terms of dealing with the fallout, and talk about how "if you don't want to be hurt then just don't be there when I'm angry, and if I can't help it you can't hold it against me" fucking sucks as a framework, and even if you don't share this take on NHS (which is fair, like I said I don't think anyone probably does) you'd at least get why NMJ is so... much (derogatory) in ways that aren't solely because he's a shit employer/sworn brother.

Nonny, you are so valid and cool for this ask and I love you.

I... really hate how, because the actor tears up a lot and seems like a nice person whose personality inflects his acting, fandom has decided that Nie Mingjue is actually a sweet, sensitive and reasonable person who never "really" treated anyone too badly. And haha Nie Huaisang is such a brat! Like. I don't talk much about it but that honestly makes me see red.

I... look. I think anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a mentor figure, parent figure, or sibling's explosive anger issues is going to project our shit onto this dynamic. And in my case that... unfortunately comes along with the fantasy of it actually being possible to make that person see what they're doing, and understand, and stop so that you can still have, or have again, the parts of that relationship that are/were good without having to worry about your safety and tiptoe around them. So I often wind up giving Nie Mingjue more credit or energy than is really warranted, because I want Nie Huaisang to have a brother who shows care for him in a way that isn't yelling at him, threatening him, and controlling him, and I want Jin Guangyao to be able to keep that deep respect and affection you see in his eyes in some of their early scenes.

And, like I said, you are very correct about Nie Huaisang. Idk I don't... like to label character dynamics as abuse unless it's explicit. Partially because I feel like it makes it hard to talk about the dynamic, in that it supersedes and flattens every conversation into "person A bad, person B good/helpless," and because in my experience, when someone calls a dynamic abusive, or even says it reminds them of something they experienced that they're calling abuse, people get REALLY mad and REALLY nasty really fast and I want to enjoy myself here lol.

That being said, yeah, frankly, a lot of how Nie Mingjue treats Nie Huaisang, if you just described what is happening without attaching character names, most people would think was deeply fucked! I think a lot of "Nie bros" people write it off by blaming Jin Guangyao, or say "oh he didn't really mean it" because... Nie Huaisang continually runs away and refuses to do saber practice? Which isn't the evidence they think it is.

The place I have a hard time with Nie Huaisang is that, while he didn't want to be a cultivator, especially in the saber style, he was given literally the best education and opportunities in the world, despite sucking and not wanting them. And then you have Meng Yao, who wants to go to school so bad and would be so diligent and happy and good! And instead he has to do jobwork, which involves taking care of Nie Huaisang and his education. And unfortunately the extent to which he gets to be a pampered little princeling turns me off the character big time. Which doesn't negate the incredibly fucked up situation he's in with his brother, or his suffering there. I think also the way he responds to Nie Mingjue's... everything by kind of antagonizing him and being a refusnik also pushes some buttons for me for reasons I don't want to get into, while Jin Guangyao's waffling between appeasement and trying to reason with him resonates big time. And then of course the "I have turned your explosive rage into a bomb and the next time you turn it on me, you will explode and die. Just fyi." Is like. Amazing, Incredible, Phenomenal, Iconic, etc.

Idk this is not the first fandom I've been in where there's been a like. Physically much larger and stronger character who has serious anger issues that they externalize onto characters who are visibly weaker and smaller, and somehow a large chunk of the fandom has decided that actually, it's the big scary yelling violent one who is so sad and in need of gentle handling and hugs and maybe if everyone stopped being so mean to them etc. And the weaker character, when they deploy the methods available to them to defend themselves, are like. Evil conniving manipulators who are playing the victim card and 100% emotionally abusing the person... being violent towards them. It's weird and it keeps happening and I don't get it other than that it might be like... people love twists and the unexpected, and so "what if the person who looks like the dangerous one here actually wasn't!" seems like good storytelling?

But yeah. I don't think Nie Mingjue is like. Evil or a one-dimensional monster or anything, but I also wish fandom was more willing to really dig into his explosive anger issues and the negative effects that has on his brother and Jin Guangyao (and Lan Xichen tbqh).

[vanillacorpse]

I would Love to hear your detailed boiling critique of that shitty werewolf book >.> if you would be so kind as to share

My god where do I begin. "Bored Gay Werewolf", I thought picking this thing out of the shelf and giving the first page a skim. "interesting!". It didn't have the world's most impressive prose but something about the first page got me interested. Not every good book starts off strong. A lousy gay guy who is also a werewolf, that lives in his own filth. He's a mess. It's honestly not a bad premise!! Much has been made of less!

But then the rest of the book... it honestly felt like the entirety of it was written to undermine and enshitten the characters in it. FINE not every character has to be likable. But when NO character whatsoever manages to inspire any sympathy in me I have to wonder why the author would even write a book. I can make a guess what the purpose of this book was, and it wasn't to tell a story-- it was to entertain the UNBEARABLE social critique that the author very bravely, very embarrassingly, tries to present to the reader. It fails. It sucks. It's complete total ass on every front. It's like reading the diary of a twitter gay who isn't even That terminally online. It's the lowest hanging fruit, every page, every joke, every God forsaken Take.

The prose is ass too. It gave up immediately, second page. Just pages of pages of telling. There's nothing interesting that actually happens, you see; the author doesn't have the skills necessary to describe them. There is a VERY COOL, VERY MOVING performance from one of the characters, but of course he can't actually depict it! That would require skill! An understanding of poetry! Instead we have to trust everything the author tells us happens. "There's a heartwarming performance"-- are you a teenage journalist? Why on earth am I reading this? Is this the first fucking draft? Holy fuck.

Our main character, Brian, is a gay werewolf who hangs out with other cool queer people. They're kind of his friends (they're also his coworkers, and one of them is his boss!) but he doesn't really want to open up to them. He's lonely, and, for reasons which aren't interesting at all, he just isn't that comfortable with being intimate. That's his main "issue", the only semblance of friction in his otherwise boring boring boring gay werewolf life. Also he kills people at night but we never see that? and he doesn't feel guilty? and there's no consequences for it ever? Whatever. He has these work friends and together they sometimes make bad jokes together. That's their tear-jerkingly fond dynamic.

Then he meets another werewolf called Tyler who is a trust fund baby that wants to start some alpha-male style multiple-marketing crypto scheme or something of that sort (not actually ever defined). Our boring guy Brian thinks: fuck it. This sounds lame and like a scam and kind of hypermasculine in the toxic way (he's aware of all of these concepts, all of these "progressive" ideas, the entire book) BUT Tyler promises to show him how to control his werewolf form so he doesn't kill people every full moon so WHY NOT.

That's what happens in the first.... I don't know. 3 chapters? Of this book. The rest of the book can be summarized as such:

Brian continues to hang out with his toxic new cryptobro Tyler, and Tyler's other cis-het-normie friends. He HATES it the entire time but, somehow, some fucking how, it's not enough (despite constant internal dialogue calling it all lame and offensive!) to simply walk away from these people. They have no redeeming qualities. The author doesn't even try to give them redeeeming qualities. They are stock photo characters. Brian's internal dialogue refers to them as such. Tyler is a cartoon villain. There is never a single suspicion in the reader that he's anything but.

In refusing to walk away from these people, also, he estranges his cool queer work buddies who thinks he's insane for hanging with them. YOU WOULD THINK THAT, as a reader, you would feel sympathetic to his work buddies simply on the grounds that yeah, Brian is insane. At least another character recognizes it. But the author writes all of them in such a way that even THIS becomes unbearable to read: they're SO RIGHT that there is simply no argument. Brian is being stupid! He's acting weird! He needs to apologize for acting weird! It felt like going down another dumbass thread: "how to properly apologize" and the author just copy pasted that right in the book. Bam.

And that's also how the book ends. He apologizes to his friends for... almost becoming a hypermasculine cryptobro. He just says he's not going to hang out with those weirdos anymore. He "comes out" as a werewolf but apparently his work buddies already knew (????????) (because taking days off every full moon was suspicious enough to confirm it???????) (AT NO POINT IS IT IMPLIED THAT WEREWOLVES ARE A COMMON THING) and whatever. WHATEVER. Oh my god. Anyway. They accept him. It's perfect now.

His cryptobro doesn't like this, basically tries to have Brian killed. Of course it doesn't work, we knew this supervillain had to be disposed off somehow, but the reason Brian is able to kill him is because............................ because............................ secretly, one of Brian's work buddies' new weirdo boyfriends has been a werewolf hunter this entire time. His last name. is Van Helsing. He is a descendant. Of Van Helsing. And he helps kill Tyler. His cryptoscheme empire comes to a definite silver-bullet end. The fucking End.

PLEASE CLAP.

TL;DR:

[dilfdoctordoom]

"Just... there's so much here, that at least a little bit of it feels intentional. It's fucking deranged that Gamora is the sole reason this family exists and that Gamora gets her memory shit on (no one mourning her death, calling her a "lilypad", etc) while the living Gamora is wholly separated from everything her past self held dear, all because she got murdered by her abuser for saving her sister."

I don't know if I can ever thank you enough for making the above statement. Especially the lilypad part. I have been shocked that not a single person has called out the way the movie tries to reduce a 4 year relationship that clearly meant so much to the two people involved into something reminiscent of a one night stand and Gamora in particular into some cheap side piece they all never respected. It made me sick. There was an interview where Chris Pratt said that Gamora and Peter's relationship played a part in why the guardians family came to be. Hearing that I assumed the loss of Gamora would be taken seriously. Vol 3 ended up mocking Gamora and her relationships.

The whole scenario of Gamora being "wild" and Nebula and/or Peter policing her behavior with no empathy shown towards her felt similarly gross to me. She's the one who found out she was murdered, then got dragged to the future where she's been trying to live her life and Peter is getting on her case like she chose to not know who he is. Nebula is chastising her behavior as if she's been perfect her whole life and can't possibly relate to being angry.

Why couldn't Gunn recreate the vol 2 relationship he gave to Yondu and Rocket where Yondu called Rocket out but not in a judgemental way. It was done in a way to connect Yondu and Rocket because Yondu saw himself in Rocket and could understand him. That easily could have been done for Gamora and Nebula. They could have recreated their vol 2 arc as well. Neither one was treated as if they were 100% terrible or 100% perfect. They came to an understanding and started to be real sisters.

More than anything what happened to where we left off in EG? Gamora and Nebula were already starting to get along and communicate. In vol 3 they seem less connected than they did in vol 1 and maybe it's just me but Gamora seemed to possess less communication skills. It's like Gunn took away some of her awareness and comprehension to dumb her down. Drax was like this too. He's always been a little oblivious and doesn't understand metaphors but he wasn't stupid. In vol 3 there are times he's treated like a fool and they insulted his intelligence. I couldn't stand it.

Normally I will shake my head when canon sucks. But this is more than canon sucking. I don't want to sound too harsh but some aspects of the movie felt like they were written by a bitter internet troll who hates women and poc and was itching to have Gamora suffer. My gut tells me something more is going on underneath because Gunn has proven he can do better than this.

The lilypad statement always drives me crazy as it's just factually untrue. Gamora's always been the one advocating for him to reconnect with his family, she was never a "lilypad" she was, as the cast themselves say, the love of his life. Vol 3 is strange in that establishes Peter's grief for Gamora as this strong, omnipresent part of his life... then also says "oh, but she wasn't that important". It's two statements that cannot coexist.

The reason Gunn couldn't recreate the Rocket and Yondu dynamic was that it would give Gamora sympathy & he seems utterly incapable of doing that. It doesn't matter that she was murdered. It doesn't matter that she watched her sister die in front of her. It doesn't matter if everyone this Gamora knows is dead. It doesn't matter if she has been transplanted out of her time. Acknowledging any of that might lend her a sympathetic light and he can't allow that to happen.

Gamora definitely seemed dumb down, IMO, with her call to the Ravagers getting Ayesha & Adam the Guardians' location. Like I'm sorry, but Gunn can't claim the Ravagers as Gamora's "real family" then not have her realize she's speaking with a stranger. It is, again, a case of the movie wanting two things that cannot coexist to be true: Gamora's family is the Ravagers. Gamora cannot recognize when it's a stranger she's speaking with and not a Ravager.

I feel really bad for Dave Bautista. I've talked a lot about Mantis, Nebula, and especially Gamora, but what happened to Drax is genuinely saddening, especially with the rakes of passion the actor clearly had. He learned the sax! He went out of his way to learn the sax! Then we never get to see it... and it's very strange because this Drax obviously lends more from his Infinity Watch era than GOTG2008, yet Infinity Watch kept Drax at a lower level of intelligence, made him a much richer character & had better treatment of him overall. It's bad when the 90s are beating you.

Gunn did show improvement in his DC work (well, at least in terms of women) & it made it all the more strange for Vol 3 to do... all of that. But then, he said he'd finished the script around the time of IW/EG premiering and I just do not believe he ever even attempted to edit it.

[leporellian]

thoughts on “modern” opera productions!

this has been sitting in my inbox forever and i thought 'yeah i'll answer that sometime' and then i went and fucked off to pittsburgh for like a week but now... i am here. i have fire in my veins. and i can't go to work at the moment so i'm going a little insane. perfect timing to write about "modern" setting opera productions and why i have it Fucking Out for them most of the time

so i know the big joke is that i have it out for modern setting opera productions but there's a caveat here, and the caveat depends on three things:

a) if it works with what's in the source material and/or provides something additionally meaningful instead of messing up the existent dynamics, b) if it understands that audience sympathy and modernization do not go hand in hand, or c) if it pisses off opera boomers (funny). the lucia di lammermoor at the met right now that everyone's panicking over i think works because, third point aside, it works with what's already there. the whole idea of mental health struggles both affecting and being taken out on women, as well as the concept of women having to carry the public image of their families, works both in Ye Olde Scotland and modern southern America. plus, the new setting adds an additional sort of patheticness (in that perfect sort of pitiable way) to the whole 'you must keep up our DISTINGUISHED family NAME' when said distinguished family name is a corrupt car dealership, and i think that's really genuinely interesting; it doesn't take away from or act in defiance of the original but adds a new layer on top. and again, it makes people mad, and that's funny.

so if there's some modern productions i'm okay with, why do i hate so many of them? and the answer comes down to a few key features.

number one. directors want to do an ironic take on something and in the process sort of ruin it. lucia, as previously stated, works with its irony because it's still very genuine in spite of it. but there's a lot of operas where the director thinks they can provide commentary on parts that haven't aged well (or that they just plain disagree with) by making the characters act like blatant assholes and having any sense of peace or good will be absolutely obliterated. now this isn't an issue specific to modern setting productions but it tends to be really common with them. now this isn't to say directors can never put characters or situations in different lights, but it Is to say that making something too mean spirited can spoil it. this is especially annoying when the opera is actually rather idealistic in nature and the director's just trying to be like "OH BUT TRUE LOVE DOESN'T EXIST" like... maybe go watch a cinemasins video or whatever it is edgy 14 year olds do these days and take a break from directing opera until you feel better.

number two. certain dynamics tend to get lost in translation when done in modern settings. you especially see this in operas revolving around class dynamics, although others are to be included as well. take don giovanni, for example, a show i have never really liked any modern setting productions of (despite it ofc being my favorite opera). leporello's entire character hinges on the dynamics of 17th century class servitude, along with other power imbalances of the time. in a more 'modern' setting, where leporello is just the don's assistant or a close friend, it doesn't make sense why he has little to no agency over the don's actions because there isn't the 'servants of the 17th century had to follow their masters' orders or McFucking Die' notion in the mix- and this directly leads to the modern idea of making leporello into a slimy, unlikable enabler instead of the more benign and sympathetic figure he's meant to be seen as. there's many more examples here but that one comes to mind and that's a major failing of modern setting productions, even if the vague general concepts are timeless.

number three. directors think that the audience can only empathize with modern characters. this is the biggest issue and, i think, the worst one. there was a tweet a going around a while ago like 'oh i cant relate to finding nemo because i'm not a fish' and that's really a TLDR of this situation. directors have this need to make everything easier to the audience to relate to, and while this strategy might work with the shallow, it kind of... removes one of the main points of theatre and fiction as a whole... which is TO WORK TO UNDERSTAND AND EMPATHIZE WITH PEOPLE THAT ARE DIFFERENT THAN YOU. opera's themes are universal; rigoletto is about ableism and misogyny and how societal power structures are built on their backs; the marriage of figaro is about class not determining the merit of a person (and misogyny and power Again), tosca is about the plurality of god and how religion and politics are inseparably linked. all of these themes are things we aren't unused to. you COULD of course make the argument that a modern setting shows the audience that these struggles have always been there, but in my mind that's spelling it out for them and i like letting them make the connection for themselves. it's much more profound to connect to something that'c obviously set in a different time than it is to connect to something that happened in a story taking place just last week with characters roughly Your age. you have to let the audience do some work to understand the piece. part of the joy of opera is that it feels like you're not alone in your struggles, and having a modern setting kind of removes that feeling. that and there's this idea in fiction that a character has to be just like you for you to understand them, which... i evidently thoroughly dislike. i am making a story here, not a #relatable buzzfeed quiz. empathy isn't created by putting the characters in modern slacks and handing them an iphone. it's created by damn good writing and portrayals, which opera has in spades but just needs to.... actually realize it has in spades. modern settings are thoroughly superficial in this way.

number four. directors think that old timey costumes and situations are ridiculous. this sorta goes hand in hand with the last one. listen here's the big secret: all genuine expression of human emotion? it's going to be inevitably, wonderfully ridiculous! you cannot have something that is incredibly profound without it looking at least slightly silly to someone somewhere out there. because that's human nature. we are all just a bunch of apes on a big rock in space trying to do our best, and we have to embrace the inherent silliness of profundity if we want to express it. once again this is an issue boiling down to 'director wants all of the vulnerability without none of the actual vulnerability' and shooting themselves in the foot over it.

TLDR for this one: you are going to look at the guy onstage in a 14th century jester costume and you are going to understand him and have a Moment over it, and then you will understand how connected we all really are and how art is a repeated journey of telling the world that there was someone there, and it mattered. Oh and if you stage The Rakes Progress in a modern setting GO TO JAIL NOW. i yield my time

[electraslight]

Hey, just curious. Whenever you draw Gwen and Charmcaster together it seems like Gwen dislikes her a lot more than the other way around. So, what are your thoughts on their dynamics?

hey, good to see you in the askbox again. to answer your question I mostly just do it for silly reasons and the fact that I like to portray Gwen as meaner than she actually is and charmcaster as more of a free spirit, for comedy reasons. but I do have reasons for these characterizations!!

I feel like their dynamic flips over time if that makes sense? like as a child Gwen is more sympathetic to charmcaster as she sees what her life is like and, while she still judges and dislikes her because that's just what Gwen does, she understands that charmcaster is a product of her environment. charmcaster on the other hand hates Gwen deeply and very unreasonably, and for the rest of her appearances seems to hold a grudge against her that is basically her entire life. charmcaster resorts to horrible actions for the sole reason of getting back at a little girl who's only crime was getting in her way a couple times. she's wholly pathetic.

the shift kind of happens to me around alien force, when charmcaster makes the ultimate mistake: she fucks with Kevin. now charmcasters age has never been confirmed but we know she's an older teenager in ogs so the youngest she could be in af is 21, and that's being generous. and Kevin is 16. so charmcaster, in her constant bid to get a one up on a girl more than half a decade her junior who never really did anything to her, has committed an act that even Gwen, who forgives most violences if they come from a place she finds sympathetic, can't forgive, and since he's her boyfriend and all, it makes it worse. to be honest I feel like Gwen should have been more angry about this, but I do what I want with canon, so in my world she never did and most of her sympathy for charmcaster kind of left as soon as this happened.

charmcaster is different bc she realized something different. yeah sure, she killed Gwen and all, but she felt bad about it, so bad she brought her back. because really, charmcaster has only two people who ever looked at her as more than a pest or a tool, Gwen and hex, and even hex saw her like that for a while. she has no one and in this loneliness she clung on to her hatred of Gwen to cope, looking for any type of one up or form of attention from her at any cost, and the absence of Gwen made her realize that she had no one if she got rid of their rivalry, because hex could turn on a dime at any moment and see her as a pawn again, so she revived Gwen (and Ben and Kevin for good measure)

that's why in my little world charmcaster is constantly barging into Gwen's life looking for any type of attention from her, good or bad, and over time Gwen's sympathy with this behavior has eroded to the point she treats charmcaster with nothing but derision, but she also feels some sort of obligation to help her bc charmcaster is just..... so pathetic, and Gwen knows she won't be receptive to anything from anyone else, so she keeps letting her hang around and bother her.

anyway that's just my take on things, I know I make Gwen meaner than she is post classic but I enjoy her when she's rude lol. thanks for the ask!!

[cynthplop]

Hhmm, if you like talking about your Robin and Tardif, pls don't hold back! What do they like about each other? What do they dislike in one another? What is their dynamic, which roles get filled by who? Will they stick together? Are there any crisises or huge arguments between the two? Maybe I'm negative, buut I personally find the abundance of pure love/sympathy-at-first-sight-till-the-grave scenario representations a bit frustrating and unrealistic as in real life that's a minority, right?

Yea I really do like talking about them :'''') been thinking of commissioning someone to draw them for me as of late bc school's really shredding me a new one it's not cute 😭😭😭😭😭😭 it makes me really happy to know that there's interest in them that's not just me, they're my everything my sugar candy apples :'D You'll have to pardon me if my descriptive skill is not entirely up to par today, been doing homework all day and now I'm gettin reddy for beddy. Join me, dear traveller, in the read more..... (again, minor DD2 spoilies)

Now what they like in one another: abridged, Robin really loves how Tardif makes him feel very human. He likes that Tardif comes from and to him represents a normal, human world he never got to experience; life and joy and flowers and fields, marketplaces and inns, travelling by river. To Robin, Tardif is proof that a normal (as normal as it gets with DD but bear with me) life is possible and that it's not out of his reach.

Tardif likes that Robin notices the beauty in everything about the world that a lifetime of looking out for himself has blinded him to. And despite everything he's gone through, Robin is still annoyingly hopeful, patient, kind, everything that he didn't know was possible in a man anymore, no less nobility. He hated it all at first, hated it violently, but against his better judgement it grew on him :)

This kiiiinda ties in with what they dislike about one another, but I think one of the more major crises that happens between them is that Tardif repeatedly does NOT let Robin engage in any sort of violence once they start to develop feelings for one another, a reckless act of way too much protectiveness on Tardif's end. Basically the moment he notices he's catching feelings he doesn't really know how to reel it all back in after spilling. This prompts Robin to get really angry at him, obvs, because he feels like he's being treated like a child or fragile glass, a feeling which he despises. They figure it out eventually tho, lol. Tardif also hates how self-sacrificial Robin can be, regularly martyring himself because he thinks he deserves it for the crimes of his family. Tardif doesn't hate ROBIN for it, but he hates that he feels that way and that someone ultimately undeserving of suffering has to go through that when so many others who actually do deserve it live cushy lives.

In regards to them sticking together, that was the plan. Tardif promising to take Robin away from the Hamlet once everything is over and setting up a bakery somewhere nice... something he doesn't know if he can truly do after everything, but something he wants to try for the sake of someone else, for once, as he's long learned that Robin is the only exception to all of his lifelong rules. But, as per DD2, that may not have worked out, and I'm still waiting on some info before getting to work on that ;) a tragic divorce arc (literally, bc they got Actually Married in DD1) where "Robin has ulterior motives of tracking down his husband during the apocalypse" might be in the works, tho 👀

I can't lie and say I'm Not a fan of pure love kind of scenarios, I'm a romantic at heart and I like to see all sorts of different types of relationships play out. But you're right, for my dark dungeon, I like to see some drama more >:) These two can get a little bit codependent and fucked up, and be so very selfish and possessive, but that's what makes it juicy hehe

[marisandini-chu-blog]

How Shadow and Bones Differentiate Villain and Anti-Hero

Alright, first I need to claim the fact that I love dark, edgy, but misunderstood bad boy in stories with the potential of epic redemption. Loki from Marvel. Jason Todd from DC. Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time. Zuko from AtLA. You name them, I simp them.

So when I watched this new show on Netflix and shown a tall, handsome man in dark clothing, both respected and feared for his power. I feel... nothing. 

WHICH IS WEIRD! Like... he’s obviously my type. Complete with the sad backstory and vicious streak. So I kept wondering why I wasn’t enamored by the Darkling, Alexander Kirigan. I wasn’t surprised he was the main villain, I even expected it. But I usually at least have a bit of sympathy for them. This OOC behavior of mine made me introspect myself and the show, trying to find out which part gave me the red flags before Mother Darkling decides to pop the chosen one out halfway in the season. 

That’s when it hit me; there were red flags! The show had been subtly trying to tell us Kirigan is a manipulative boyfriend not just by great acting and good directing, but by comparing him with the actual anti-hero of the story who I actually love; Kaz Brekker. 

Here’s the list of signs you might not notice of why Kirigan is meant to be a Villain instead of an Anti-Hero. 

1. The Eyes

"The eyes are the window to the soul" is a common saying and and the key to good acting for any good show. Eyes tell us a lot about what a person’s character is like and SaB showed us the difference of a sincere man and a man with a hidden agenda.

Look at him! Look at that little smirk. Look at the gaze. That's the look you find when someone's evil little plan is finally coming together. Not one awed by the power or by Alina. A blatant sus move is what I'm saying. Congrat, first flag planted.

Sure he could still fall in love with Alina, but that doesn't stop his agenda either. All it does is potentially create conflict for him to pick either his plan for revenge or life with Alina.

In comparison, look at Kaz when he said this to Inej; "She isn't like you, no one is." Straightforward eyes. Serious grim. No nonsense tone. Inej is one of the most talented and terrifying rogue-assassin and Kaz just blatantly said that he kept her from 'slavery' because of who she is, not what she's capable of. Like... the man has no shame being known to love her while still trying to be professional (or as professional a thief can be). I can respect that.

This is the eye of a man who would abandon everything to make sure she comes out alright in the end. Do not argue with me on this!

2. Leverage and Status

The moment Alina steps into the Little Palace she was treated like a princess. A palace, by the way, that’s managed by the Darkling. She gets favorable treatment; from the food, Zoya displaced when she fought Alina, a horseback ride just the two of them, asking her to call by his name to make them familiar, a black uniform that might as well be claiming???

Dude is desperate is what I’m saying. 

Sure, this could all be romantic gestures. There’s the problem that Kirigan is superior in status and name, powerful Grisha, and has a vested interest in her power. Pursuing romance while Kirigan has the ability to make her life heaven or hell with a snap of his finger made every single decision be seen with wariness. 

"Beware of powerful men," Genya couldn't put it any better.

Had they pursued romance after they destroy the fold, cementing Alina’s position as a saint more. Then I might have let go of that wariness. 

I’m only proven correct when the moment Alina turned away from him, Kirigan made another leverage by (spoiler!) putting an antler to her collarbone... eeeewwww much?! 

That’s how desperate the Darkling is to be in control of a person and a situation. 

And when no letter came for Alina? That a big red flag because who else in this castle can control the coming of going of letter with the Savior. HMMMMMMMMMMM.....

Then there’s Kaz. My man. There’s no competition. This guy held no leverage on my dear Inej. When she almost decided to leave, Kaz didn't force or convince her to stay but he ask her. Doesn't remind her of her debt whether monetary or life debt to him. In fact, this guy needs money for revenge but instead mortgage his main source of income for her freedom.

HE POSTPONED HIS LIFE GOAL TO FREE HER FROM DEBT ASJHAKFSDJGLDFJ!!!  

What more do I need to say? 

3. Sympathy Card

This is the type of point you want to watch out from your partners, ladies, gents, and others. The sympathy card is the way to go when anyone wants to reach out to you so you can take care of them before they abuse or gaslight you. 

While it’s good to share trauma and eased the burden, sometimes it's healthy to ask yourself whether the person can take advantage of you and to verify whether they lie to you or not.

When Kirigan shared about his past as a sympathetic boy with his secluded fountain and coin. Everything about that scene rang warning bells for me... the part he had requested her to use his color... requesting to horse ride with just them two... sharing sob story that may encourage Alina to help him...

Kudos to Alina to see through the fact she's seen as a means to an end.

It was only when Kirigan showed righteous anger and frustration of a war that's killing his people did Alina finally opened her heart to him.

Kaz however doesn't use the sympathy card. Heck, the man likes to believe he shed away any weakness and threw it in the harbor where it belongs. Kaz hates weaknesses. And garnering sympathy is an admission of weakness for him.

We still know there's a tragic backstory as any decent anti-hero would have... but by not sharing that, this implies that Inej and Jesper stayed because of who he is, and not because of who he was or how he came to be. They don't need a sob story to stay together and that showed a stronger bond between them.

4. Friends

To be frank, I find this the most hilarious because this point is the one that convinced me that Kirigan was secretly an evil bastard.

He doesn’t have any friends!!!

Like... dude had a literal witch army, a wife once, a fuck buddy, and a girlfriend but there wasn’t a single moment in the show where someone, outside of Alina and superior, to speak casually to him. 

You’re telling me this person... the most powerful and influential Grisha in the East Ravka, charming as hell, handsome as fuck, and yet he doesn’t have friends?! 

“I’ve buried good soldiers... friends...” Get the fuck out of here! WHAT FRIENDS?!?! Maybe if you get off your little power trip from your self-made pedestal, you can actually be less of an asshole and make one. 

Sure he excused himself by blaming his ‘ancestor’ for being a shadow summoner. I can see how the fear makes it hard for him to get close to anybody. But all the other characters who are part of his army only ever shown to speak with him respectfully, and the royalty even commend him. No one disrespected him even openly and you’re telling me he doesn’t have one friend amidst all these people?!

In comparison, look at Kaz. He’s brash, crude, and unapologetic. He held true to his moniker ‘Bastard of the Barrel’ and yet this ass has friends. They show Jesper joking with Kaz, and Kaz has shown to banter with him back as well as tolerating his gambling addiction when it could have jeopardized the Job. Inej was shown to actually argue and have disagreement with Kaz when he’s technically her boss. Can you imagine the Darkling doing that? CAN YOU?!

No. Because he's a pretentious ass. That's why.

This is a great example of the use “show not tell” of how Kaz despite his obvious edges has a soft spot shown through his relationship with Inej and Jesper, who have a friendly dynamic. I can attest that while Kaz didn’t create a good first impression, I love Jesper and Inej (they are precious!) so much that I project it to Kaz in extension.

On the other hand, Kirigan’s goodwill had only ever been told by outsiders or himself. None from his inner circle (which he doesn’t have!) other than his mother, who ended up outing him instead. 

So I applaud the writers and showrunners of SaB to actually have subtext signs of a manipulative bastard. The Duckling is a good villain character that's complex but unredeemable. Sometimes, you just have a good ol' charming villain you can't redeem and that's okay.

[emilyskinners]

Time to give my opinions about Cobra Kai season 3, in bullet points (SPOILER ALERT)

First off, everyone in this show needs therapy. Just get them all in one room, and have a therapy session, and everything would be okay.

Hawk's redemption arc and him and Demetri being Best friends again warms my heart

ROBBY KEENE DESERVES BETTER

Kreese needs to die (I'm sorry, the flashbacks were trying to make me feel bad for him, but I don't feel any sympathy towards him at all. Still a prick especially after brainwashing Hawk, Tory, and now Robby)

Not feeling Miguel/Sam anymore, especially after they cheated with each other on Robby and Tory

Lowkey ship Robby/Tory, idk why. I mean, they both got cheated on and that their exes cheated on them with the others partner.

The Lawrusso scenes this season reminds me of McDanno so much (bc I watched Hawaii Five 0 before Karate Kid and Cobra Kai) cause their dynamics are just so similar, I love it.

Miguel Diaz is an adorable cinnamon roll, I shall protect at all costs (Also he just gets hotter every season)

Also Demetri and Yasmine, I Kinda ship it, idc what anyone says, their dynamic is cute

Ali returning was something I never expected, well, maybe a little bit after the end of last season, but I didn't think it would ACTUALLY happen, yk?

Eagle Fang? I'm sorry Johnny, but what the actual fuck kind of name is that (me and Daniel had the same facial reaction)

But Johnny and Daniel finally teaming up to take down Kreese is just, YES, FINALLY! Like, fuck, about damn time.

Also, yeah, Sam has a point, having a bad background doesn't give you a right to be a bully, but I can't hate Tory. I'm a sucker for broken socio/psychopaths, I mean look at my unhealthy obsession with Kol Mikaelson and Kai Parker. Also, Peyton List was my childhood, I can't hate any character she plays. And Tory is just a fucking kid, give her some slack, jfc.

And I want Season 4, and I want it now

[itsmoonphobic]

Elemental Souls (SBI+Tommy 4 elements au)

(🌿) ♡ (🔥) ♡ (🌊) ♡ (🌬)

Techno Blade -Fire:

"Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products."

You can either see Techno as rude,cocky and egoistic or you can see him as loyal,determined and smart.

Becouse of his cold facade,Techno can scare poeple off easily.The fact that he gets aggressive easily doesn't make it any better.He tends to be very sarcastic and loves to tease/ignore people badly which is another reason poeple tend to stay away from him.

Techno can be described as terrifying.Becouse he is very intelligent and silent poeple around him can only wonder what he is thinking and if he is planning on killing someone soon.Of course Techno never killed anyone and he would never do so but his scary aura makes people believe he did and would do it again.

He doesn't take things very seriously and will only get invested if he is deeply committed and interested in them or if he gets something out of it.Techno may say that he isn't a competitive person but god is this man lying to himself.

Challenging Techno to something is probably the most dumbest move you could make.Not only will he destroy you and win but he will make a whole ass war out of it.This guy won't sleep,eat or talk to another human being until he's won.And you can bet your ass he will totally humiliate you and rub it in till it burns-

That's what Techno can be seen as from the outside. But on the inside he is anything but confident,cocky and unbeatable.He is very shy and socially awkward. He only picks out certain people who he will let take part in his life.On some days his insecurities will get the best of him and he won't come out of his room for weeks-

Hours and hours spent on crying only then become evident once he leaves his room and reveals this mess of red and puffy eyes,dark valleys and pale skin.The vibes he gives off basically scream "back of and leave me the fuck alone or I will burn you to death"

Others may think that a fiery person like him has to have exciting and risky hobbies-When in reality Techno loves peaceful and quiet activities like reading or studying.May I add that in his free time Techno absolutely loves to be outside and farm potatoes on a daily-

Sure Techno does fighting and skill upgrading from time to time but when he is left alone with his head full of thoughts he will scurry to the local library and spend the rest of his day there.Nobody questions why he goes there or makes fun of him that such a tough guy reads books-Becouse they very well know he will personally beat them up and burn down their houses.

Techno's best friend Phil is the only person who he truly trusts with everything and anything.The two of them grew up together and developed a really strong emotional and family like bond.Techno only allows Phil to see his vulnerable and fragile side,he will cry infront of him and even let Phil hug him while he reassures him that everything will work out and be fine.

Techno isn'a touchy guy,for him pda is disgusting and unnecessary-like,why the fuck would you put your hands on another person?What kind of person enjoys sharing physical contact?Not Techno that's for sure.

Over time Techno became more open and extroverted so he agreed to meeting two of Phil's friends,both of them having different elements.Phil commented something about how he thinks that opposite friendships are way more exciting and fun!Techno didn't think much of it,he simply rolled his eyes and went along with it.

That was the day Techno met Wilbur and Tommy.He could immediately tell that Tommy would be annoying as fuck and really hard to deal with-I mean the kid was only twelve when they first got introduced.Wilbur on the other hand sparked some sort of feeling inside of Techno that made him feel welcomed in his presence.

So yeah over the course of the next four years the four element benders became really close.Yes even grumpy Techno had to live with the fact that he would die for all of them-even Tommy.And speaking of Tommy,he and Techno do everything together-

If you would to make fun of Tommy or tease/annoy him in any be it negative or positive way-Techno would hunt you down and burn you-If it isn't intense he will stick to only a threat-but if you actually physically or mentally hurt Tommy??Oh boy-I may have said that Techno never did and never would kill somebody,but in this case there is a high chance of an angry Techno being after you.

Techno sees his friend group as family members.Phil represents a huge father figure,Wilbur his younger brother and Tommy his youngest brother.He is very overprotective of them all,especially over Tommy if you couldn't already tell.With how much shit he gets himself into and the fact that he is only sixteen years young and his braincells are still producing he can't but worry for him and take care of him,even if he does bully the fuck out of him :)

Wilbur and Techno have the best moments.The two of them both enjoy reading so you can occasionally discover them in the local town library where they are just enjoying the peace shared between eachother. Although Wilbur does have a chaotic and wild side to him which he lets out when he's around Tommy,he becomes quite and relaxed when around the fire bender.Techno knew from the moment he met Wilbur that the two of them would get along great.

Techno isn't really good with showing his feelings or dealing with his emotions-Like I said apart from pride and anger he doesn't reveal much to the world.Phil used to be the only person Techno trusted but now with the whole gang on his side he earned himself more poeple to rely on.Of course it took time for him to open up and really let himself go infront of Tommy and Wilbur but the waiting definitely paid off.

When Techno practices,for example his weapon usage and fire bending it is best to leave him alone and stay a safe distance away from him.There is a chance for him to attack you,though he will most likely just snap at you and tell you to piss off if you don't wanna burn alive and if you wanna keep all your fingers in place.

Also not to mention,Techno is on the way of becoming a vegetarian.At the start he only hated eating anything related to pigs,like bacon or pork chops.But after developing his love for farming he noticed just how unnecessary eating meat is.Sure he still consumes meat from time to time but in most of the cases he will turn it down and eat a baked potato instead :D

Squid and Dream(A water bender and a earth bender) are both in a rivalry with him.Techno is probably the one who started randomly picking on Squid at one point and from there on out they kind of grew close?Not too close but most definitely a form of friendship.

Dream on the other hand is hundred percent the one who constantly competes with Techno.Be it in element bending or grades in school.If Dream manages to get even half a point more on an exam he would literally celebrate.The most annoying part is the fact that Techno doesn't even acknowledge Dream. Just to see Dream's face when Techno only shrugs and lets out a small "ehh" while saying that it doesn't matter and he sees no point in anyone trying to be as good as him or better,makes it more entertaining ;D

To sum it all up: Techno is a natural born leader.His dedication and determination along with his loyalty are a healthy base for a powerful soul.The reason behind his aggressive,confident and somewhat rude side is due to the fact that he is a fire bender and his element is naturally fierce.He fights for what he thinks is important and right and never lets anything happen to the poeple he deeply loves and cares about.He is not the best when it comes to showing sympathy and affection and he doesn't seek it from anyone else.He has to deal with major mental health issues but he's more than thankful for his friends that are by his side and help him out on his journey.Once Techno opens up to you more you know he likes you,like I said to earn Techno's respect and trust you have to meet his expectations and show him that you actually care for him and his well being.He needs some love guys <3

Like fire itself, fire benders tend to be passionate, dynamic, and temperamental. Fire can keep you warm, or it can do great destruction. While fire burns out quickly without fuel to keep it going, it can also regenerate its power from the ashes. A single spark can set off a forest fire. As a result, fire benders need to be nurtured and managed carefully.

Phil Watson - Air:

"Air refers to the Earth's atmosphere. Air is a mixture of many gases and dust particles. It is the clear gas in which living things live and breathe. It has an indefinite shape and volume. It has mass and weight, because it is matter."

The most hardworking,kind and caring guy you will ever encounter.Phil is the definition of wholesome :)

Phil is a very understanding and empathetic person. He patiently listens and respects people's boundaries and insecurities.He is a great comfort to many poeple with phobias and mental health issues.A part of his element is care and gentleness.Phil is very careful and elegant with his words and actions.He tends to not be hasty and obnoxious around people he first meets or knows who don't like that type of behavior.

He and Techno are very close.Phil trusts Techno with his eyes closed and the same goes for Techno.The way the two of them interact with eachother suprises people all the time.How could such a gentle soul deal with a feisty one like Techno's??Outsiders and even familiars wonder if the two share some sort of telepathic connection.All in all they share an unbreakable and strong family like bond.

Not only did Phil introduce his other really good friends to Techno and managed to get him to open up more and trust other people apart from him,but he also helped Techno realize that there are other poeple out there who care about him and want to give him nothing but undeniable love <3

Techno may be close with Wilbur and Tommy but the only person who knows about Techno's struggles and his biggest fears is Phil.He knows exactly in which way he needs to talk to him and how to act around him.Phil knows Techno doesn't like affection like hugs and holding hands but as a sign of appreciation and gratefulness Techno allows Phil to hug him while he calms him down and takes care of him.

The way he acts with such precision and grace makes anyone feel welcomed and comfortable around Phil. Phil is very helpful.He doesn't wait for poeple to come up to him and ask him for something,he goes up to them and asks if he can help them out with anything.

He stands up for justice and always does the right things.Phil has a big heart,if he sees anyone who is hurt or feeling down his parent like instincts will activate and he will immediately comfort them.

All three of his best friends(Techno,Wilbur,Tommy) look up to him as a father figure,which warms Phil's heart and he honestly he thinks it's super cute <3 So naturally Phil can't but see them as his three polar opposite,chaotic sons.He would do anything for the three of them,even risking his own life.

Tommy and Phil's relationship is probably the most cutest one.When Phil tells Tommy to quit it or to stop fighting with Wilbur or Techno(mostly Wilbur),Tommy instantly goes quiet and apologises for it.Phil's air bending is something that Tommy loves about him.He will always ask the elder if he can twirl him around in the air and make him fly.Phil gladly does so and he will tickle him with the wind he creates until Tommy is a giggling mess :D

Wilbur and Phil on the other hand are a completely different dynamic than Techno & Phil or Tommy & Phil. Most think that Phil would be scared of Techno like any other person is but it's actually Wilbur who genuinely scares Phil from time to time.Sure anyone who sees him doesn't think that something like "I just wanna fucking murder everyone around me and drag them to the bottom of the ocean-" would come out of his mouth.It's not only what he says it's how and when he says horrifying things like that.They could be out on a walk and Wilbur would just have the most blank expression while he says sentences like that.Phil is pretty sure that he even caught Tommy holding onto Techno's hand once while Techno shivered slightly with wide eyes.

Phil is known for being very respectful and polite.He doesn't like to be mean and angry towards anyone!He is a big pacifist(unlike other poeple 👀)who likes to sort things out with a nice and peaceful conversation instead of turning to immediate violence.He will argument with someone,but only when he has a good reason to do so.If he sees people arguing or fighting he will confront them about it and make sure they settle down and put their differences aside.

He's affectionate and really interested in the problems of others,as if they were his own.He will always be there if you are stuck with something and need help solving or overcoming said problem.He'll make sure that both of you find a way to get rid of it! <3

Air benders are also the most forgiving element benders,so Phil can tell the difference between acting out and just plain old meanness,and he understands that in moments of strong emotion, people can say and do things to can hurt others. Not that he'd ever do the same!His cool, collected vibe helps him navigate the drama and analyze it throughly.

Phil is a master of both small talk and deep convos, and he knows how to use his wit to get him out of awkward moments.That's another way Phil instantly gets the hang of strangers he just met!!He knows what subjects to bring up and what topics to talk about that they are interested in!

Also I quickly wanna say that Phil's laugh is super contagious!He could be out with Techno,Wil and Tommy while the three of them rant on and on about their days and just talk about random,shit.Phil will silently listen to every detail in the background while he uncontrollably laughs.He will let out a small "What?" or "No way dude" but apart from those small phrases he just prefers listening and cackling.He loves to see other people laugh and smile and is even more happy when he is the reason they do so :3

Phil is generous and selfless.He puts the health and safety of others before his own.He doesn't require many things to be satisfied in his life.As long as he has his family and friends he couldn't be more grateful <3

He definitely has a love for birds such as pigeons and doves.One time about two years ago Tommy brought Phil a beautiful silver feathered bird for his birthday. Even with his element being air,Phil sometimes wishes and dreams of flying himself,being able to feel that freedom for himself you know?He sees birds as lucky to have a gift such as flying.

Air benders are all about action, ideas, and motion—they are the “winds of change.” When a strong gust hits you, you can’t help but move. While some within their ranks may be true-life “airheads,” others are as powerful as a gravity-defying G-force. Air benders bring everyone a breath of fresh air when things start to get stale. Like the breeze, you can’t quite catch them, and you never know where they’ll drop you once they sweep you up. It will almost always been an adventure, though

Wilbur Soot - Water:

"Water is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life, even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients."

Charming,suave and flirty in a way that can only be from fiction.Do men like that even exist?Apparently they do and they go by the name of Wilbur Soot.

Ever stand under a waterfall? That’s what it’s like when a Wilbur is feeling an intense emotion.

Intuitive, emotional and ultra-sensitive,Wilbur can be as mysterious as the ocean itself. Like water,he can be refreshing,or he can drown you in his depths.Security is important to him,after all, water needs a container, or it dries up and disappears.

He tends to hold on to people and items long past their expiration dates,and his emotions are always flowing like the waves of the oceans.Wilbur has intense dreams,visions,and an intuition so strong that it’s basically a psychic power.He can see situations happening from a mile away before they occur.

He might intentionally seek out sad music or movies, and he probably has childhood photos framed in his room.Emotional and creative,he relays on his heart and gut to make a decision.Logic and reason are second to his feelings which is how he navigates the material world.Wilbur also longs for security at all times,which makes sense as he's protective of his loved ones and himself.He'll do everything he can to help the ones he cares about,even if it’s at his own expense.

However, like most things beautiful, below the surface many complexities often arise and the same is true when talking about water benders.

Wilbur is notoriously perceptive and he possesses instincts when it comes to sussing out people and situations.He's guided by his gut feelings and more often than not his first instinct about a person are dead on.He can get a feel for whether someones intentions are honorable or not just by observing their body language and general demeanor.

Like a river filling in every crevice of its path,Wilbur covers every detail and often picks up on things that others miss.No riverbed is left to dry as the water flows through each and every intricacy.

The water signs are no stranger to emotion, in fact, they often feel things rather intensely.

On one hand,his emotional side can provide him with a lot of insight and wisdom into the human experience which he can even then pass on to others.On top of this,it allows him to be incredibly empathetic which helps him form strong bonds with others.

But sometimes he can get so overcome by his emotions that it feels like a giant tidal wave just hitting him all at once. When he feels overwhelmed like this he can find it tough to think straight and make rational decisions.

Because he is so prone to analyzing absolutely everything he can sometimes overthink things a little too much and make life more complicated for himself then it needs to be.He has a bad habit of coming up with problems and obstacles in his mind that don’t actually exist or aren’t nearly as bad as he's talked himself into them being.

Sometimes you might catch Wilbur acting withdrawn or shy but the truth is he's probably just deep in thought and mentally a million miles away.He often finds his thoughts are racing at a million miles an hour and that he's powerless to do anything about it.

Just like a bustling river,Wilbur can be a bit wishy washy and kinda all over the place… especially when it comes to making important decisions.Too many options can sometimes leave him overwhelmed and struggling to make any��decision at all.

He's also known for being easily distracted and can go from paying close attention in one moment to being totally away with the fairies the next.He doesn't do it out of rudeness he just can’t help himself sometimes!

Wilbur has a very private and mysterious side,he doesn’t like to reveal all of his cards at once.He's known for putting up walls and can be particularly guarded when he's around people he doesn't trust.

From time to time he needs space to himself to think and unwind. As much as he loves his friends and family there’s just some times where he's gotta have some alone time to spend by himself.

Wilbur sure has a unique way of looking at the world. His perspective combined with his vivid imagination makes him naturally gifted in music or anything involving a creative flare.He is a dreamer at heart whose ideas aren't limited by pesky rules or conventions.

He has a big musical talent,his voice is a perfect balance between rough and velvety.It's not too high and not too low,not too loud and not too quiet.The moment he strums his guitar strings he can wrap anybody around his finger.

Wilbur is emotionally manipulative.He can make you feel bad for something you didn't even do.He can make you regret things or certaint actions that aren't supposed to make you feel regretful.He will only use this "talent" of his in a worst case scenario.If you ever hurt his friends or loved ones he will make your life a living hell,wouldn't even wonder if you never decided to show your face to the public ever again.

Techno's and his relationship is wonderful.Wilbur has helped Techno so much to open up more and come out of his shell.They both enjoy the peaceful and quiet times in their life.Reading,going on walks or strolling along the beach while watching a sunset is just some of the many things they love doing together.He isn't as close to Techno like Phil is but he is close second. He sees him as his older and stronger brother who will always be there for him when he needs him.Honestly the two of them have such a beneficial dynamic <3

Now Tommy's and Wilbur's interactions are something absolutely opposite.When the two of them spent time together,they become these chaotic and annoying siblings that go around town and fuck with people. There was this one time where they flooded a barn which belonged to Phil's neighbors and the two reckless idiots ran away laughing.Sure Tommy steals Phil's stuff all the time or uses it without permission but Wilbur,just like Techno,is very overprotective of Tommy.If he finds out that somebody hurt Tommy in any way or made fun of him he will beat them up. Literally he will call in Techno for help to go and pay the little fuckers who messed with Tommy a visit.The only ones who are allowed to tease and bully Tommy are Techno and Wilbur,no one else.

Phil and Wilbur have some of the best moments when spending time with eachother.Not only is Phil a great source of reassurance and comfort but he knows that Phil will seal his mouth shut if Wilbur speaks to him about his insecurities and problems.He loves that Phil listens to him and never judges him about anything. Like the other two Wilbur sees Phil as a father figure. A great and inspiring role model he can look up to.

He likes to collect sea shells and old treasures he finds scattered over the sand at the beach.He doesn't like swimming or diving,which is really unrealistic to not only other water benders but benders in general.It's not that Wilbur is scared,he simply likes to admire it from the shore.He will do it from time to time must mostly he will just sit down and let his legs and feet rest in the cold liquid.

I can imagine that when he was a kid he used to pretend to be a pirate.He still has his old eye patch and hook that were part of his costume.Now,even after thirteen years he still likes to go up to the harbor when the fishermen arrive with a freshly caught catch and watch the ships glide across the indigo waves.

Tommy Simons - Earth:

"Earth materials are vital resources that provide the basic components for life, agriculture and industry. Earth materials can also include metals and precious rocks."

Tommy is outgoing,energetic and he isn't afraid to speak up and share his thoughts with others.A very openminded and positive guy.He always looks on the bright side of every situation he finds himself in.

He is down to earth.He doesn't believe in having dreams,he only believes and accepts things the way they are and how they are portrayed in his eyes.

People don't realize it but they are seriously underestimating Tommy.When you first see him you don't expect him to have good strategies and the ability of leadership like Techno clearly has.But that's the thing.One of the many things Tommy picks up while being in a friendship with the fire bender is experience.Techno will lazily teach the young earth bender how to protect himself and lead a team. Without Techno's guidance Tommy would have been in trouble countless times.So you could say that Techno is Tommy's mentor :)

He's a great mood booster!If there is awkward tension in a room or between others he will make it up by just being there and doing what Tommy does the best, brighten up the atmosphere!He will start random conversations and just try to get everyone else to do something fun like play a game or watch a movie.

Techno may help Tommy with things like self defense and how to establish dominance but the earth bender helps him with his potato farming!He will hurry up the process of their growth and make sure they are perfect before they are harvested.He keeps track of the amount of soil and vitamins the earth their roots grow in receives.

Speaking of Techno's and his relationship: The two of them are so close it's insane.They do everything with eachother!They train,upgrade their skills in bending and fighting,they go out to eat or have a drink,they go around town and fuck things up-the two of them are huge pranksters.Tommy always tries to prove himself infront of Techno and impress him in any way.Tommy loves spending time with Techno,the blond earth bender admires him in so many different ways- They don't have to be doing much together,it can be mindless talking or simply being in the same room.

Wilbur and Tommy are ehhh- special?On one side they are funny and entertaining together but on the other side they can be insulting eachother with such vulgarity that you could think they are about to commit murder any moment.Tommy talks so much shit about Wilbur.If you're dumb enough and actually choose to listen to him,he will ramble on about how Wilbur thinks he's so smart and good with the ladies- Yoo would think that after trash talking him that Tommy hates Wilbur's guts but it's the opposite!!If he catches you talking bad about Wilbur behind his back he will call Techno and they will hunt you down.

Tommy like everyone else sees Phil as his very caring and cool dad!Phil somehow always finds out about all the shit Tommy does and he gets scolded for it.Like most people,if Tommy ever has a problem he's dealing with or he's in a uncomfortable situation,Phil is the first person who crosses his mind and therefore the one he turns to.

The way Tommy goes around their town and picks fights with others is so stupid.At the end he comes home with bruises and wounds all over his skin.One time his best friend Toby brought him to Phil with a bloody nose and Phil's reaction was screeching-

He is extremely curious and stubborn.He doesn't really think before he acts and dives into unknown things he's not familiar with head first.Techno is the one who laughs at him and teases him about how clumsy he is.

Earth benders keep it real. They are the “grounded” people on the planet, the ones who bring us down to earth and remind us to start with a solid foundation. Slow and steady, these “builders” are loyal and stable, and stick by their people through hard times. On good days, they’re practical; at worst, they can be materialistic or too focused on the surface of things to dig into the depths.

Hope you enjoyed this au!!I am currently writing MULTIPLE stories and au's so bare with me guys!I don't like working fast becouse my work afterwards doesn't feel completed:( I hope all of you have a wonderful day/night <3 Love ya!!!

[scuttleboat]

Do you like Echo? I really want to now that she's a regular but I can't shake my wariness of her. It seems like she's constantly in the antagonistic role for our mains, but then she'll look sad for like 2secs and people will feel bad for her. But I don't. Do you feel me? Im open to her changing and growing with the spacekru, and I hope I like her character next season. But as of right now I don't understand the fascination some people seem to have of her.

An Egregiously Extensive Echo Essay

I’m gonna throw this wild analogy at you: Echo kom Azgeda is James Bond.

She is a dangerous, beautiful, ruthlessly loyal spy. She serves the queen (or king) and has to kill a lot of people. Fanatically loyal, always gets the job done. She gets captured, she makes allies, she lies to people, she gets friendly with the enemy and then later has to fight them or kill them to save her country.

bad difference: she doesn’t get to have smokin’ sex with the enemy officer (yet)

good difference: she feels actual, on-screen, sincere regret and anguish for deaths that she knows are necessary for her people but will nonetheless cause pain to someone she respects. I don’t think I’d personally seen a movie with genuine anguish from James Bond until Casion Royale came out.

So James Bond is a superhero if you’re British, but if you’re Russian or Communist or you work for a well-paying criminal mastermind, he’s basically like a horrific monster who kills your friends and blows up your factory and keeps your homeland from winning the cold war either militarily or economically. Either way, a loyal killer lapdog of the monarchy.

That’s Echo. If you look at where she’s coming from, even the fact that Bellamy helped her once isn’t enough to counteract the belief from her people and her queen that the Sky People represent an extreme danger to the clans and to Ice Nation. So they betray Lexa (who they see as an unfit conqueror anyway), and take out the enemy stronghold (Mt. Weather). To do that, Echo lies to a man who helped her once and saved her life. Yes, it’s a cruel and terrible thing to do.  Yes, he’d be in his rights to hate her forever. But that doesn’t make Echo any less of a hero to her people.

((sorry this is getting long, so…. behind the cut))

The way I see The 100, the show goes to extreme lengths to show that everyone has motivations for evil acts. Most of the time, those motives start out “good” (such as self-defense, protection of community, stopping cruelty).  In a few cases, it becomes evil when A) the harm done so vastly counterbalances any possible rational good (Dante), B) when someone is just a total sadist (Cage), or C) when ego and neglect and vanity cause the literal apocalypse (Becca/ALIE). Echo does not meet the standards of either A, B, or C. None of the major Grounder characters do (maaaaaybe Luna? !SQUIRREL!).  Anyway, Echo, like our main characters Clarke, Bellamy, Kane, Jaha, etc… she’s done terrible things to protect and serve her people.  I don’t hate or even dislike her character for that. She just is a character in this universe. And I certainly adore Bellarke, who have done as bad or worse than Echo for the same reason, so I can’t point fingers on the whole military actions thing.

We didn’t get to really know Echo until this season, and I think the show tried hard to put a lot of character building in while not forgetting about what they’d used her for in the past. They did an… adequate job. There’s definitely stuff that could have been handled in a smoother or more complex manner, but at the end of the season I’m generally satisfied with how they brought her into the regular cast. Weak episodes aside, there were several of her scenes I liked, and plenty of points at which I felt sympathy for her, just as you mention in your ask.  

The biggest thing I had wrt Echo going into season 4 was “How is her relationship with Bellamy going to be handled?”  Because I stan that guy, and she did him dirty. She did him as badly as Lexa did Clarke, except no one was there to intervene and save the sky people this time. I was pretty frustrated with their dynamic in the first half of s4, especially 401, because I thought their scenes really underplayed the anger that Bellamy ought to have been feeling.  And then again in 405, their pivotal conversation didn’t feel successfully dramatic to me because I was just asking “WHEN IS BELLAMY GOING TO BE MAD ABOUT STUFF?” Like, Echo was a pivotal agent in a plot that got his friends and lover killed, she lured him into a potential bloodbath to disrupt a peace summit, she held a sword to Clarke’s throat, she mortally injured Octavia, and she advocated for war with Skaikru. Even if Echo was just protecting her own nation, it’s incomprehensible that Bellamy wouldn’t be angry that she used their past shared trauma to personally manipulate him. And then like, basically assassinated his sister.

For most of s4, I was like “????????” about how this was going, but that was more about Bellamy>>Echo than about Echo the character. Luckily, 410 went a LONG way to fix that for me. In 410, we finally saw Bellamy’s rage. I normally am not here for guys choking women on TV but in this unique case it felt really earned as a climactic fight. He almost kills her the same way they killed Lovejoy, the same way Murphy and then ChippedKane almost killed him. I cheered cause WOOOO DRAMA.Bellamy found out Echo was interfering and would try to assassinate his sister AGAIN, so he tried to kill her and his violence took on a form that is indicative of his lessons on the ground. We saw him finally let out that rage that was suppressed during their earlier encounters.

I’m glad he didn’t kill her, and she didn’t kill him, but I think they needed to come close. They needed that release, so the real forgiveness could come. We’ve seen Bellamy forgive–or at least live with–the people who tried to kill him or his loved ones before (Pike, Murphy, Jaha, Kane). Bellamy at his heart is a loving person who is damaged by anger, not made strong by it. Forgiving Echo at least enough to help her survive is absolutely in character for him at this point in the story. That’s what makes him a heroic protagonist. Being a protector is a core trait for both him and Clarke, and part of why they’re ultimately so compatible.  Does that mean Bellamy could fall for Echo? Ehhh… They’re in a fairly unique situation and I wouldn’t take sex off the table. I think a delicate strange friendship will come about. But I highly doubt he’d actually fall in love with her. If I was shipping them, that’s a really complex dynamic to write a ton of fanfic about. As I’m not, I don’t care.

“Do you feel me? Im open to her changing and growing with the spacekru”

Anon, I have to say that nope, i do not feel you on this. Specifically, I don’t think she has to “change” if ‘change’ means to go from being a bad person to a good person. From the POV of her journey, she did the right thing by her people every step of the way until 410. The conclave was the first time she went outside her orders and did a dishonorable thing to save her people. Ironically, the Skaikru did the exact same thing that very same evening. A lot of people cheated at that event. But why it mattered to Echo’s character is that honor was the heart of her story–and it was honorable, to her mind, to kill in defense of her nation in s3 and s4. But when she let her fear and distrust drive her to break the rules of this (totally outrageous fucking bonkers) murder game, she violated her own honor. Roan came down hard on her for that, because Roan happens to care a lot about honor when it comes to fighting, I guess. Echo went too far in 410–just as Clarke and Jaha and Miller did. Just as Bellamy has before, as Lexa has before. She was punished for it, essentially ordered to die in a few days time.

I don’t look at Echo’s character and see a bad person who needs to learn to care about things–Echo clearly cared about a fucking LOT. It just wasn’t what our mains cared about. Echo did have to learn a lesson about when to have restraint, but then that’s what everyone on the show has had to learn. Other than that, her being in a antagonist role has been entirely a function of plot on the show. The plot was that she worked for the enemy. Otherwise, she is pretty similar to our heroes, only taller. 

We did see, at several points this season, that Echo’s fierce loyalty to Roan and the Ice Nation caused her anguish when it came to betraying Bellamy. She was fully aware of what he’d done for her, and that between them personally he didn’t deserve to be so horrifically betrayed. To be a little callous, that’s more genuine visible remorse than we ever saw from Lexa or Pike or–check this out–Emori. As a viewer, I feel like we’ve been given enough material to see her position and to understand where she comes from. I’m content with her being in the main group. I think she’s one more interesting person in a mix of interesting characters who are trapped together in space.

I mean, I may have a bad reaction if we have to SEE her make out with Bellamy. Like, I hope I don’t have to see that. Otherwise, I’m cool with her on the show. I feel bad when she makes a face like a kicked puppy. I think making deep and meaningful connections with people outside her clan will enrich her as a character.