#and like she’s not a complete abuse sympathizer WIN

[fridayiminlovemp3]

she ate that one little thing all give her that

[m3nt4llyr4v3d]

I loathe Andre Bourgeois

I hate this man so much, I hate his character, I hate how the narrative treats him, I hate how some of the fans treat him

I hate that I’m supposed to completely sympathize with a corrupt politician, but his daughter? The one he had the sole job of raising for most of her life, and obviously didn’t teach her how to act? Yeah, she’s awful, look at how she’s treating her poor father :(.

What’s that? He constantly abused his power? He literally tried to steal from Marinette’s family at some point? Erm, well he never wanted to be a politician in the first place! He had to give up his dreams cause of his awful wife :(. What do you mean he’s still intentionally using underhanded and illegal tactics to put certain laws in place, keep the public on his side, and win elections when he literally just shouldn’t do that? Well he gave up his power, so shut up!

What do you mean his constant abuse of power in his daughter’s name would literally enforce the idea that she can get away with literally anything without repercussions? No, she bullies him! What do you mean he still should’ve not indulged this since she was like, 7? Nah, she just bullied him then too! This makes perfect sense, now he doesn’t have to take a single ounce of responsibility for her parenting! That’s stupid and he should’ve been investigated by CPS literal years ago? Well Chloe’s gone, so the problem’s fixed, right? ————— I genuinely cannot believe of the fans are defending this man. I can get feeling sorry about the treatment he gets from his wife, but some of them literally try to absolve him of any and all parenting mistakes.

“Oh well, Chloe is old enough to know what she’s doing is wrong! It’s not anyone’s responsibility except hers! Everyone tried to reason with her, oh, and the one time he tried to discipline her, she said she’d call her mom! That means that he should literally never try, because she can do that!”

Except he fucking raised her like this. Him taking responsibility for the way he RAISED HER should be, I don’t know, getting her psychiatric help? Maybe actually setting boundaries? Disciplining her and making sure she doesn’t rely on his money or power? And her threatening to call her mom to complain? Do any of you genuinely think her mom is even going to answer that call? And even if you say it’s the threat itself, you should still absolutely be pinning this on Andre: he raised her to complain to him every single time she has any issue and to abuse his power constantly, this is a teaching he reinforced her entire life. She is taught to not take any responsibility and she harasses everyone because of this. She is taught to complain to someone in a higher power to fix/do everything for her. And when he does try, once mind you, to discipline her, she’s obviously not going to stop, she’s not going to reflect, because that’s not how she was taught to act.

Also the ridiculous double standard between people who completely him and not Chloe. Chloe’s mom leaving her and being verbally abusive for all of Paris to see doesn’t excuse Chloe’s actions, but I’m supposed to feel sad for Andre because Audrey is a terrible wife, and I’m just supposed to brush all his actions, including his fucking PARENTING, aside?? Not only that, people are saying that Chloe is old enough to know her actions are wrong therefore she’s not redeemable, but somehow her fucking dad is?? The grownass adult gets more sympathy? Absolutely ridiculous

You genuinely expect me to believe that I’m not supposed to feel anything other than pure vitriol towards Chloe, but sympathy towards that asshat? Get real

[tobiasdrake]

Do you have any thoughts on Akane Tendo?

There was a time, deep in the stranglehold of toxic masculinity, when I had many thoughts on Akane Tendo. Few of which I agree with anymore.

Like. As a kid, I used to accuse her of being a mean, abusive misandrist. This came out of two places.

First, Americans took Ranma 1/2 a lot more seriously than its author did. The series is over-the-top wacky and intensely violent at the drop of a hat because it's a silly comedy series about over-the-top caricatures of people being wacky at each other. None of these people are meant to be aspirational role models. The world of Ranma 1/2 exists purely in the realm of complete absurdity.

When Akane slams a table down on Ranma's head for saying that his boobs are bigger than hers, it's meant to be taken with the same level of severity as when Bugs Bunny cracks a giant hammer over the back of Daffy Duck's head. It's happening because sudden violent outbursts are funny, and this is a slapstick comedy.

As to the misandry thing, that's just plain old failure to sympathize with women. Akane's life situation is that some boy at her school basically claimed ownership of her and declared, on her behalf, that she will date any boy who can defeat her in a fight.

So now every single boy in her school, respecting the word of that other boy and never even so much as asking Akane's opinion on the matter, comes out every morning to try and beat her up. So that they can win the prize of Akane as their Woman Trophy, something that she never even agreed to or had any input in to begin with.

You know what?

I would fucking hate men too.

I've grown up a lot since I first met Akane Tendo. It will be very interesting to see her with new eyes.

[purgemarchlockdown]

Hm...thinking about the Narrative Order in which everyone is introduced in Milgram. This is very speculative, I'm just considering how everything unfolded and how everyone builds off each other.

01- Starting with Haruka Just Makes Sense, his story is quite similar to a lot of common sympathetic murderers in fiction. A troubled kid in an abusive household who murdered animals. It's a good baseline for introducing the audience into Milgram and helps the conflict feel a lot simpler than it actually is. Haruka is Easy to Forgive, he's pitiful and shy. He won't hurt anyone else.

02- Continuing to Yuno also makes sense. Yuno's story is vague enough that it's easy to interpret as sadder than it actually is. Making it easier to sympathize (project) onto her. Plus Yuno as a character is charming and likable.

But Yuno also challenges the audience in her VD a bit:

"That’s right. You know those people who just wanna convince themselves, so they intrude in other people’s affairs even though it’s not their place—I despise them."

It's an easy forgiven but we're already alluding to some greater themes here.

03- Fuuta is a Great Choice to insert after these two. After two more-or-less easy forgiven prisoners, we have a guy whose rude, ill-tempered, and unwilling to admit fault for his behavior. It really makes sense that Fuuta would get a not forgiven verdict since he comes after two of the most sympathetic characters in T1. But he also challenges the audience even more since Fuuta is parallel to them and introduces some more fun themes about justice and righteousness.

04- And it makes even more sense that Muu got forgiven because she just came after ill-Tempered Mcgee here! Fuuta is set up to fail and Muu is set up to win in a way. Muu is pitiful, shy and similar to Haruka. And since she's coming right after Fuuta, those traits contrast with him. Even though there's a lot of hints in both her VD and her MV to Muu's more manipulative and callous behavior.

05- While everyone else's stories seemed (Highlight: Seemed) straightforward. Shidou's is vague, confusing and is alluding to him killing A Lot of people. Yet Shidou is affable and "kind" in the VD and seems grief-stricken and remorseful in Throw Down. I would joke about how Shidou is divided like this and how he's 05 but I don't know how to set that up. My point is he basically introduces more ambiguity and confusion to what Seemed to be a simple job before him.

06- Mahiru is interesting since people more or less ran based off a interpretation that had very little proof outside of Psychogram. I'd imagine that her placement in the lineup is to continue the increasing ambiguity in the character's stories and the dissonance between the personality and the actions they committed. Mahiru is so sweet and lovesick and her MV reflects that, yet we know Something Happened under all of this sweet fluff. We just don't know exactly What and Ai nan desu yo doesn't really make it Clear. And Mahiru seems so nice...she wouldn't of hurt him for no reason, would she?

07- Then Kazui comes in and makes things Even Worse. This job being simple? Completely throw that idea out of the window. What the hell happened in Half? What's going on with the lady? Did he cheat on his wife? Did he not? It doesn't seem like her directly murdered his wife what's up with that? You know he's lying, he told you in the VD so what is he lying About? Is he actually as tired and resigned as her presents himself in his VD? Is he scheming? You Don't Know and Es Does Not Know.

08- Amane's MV isn't really ambiguous, its highly symbolic yes, but it's easy to put together (Mostly) what's going on. Compared to Throw Down or Half. But her verdict is probably one of the farthest from simple in the series. Amane seemingly has the same stock sympathetic murderers backstory that Haruka does. An troubled kid in an abusive household. But since Amane personality is not traditionally sympathetic and her motives seem more threatening and dangerous, she's more easy to punish than Haruka is. But also...you'll be punishing an abused child. It's not easy.

09-010: these two are being put together for one reason: They Seem Simple. MeMe leans so Hard into the serial killer and evil alter idea and Harrow leans so Hard into the vigilante for justice idea that they Feel Simple. Mikoto jumps Es, Kotoko helps out Es. After Shidou, Mahiru, Kazui and Especially Amane. Having two characters whose stories seem Simple is reliving. Mikoto is Obviously like that and Kotoko is Obviously Like this. It's easy, it's real easy. Comforting even.

And then T2 starts and Everything goes to Shit as you realize that NO everyone is way more complicated than you initially thought and your all Fucked.

[caatws]

i’m back to yell again bitch! why are characters grieving vision vs gamora treated so differently by both mcu canon and fandom???

i’ve been saying for the past 5 years how, when ppl blame peter for the avengers losing in iw when he lost his cool on titan after hearing thanos literally killed gamora, it’s hypocritical for these ppl to not also blame wanda and the other avengers, bc them delaying sacrificing vision to the literal last minute also directly contributed to thanos winning.

while vision had put wanda in the position to sacrifice him and she said no, gamora had also put peter in that very same position—and he said yes. and he was gonna do it, even though it pained him. wanda was only ready to do it when their backs were fully, completely, against the wall, and it was literally the final thing standing between them and thanos getting all 6 stones.

while my problem for years has been the lack of equally blaming wanda while blaming peter for behaving out of the same motivations—acting out of love for their partners, who were reduced to thanos’ pawns, and wanting to defend/avenge them—now considering everything else going on with gamora in the time since, there’s an extra layer to this that just has me...hm.

when wanda and the others act on behalf of their love, and eventually grief, for a white male character...it’s understandable, it’s valid, it’s relatable, it’s fine.

but any time peter has acted on behalf of his love and grief for a woc character...it’s treated as the reason thanos won and half the universe died. it’s considered an impediment to other characters, even in his own team who also once called gamora their family. it’s still relatable and understandable, but it is emphasized as an obstacle to overcome in a way that i don’t think wanda’s love and grief ever was.

wanda’s grief was so complex, so tangible, it spawned a whole show abt the ways we grieve and how it can become a dangerous part of our lives. and in the end, we’re made to sympathize with wanda still.

peter’s grief has still gotten its moments, but it’s been treated as a solitary experience the rest of the gotg don’t partake in, for whatever reason. when his grief causes him to act destructively or disruptively, it’s not given the “i support women’s wrongs” empathy by fandom. sure, it’s still made out to be something we can sympathize or even empathize with—but there’s a certain grace given to wanda and her occasionally villainous actions, motivated by her grief, that i’ve just never rly seen given to peter when he fucked up the fight against thanos.

frankly, i don’t know exactly what this means. is it yet another byproduct of both audiences and marvel studios themselves prioritizing and upholding the avengers franchise over the gotg? probably, in part. is it bc w*ndavision is a more profitable ship and (white) wanda is a more profitable character to explore the complex emotional turmoil of? oh, i’m sure that’s an element at play. is it bc ppl like (white) wanda more than peter? that’s definitely part of it and comes as a surprise to no one.

is it an intentional disparity in canon about how much a white character deserves to be grieved vs a woc character? i don’t work at marvel so i could never prove or disprove this with certainty.....but i think it’s an awfully interesting element to consider, bc regardless of intentions, it sure has a certain....impact.

it sure just leaves a Taste in my mouth abt what makes a character more or less worthy of grief than another. when vision died, wanda could uproot the very fabric of the universe in her grief and we maybe want to root for her. when gamora died, peter simply reacted in the moment, and suddenly he’s the worst character in the mcu and the sole reason that an entirely separate character, the actual abuser and murderer, killed half the universe and now we have to hold peter accountable for it like lmao bro???

[lemonhemlock]

So Cersei should have had bear her rapist children ??? Pull a Naerys, suffer in silence, and die in childbirth after a lifetime of misery for a man who routinely rape her and beat her ???

No, of course not. But that doesn't mean that Cersei didn't literally commit treason by passing off her bastard children as Robert's and isn't guilty of incest in the eyes of the law. And I say this as a Cersei stan.

Cersei is in many ways a tragic figure and there aren't many scenarios in which she can "win" or get compensated in the way she feels she deserves. It's easier to root for her since she is not *completely* irresponsible in how she conceives these children - for many years, she is even successful in her deception. In addition, Cersei, much like Alicent, never truly had a choice in shaping her own life. Her father wants her to be Queen no matter what, so that's what she'll do. She doesn't have the unique privileges of choosing her own husband like Rhaenyra has been offered time and time again.

While I deeply sympathize with Cersei's plight and abhor the thought of her bearing Robert's children, it is undeniable that, had her children been legitimate, Stannis at least wouldn't have acted against her. Renly is more of a loose canon, but it's possible he could have been swayed as well, seeing that there is no legal path to remove Cersei. A united or at least neutral Baratheon front would have allowed Tywin to squash the rebellion in the North and the Riverlands.

Rhaenyra was never in Cersei's position because no one ever forced her to marry a violent philanderer and domestic abuser like Robert. She had plenty of choice, refused repeatedly to pick for herself and still was assigned a decent man who cared for her. Rhaenyra squandered every opportunity she had, Cersei & Alicent were never awarded the luxury of choice in the first place.

[unhingedmarvelandclassicwhobuff]

There were two other much smaller fics that were clearly inspired by the one that I told you about, so because I hate myself, I summed up those too:

Clint gets berated for the “breaking back” comment on the Raft

Clint explodes at Steve and Nat for not calling Tony to help with the Info Dump

Tony berates Steve for judging him for knowing Klaue

Steve is detained for sympathizing with the Maximoffs (because they think he might be mind-controlled)

Bruce kills Wanda and Pietro in their fight at the tower, and no one cares but Steve

Bucky explodes at Steve and Sam in the warehouse when he learns about Wanda

Team Cap is arrested and lectured after the airport fight

Tony refuses to give Wanda a second chance because it was not his bomb that killed her parents. Wanda is executed

Wanda is detained and executed after the battle of Sokovia

Tony explodes at Sam on the Raft

Rhodey explodes at Steve and co for being in Lagos illegally

Tony has a stroke in Siberia and is forced to put the arc reactor back in. He sends a message to Steve in Wakanda about this, and Steve is kicked out in disgrace

Sharon is arrested for trying to steal Steve and Sam’s gear, and Team Cap is arrested

Agent Ross refuses to let T’Challa take Klaue to Wakanda

Vision meets with Wanda after Civil War, but betrays her and takes her to the Raft

Steve is hated by the whole world for the Info Dump

Rhodey explodes at Team Cap when they return to the Compound

Tony ousts Nat from her cover in Iron Man 2 and humiliates her

Steve is berated for his “then we’ll lose together” comment in AoU

T’Challa is horrified to learn that Steve and Bucky left Tony to die in Siberia and rushes to save him

Bruce explodes at the Avengers for letting Wanda join them

Valkyrie and Bruce discuss Natasha’s betrayal of him in Sokovia (honestly, fair enough)

Tony and Jarvis hack SHIELD after Iron Man 2 and learn about Bucky, so they destroy the entire organization (because apparently it’s fine when Tony does it)

FRIDAY convinces Vision that he is in an abusive relationship with Wanda, so he takes her powers and gets her arrested

Steve is a carrier of tuberculosis and doesn’t care that he endangers everyone (I think you’ve gone over this one)

Ramonda lectures T’Challa for his actions in Civil War

Jane, Darcy, and Erik call Tony during Thor The Dark World and he helps them fight the Dark Elves

SHIELD was manipulating Bruce, Steve, and Tony, so they team up against Fury

Scott is arrested and lectured for breaking into the Avengers Compound

T’Challa is arrested and lectured for the chase in Korea, so Killmonger wins

Steve and co are locked out of the hangar on their way to Lagos and get lectured by Karen Page. Wanda is arrested and later Frank Castle kills her.

Tony refuses to let Wanda become an Avenger and Frank Castle kills her

Agent Ross is lectured for refusing to grant Bucky a lawyer

Steve doesn’t actually care about Wanda and only used her to set a precedent for Bucky, and when she finds out she turns on him.

Rhodey forcibly recruits Clint and Scott to fight in Wakanda

Steve is a Skrull in Winter Soldier and Goose eats the Skrull

Steve and co find that their funds have been cut off by Tony and act like spoiled brats about it. Also they get lectured by a Veteran

Wanda takes a call from Christine Everhart at the Avengers Compound and turns on Steve when she is told about the chase in Bucharest

Team Cap returns to the US and finds that Tony has completely moved on from them. Also they get lectured by Jennifer Walters, and eventually get arrested again.

Jarvis finds out that Peggy knew about what happened to the Starks and Tony confronts her about it

Clint gets killed as a result of the Info Dump, so Laura turns her back on Natasha and names her son Anthony

Luis is there when Scott gets out of the Quantum Realm and gives him a recap of the last 5 years

Rhodey gets the Gauntlet and does the final Snap

Instead of staying in the past Steve hooks up with that waitress from the first Avengers movie

Tony explodes at Steve in Siberia and Bucky refuses to fight

Sam is only anti-Accords because when he and Riley had that accident he was in fact brainwashed by Hydra.

Vision tries to bond with Tony, and through a series of events this results in Thor murdering Wanda

T’Challa refuses to allow Steve and Bucky into Wakanda and gets them and Team Cap arrested

Strucker and List kill Wanda and Pietro before they can grow too powerful

Tony survives the final battle, and Steve realizes what a terrible person he is while returning the Stones

Quill has the idea to do a human chain like on Xandar when Tony takes the Gauntlet, and everyone lives

Alexander Pierce is ousted from power, so SHIELD ends up helping Tony during Iron Man 3

Matt Murdock lectures the Avengers for not supporting the Accords

Steve and Nat are arrested for the Info Dump

Sam realizes that Steve is manipulating Sharon and convinces Wanda to turn on him

Hope talks Scott out of helping Team Cap

Hank is berated for blaming Howard Stark for stealing his work

Quentin Beck and his team decide to oust Wanda instead of Tony

Wanda accidentally kills Clint at the Compound and goes full House of M out of grief

Bucky apologizes to Tony in Siberia, and Tony makes sure that the rest of Team Cap is given amnesty because Steve lied to them

Tony explodes at Bruce at the Sanctum

Clint and Nat turn on Team Cap when they visit the Barton farm

Heimdall senses Thanos before he reaches the Statesman and expends all his energy opening a Bifrost portal to Earth

Wanda is executed and the world celebrates her death

(continuation of 62) the Asgardians arrive on Earth and warn Tony about Thanos 

The Avengers notice that Nebula has been replaced with her past self and react accordingly

Coulson gave Tony some combat lessons that he uses during the airport fight

Peter tells his classmates about what happened to Steve and they are horrified

Vanko gets pulverized by a racecar on the track

Some of these are harmless enough, but a lot of them are blatant spite-fic

And the other one:

After the fuel truck explosion, Tony throws in the towel, destroys the Quin-Jet, and tells Ross he can do whatever he wants to Team Cap

Tony explodes at Steve and Nat for not calling him to help with the Info Dump, tells Nat she can never be an Avenger again, and says without a shred of irony that he has no red in his ledger. 

Clint turns on Wanda after she throws Nat, switching sides and stopping Team Cap from escaping

Rhodey explodes at Wanda for being scared of the Accords, claiming that she deserves to be locked up

Steve “sees reason” and doesn’t give Wanda amnesty, knocking her out and taking her captive. (I guess Pietro willingly surrendered).

Tony is in the Compound when Wanda flees, and lectures her before she goes

T’Challa kills Nat at the airport, and Clint breaks down when he finds out

The Raft is actually being completely rational by putting Wanda in a straitjacket and shock collar because apparently she loves to mindrape people.

Rhodey confronts Tony about recruiting Peter, but the conversation ends with him agreeing it was a good idea

Tony refuses to let Wanda become an Avenger and she is imprisoned for life

Nat goes to the bar with Steve and lectures him for going off of Sharon’s intel

Rhodey explodes at Team Cap when they come to the Compound in IW, and seriously argues that they should kill Vision because he is completely useless and they might get Jarvis back

Tony is hit by Vision’s laser, and Rhodey blames Natasha for it, making sure she gets imprisoned, then he gets Steve and Bucky’s destination and gives it to Ross.

Tony gets Donald Trump to yell at Team Cap (tbf, this one was labeled as crack).

Hydra abducted Tony in Siberia, and turned him into a weapon called the Mechanic. Everyone is mad at Steve when they find out

Tony explodes at Steve during the pen scene, berating him for harboring a Nazi (Wanda) and for being an imperialist, then decides to hang them out to dry

Bucky turns on Steve in Siberia and helps Tony arrest him

Instead of lashing out, Tony reacts joyously at the fact that he can finally prove Team Cap is evil, and makes sure all of them get arrested

Team Cap takes refuge in Wakanda, where at T’Challa and Steve’s request, they absolutely humiliate Wanda by forcing her to dress up as a little girl. Steve sees no issue with this because he is fine with calling her a kid.

Tony agrees to not join the Avengers, and takes pleasure in denying them whenever they ask him for something

Tony completely runs rings around Wakanda, threatening to expose them to the world unless they hand over Bucky and Wanda.

Stephen Strange shows up in Wakanda and tells Team Cap that Tony died in Siberia. He also tells them that the Snap is going to happen, who will die, and that there is nothing they can do to stop it because Tony is dead.

Tony hands Nat over to the Dora Milaje and gloats to her

Tony decides to stop trying to help Steve when he says Wanda is a kid, and tells Rhodey to cut ties with Team Cap altogether so Ross can legally detain all of them.

Rhodey explodes at Vision, telling him he is an embarrassment to Jarvis’s legacy, and that if he doesn’t want to be branded a criminal he needs to cut ties with Wanda completely.

Sam explodes at Steve for offering Wanda a place on the team, calling her a Nazi, and decides that Steve is not trustworthy.

President Ellis pardons Team Cap, and Tony warns him that it is career suicide

Stark sees Fury’s assessment of him and explodes at Fury for accepting Steve and Nat but not him

Tony refuses to go on the Time Heist, saying that he will never work with Steve again. It is still a success, and the Snap is still undone, so I don’t really know what the purpose of this one was.

Tony talks Vision into convincing Wanda to destroy the Mind Stone. When she does this, Jarvis reawakens, as the “corruption” was coming from the stone. Also, Wanda’s powers are gone, because fuck you.

Team Cap returns to America, and Tony tells them that the Compound is his property that they now have a restraining order against. 

Bucky not seeking help means he doesn’t care about collateral damage, and Tony lectures him and Steve for it

Tony gets video evidence that Wanda is in fact a loyal agent of Hydra who tortured innocents for them and compelled him to make Ultron.

Tony locates Wakanda and sends the Iron Legion, where they easily take down the shield and expose the country to the world.

Tony finds Natasha’s SHIELD file; she was hired personally by Peggy Carter (who made a deal with Obadiah Stane, who was a Hydra flunky, to cover up the deaths of Howard and Maria).

Tony refuses to help with the damage in Bucharest, and sends Wanda to Nigeria to be punished.

Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy explode at Steve over his plan to go back in time. 

Sam and Clint turn on Team Cap and realize Tony was right all along

Pepper is with Tony when Mrs. Spencer confronts him, and deconstructs the entire story (she is in fact a woman named Mariah Jameson who was presumably working for Ross), but Tony is still pro-Accords and makes sure Team Cap is detained.

Tony sees Natasha for who she really is when they first meet

Team Cap is pardoned, but Tony talks down to all of them and says none of them are good people

META: Tony sees all the fanfiction about him and he and Steve gawk at it

Tony went to prison for six months for making Ultron, and when he returns he absolutely freaks out seeing Wanda

Tony gets mad at Sam for being dismissive of Vision’s statement during the Accords discussion, and takes the opportunity to explode at everyone about the Info Dump

Tony created a weapon specifically for destroying the Mind Stone just in case that ever came up, and he uses it on Vision with zero hesitation.

Tony lectures Team Cap for believing Ross was the one in charge

Tony accepts the “intent matters” argument, and still arrests Wanda because he didn’t intend to cause the death of her parents.

[linkspooky]

Atsushi: Black and White Stripes

Chapter 88 begins with Akutagawa giving his life for Atsushi, and Atsushi not really knowing or understand why, especially the meaning behind his actions. This is really typical of Atsushi who fights to protect people, and doesn’t really understand them.

1. Akutagawa the Villain, Atsushi the Hero

Atsushi grew up in an environment where he was constantly made to feel like he was a bad person, unworthy of any love at all. Only good people have worth. Only good people who save others are worthy to live. That’s the black and white values the headmaster drilled into his head. 

The headmaster’s extreme black and white values, and the hell he put Atsushi through to try to raise him as a good person, someone who would help others, had the effect of coloring Atsushi’s view of the world as incredibly black and white. 

The world is crawling with monsters. The world has vile, evil people who use their strength to abuses the weak. It’s because he was told these things by the head master who was his only source of information on the outside world, who controlled his life entirely, that he believes them. He divides people, into the strong and the weak. He divides people into the good and the bad. He sees some as worthy of saving, and others as monsters who need to be defeated. 

Perhaps the earliest and most clear version of this divide Atsushi sees in people is between Akutagawa and Kyouka. Akutagawa and Kyouka both kill people for the mafia. However, the number of people Kyouka has killed, all her bad deeds, barely matter at all to Atsushi, because when he first meets her she’s a crying victim who wants to be saved.

When Atsushi believes she didn’t want to kill people, that it wasn’t her fault, that someone else told her to do these things, in his mind she becomes yet another crying victim in need of saving. He simplifies her. That’s also why, when he sees Akutagawa who presents a much more complex idea of victimhood, who also kills people for the mafia, but who unlike Kyouka seems strong instead of weak.

Instead of giving him any chances, Akutagawa conveniently slides into the role of villain in Atsushi’s narrative. He fights Akutagawa with everything he has, and does his best to deny any similarity between the two of them or see sympathy for him.

Atsushi himself is divided. Between the helpless orphan who was abused, and the tiger who rampages around and kills others. He also divides other people, Kyouko the victim, Akutagawa the murderer. 

Even though we know as the audience, that part of Kyouka was angry too. Part of her was empty and just wanted to lash out at the world, and didn’t really care what happened to her or other people. 

That’s why she feels so sorry in the first place, because she in fact... did bad things. Atsushi isn’t capable of grasping that nuance however. Good people save others, bad people use their strength to hurt others. That’s what has been drilled into his head. However, what is this arc but people who are considered traditionally good, doing bad things, even horrible things.

Atsushi asks Goggol the clown why he kills people, and he’s given two answers, the answer that he wants to hear, and the real answer. 

Atsushi is a victim, so naturally he wants to believe that the people who tormented him for so long were just being cruel. If the world is just dvided into villains and victims, then Atsushi can keep fighting as he’s always had to save people and keep on living that way.

However, people who are traditionally considered heroes in this arc turn out to be the villain. The mastermind behind it all is Fukuzawa’s old friend. The hero is also a war crimminal. (Hence, the title of the set of chapters, Hero vs Crimminal). What broke him in the first place was the fact that he had to do horrible things to people over and over again, for supposedly righteous reasons, to the point where he despises people who believe they’re good.

This arc so far plays with and subverts all of Atsushi’s expectations. He’s already dimsissed Akutagawa as a villain, but when he’s all alone, and in need of saving it’s Akutagawa who comes to save him. It’s literally the tagline of the arc within both good and evil, heroes exist. 

However, while Akutagawa has shown up to help Atsushi. Atsushi hasn’t helped Akutagawa yet. Atsushi hasn’t given Akutagawa the same understanding that Akutagawa has given him. 

He still expects Akutagawa to break his promises. To kill. If Akutagawa and Atsushi were to perfectly understand each other and cooperate like Chuuya and Dazai once did, there’s no enemy that should be able to beat them, but they don’t do that this time around. As a duo they’re still incomplete, and I think the growth needs to happen on Atsushi’s end this time. 

They need to grow into something beyond what Dazai and Chuuya are capable of. Akuatagawa neesd to stop living up to Dazai’s expectations, blindly listening to everything he says. 

Atsushi and Akutagawa both trust completely in Dazai for different reasons, but, in their own actions, in their own will,do they trust themselves? And more importantly, do they trust each other? 

We see Akutagawa has now done the opposite of everything Atsushi expected him to do. He showed up to save Atsushi. He kept his promise and didn’t kill. He didn’t betray Atsushi for more power when given the chance. He even sacrifices his life completely to save him, and Atsushi can’t really process or understand why he did any of this.

If Atsushi and Akutagawa were truly working together, if they could face each other, understand each other, then they would have overcome the person they were trying to fight. But, as is often the case, they were fighting themselves, fighting each other first before anything else. Akutagawa and Atsushi failed to come to an understanding, and so this time around they lost the fight. 

It’s interesting now that Akutagawa said: words are unnecessary, only my actions. Akutagawa tried to show his intentions to Atsushi, and Atsushi is just left completely puzzled over his actions. Even though he was saved by Akutagawa, Atsushi can’t really comperehend that because Akutagawa is the villain, he’s not supposed to save people. 

In terms of plot, Akutagawa’s resurrection as a vampire is incredibly symbolic. Esecially since his first victim is Higuchi, someone he has an incredbily complicated relationship with. He’s abused HIguchi in the past, he’s slapped her, reprmianded her, and he’s also thanked her sincerely for his loyalty and apologized for his actions. A complexity that Atsushi probably wouldn’t understand. 

Essentially, he’s become what Atsushi has always seen him as. A mindless killer. A killer without a heart. A monstrous person with nothing inside. Isn’t it ironic, that right after being saved by Akutagawa, the Akutagawa that Atsushi is going to meet next is everything he always thought he wanted to be.

He thought he wanted Akutagawa to be the villain because that would make him good. He thought he wanted Akutagawa to not have reasons behind why he killed people, because that meant Atsushi didn’t have to sympathize with him. 

Now Akutagawa is a mindless monster, and Atsushi is probably going to hate it. This is once again their foiling. Akutagawa only looks at death. Atsushi only looks at life.

So of course, Akutagawa becomes a vampire who sucks on others blood to heal himself. While Atsushi is able to magically regenerate from any wound because of the tiger’s power. 

I think there are two things that need to happen now for Atsushi to win this time. 1) He needs to actually understand Akutagawa and face him head on this time, as a person, rather than a villain.  2) He needs to decide that Akutagawa is worthy of saving too, just like Kyouka. 

Because Atsushi says that Akutagawa can’t be saved, but what he really means is himself. Atsushi doesn’t want to save Akutagawa, because he sees all the bad parts of himself in Akutagawa. However, those bad parts are just as worthy as all of Atsushi’s good parts. 

I think if there is anyone who can bring Akutagawa back from being a mindless monster, it’s Atsushi, and he can do this by reminding Akutagawa of the human he once was. He was a good person, and a bad one. 

It’s only after he’s accepted the black and white of both Akutagawa and himself, that he’ll be ready for a round two. 

[phantomrose96]

Any thoughts on the most recent My Hero Academia chapters?

Hmmmm, hmmmmmm

I’ve got a mixed bag of positive and negative feelings, and since I’ve got no interest in starting discourse or raining on anyone’s parade, I’mma put my thoughts below the cut:

So, the negative: 

In short, I’ve known since November I wasn’t gonna love where the canon Touya storyline is going, and that’s because Endeavor’s been “redeemed”, and I personally don’t vibe with his redemption at all.

It came off as very selfish, very self-centered. And frankly “Endeavor risked his life to fight a Nomu to show he’s sorry” makes no sense to me because - the man is the #1 Hero. (and was the #2 for ages before that). He had the most resolved incidents in history! You don’t get that way by NOT risking your ass on the regular. 

That seemed obvious to me from the start. Endeavor is a complete monster who ALSO risks his skin every single day of his life to save people. And still is a complete monster in spite of it. If you wanna convince me of an Endeavor Redemption:tm:, don’t spend any time on “oh he fought a powerful villain and almost died” thats literally not different from his last 20 years - instead make him do 1000 years’ worth of work doing right by the family he mercilessly abused, and even then they don’t gotta take him back.

I think Endeavor was introduced as SUCH a monstrous character that I can’t think of any redemption arc for him that I would enjoy. 

(and disclaimer, that’s all PERSONAL opinion. im not raising pitchforks over it. i have like, a job, friends, and hobbies.)

In the same vein, I’m uncomfortable with the direction of the most recent chapter with the whole Todo family (especially Natsuo) being like “it was our fault too, not just yours Enji.” 

I could maybe understand Rei shouldering some of that guilt - in her own right she failed Touya and Shouto, especially as their mother, even if she WAS also definitely Enji’s victim. But Natsuo? Having Natsuo say “hey Pops maybe I - an 8 year old - should have knocked some sense into you.” n....no. no.

This SHOULD be Enji’s sin to bear! His and his alone, imo. I don’t sympathize with him wallowing in his Sad Abuser Man Pain while his victimized family comes in to pep talk him. Face the skeletons in your closet, fucko

(disclaimer 2: but like, if you like the arc then power to ya. ....Power... to ya.... Power toya....  Toya..... hahhh... hah..haghhg.....) 

ANYWAY SO, the positive:

the whole “Dabi Dance” chapter FUCKING SLAPPED. during that blessed run of like  days in November. THAT SLAPPED.

Toya’s backstory, itself, I vibe pretty well with. I like the explanation that he was like tossed aside for being too weak, after being taught that being his father’s successor was his only worth in life, and he was left to watch as the rest of his family was just... complacent with this. That’ll fuck a kid up.

I also like knowing the fridge horror that Dabi’s scars are Literally Because His Quirk Wounds Him. Adds a new scary depth to every time we see him use his flames. Like damn, he’s just accepted self-immolation til he can’t feel nothing no more, which is a great parallel metaphor to what Dabi has done to his feelings.

ALSO! personal win for me: the confirmation that “having the fire quirk, but the ice resistance, leaving Toya susceptible to his own quirk” validates me for an old old fic I have about Shouto called Cryogenic.

[testudoaubrei-blog]

TL/DR - Catra is a uniquely complex and compelling character who has -so much going on- compared with most characters in any medium. Her character arc is psychologically astute, morally powerful and dramatically compelling, and it pushes the boundaries of the audiences sympathies in ways that are really groundbreaking for a kids show, and her arcs conclusion celebrates love, growth, and the power to change in a way that is all too rare in TV for grown ups.

Content note for mentions of suicidal ideation and self harm.

Well, now that the summary is out of the way, here’s a massive fucking dissertation on why Catra is such a great character.

This is the first of a series of posts outlining things that make She Ra a truly great show, one that stands out even 15 years into a golden age of TV animation for kids. This isn’t going to be a comprehensive account for why the show is great - the real answer is that this show has so many arcs and so many fully realized characters and they are all growing and changing in ways that interact with each other and complement each other so well. But I’m going to highlight some particular standouts, things that this show does better than anything else, things that made me step back and say ‘holy shit they did this in a show pitched at 10 year olds?!’

And so the first of these posts is about Catra. I’ve never seen a character in a kids TV show like Catra before. Depending on the season, she’s an anti-villain, an outright villain and an anti-hero and then, in the end, a hero. Being glib, I describe her in villain mode as a Saturday morning cartoon Supervillain as written by like, Dostoevsky. She’s got the trappings of classic villain camp - long speeches, sneering, over-complicated plans, she’s oddly ineffectual at times etc/ Yet all of this is underlaid and justified by something much deeper - her feelings of rejection, her desire to lash out at everyone around her, at her self-hatred and hatred of everyone and everything else (at least by Season 4. Good God.) And her actions are as dark as her motivations - she nearly destroys reality out of spite, betrays literally everyone who cares about her (often multiple times) and isolates herself so completely that in the season 4 finale she is a solitary, suicidal wreck of a person. Hell, in her last fight with Hordak, I was definitely rooting for Hordak (to say nothing of Glimmer, who is a pretty impressive antiheroine, like if Sparkles had just blasted her into glittery oblivion would we have held it against her?).

Let's start by discussing trauma. It comes up a lot with Catra for obvious and good reasons. But I almost feel like that word is insufficient for what's going on with Catra, or at least, we shouldn't stop with it (I know there are terms like complex trauma, but rather than simply using those I want to explain the difference between Catra’s consistent abuse and a single traumatic event). To use another example from a different show, Korra was also traumatized in season 4. But she was traumatized by a series of an events when she was a young adult. She had something horrible happen to her, and it fucked her up, and then she had exposure therapy with Zaheer and at least starts to get better. Catra...Catra is much more consistently abused. It's not just that shadow weaver traumatized her with the various acts of torture, but that Shadow Weaver taught Catra both an explicit worldview and a series of coping mechanisms that she struggles with through young adulthood. First, Shadow Weaver trained Catra to seek her approval. This is something she is particularly vulnerable to with Shadow Weaver, but also what she does with Hordak and to a extent Double Trouble. Catra's instinct when people mistreat her or show that they aren't trustworthy is to invest further in the relationship, until the breaking point. By contrast, when people treat her well Catra lashes out or takes them for granted. This is uh…a dymamic I am acquainted with among people who have been abused as kids, people whom I love. It is pretty rough.

She also developed a desire to prove herself. This starts off being tied to her drive for approval, but combined with her competitive streak (which is expressed in both healthy and unhealthy ways with Adora) it turns into a desire to beat Shadow Weaver and then Hordak at their own game.

At the same time, Catra learned by always being blamed for everything to evade and deny responsibility, no matter what. I think this form of self reassurance is tied to her self doubt (I think at some level she does think she is worthless) and her self hatred. It is also enabled by Adora’s martyr complex and willingness even act as Catra’s punching bag (as we see in the flashback in Corridors). This is a dynamic that actually repeats in an even worse fashion with Scorpia. Far from being arrogant, her constant evasions, put downs against others and preening speeches sound like the words of a woman who is trying to convince herself most of all. This tendency borders on narcissistic self delusion by season 3-4, which she begins recounting her version of events and possibly believing it even when it is obviously false, and everyone knows it.

When it comes to worldviews, Shadow Weaver taught Catra that love is about control and manipulation. We see this in seasons 1-3 where she congratulates herself for manipulating Adora when all she has done is take advantage of Adora's lingering love for her. Meanwhile, she’s learned that power is her only protection, and that the only way to stay on top is to abuse those beneath her.

The final kind of static tendency in Catra is her identity in the horde and her view of herself as one of the bad guys. This is something she rarely articulates but underlies much of her her decision to stay and not join Adora (at least at first). I think one thing to consider is that even if Catra never believed horde propaganda, it may have made her cynical and unwilling to imagine something better for herself or the world. Another factor is having struggled to belong in the horde for so long, she isn't going to give up now. At first this ties into her desire to win the approval of shadow weaver and Hordak, then it comes from her desire to prove herself better than them. Another factor is her self hatred. She sees herself as someone who hurts people, perhaps as a monster. She sees herself as a bad guy and so team evil is her side.

So yeah, our girl is kinda fucked up.

And yet Catra is never reduced to the sum of her traumas and bad habits. At every step of the way she is shown as a moral agent. She is shaped by shadow Weaver's abuse but she remains aware of and responsible for her actions. This is a double edged sword. She is fully responsible for her actions, but also she is never shown as broken by abuse or mental illness. She’s fully responsible, but by the same token is also redeemable, because she still has a choice.

So with that our of the way, let's go to Catra's arc.

I’m not going to recite everything terrible Catra does because I’m still on my first complete rewatch and I honestly find it hard to list it all. It’s a lot. So let’s talk about her shifting motivations. Early on, we see her desire for approval and recognition motivating her in ways that are so easy to sympathize with - she’s been told she’s worthless for years, and she wants to be worth something. We see how much she’s been scarred by Shadow Weavers abuse and by the ruthlessness and callousness of the Horde, and can sympathize with her desire to survive and advance since her own position is so untenable. We also see how, at first, she wants to be reunited with Adora. Her first huge turn into much darker territory is Promises, when she tries to kill Adora in order to permanently sever her connection with her own life and eliminate a possible rival for advancement (should Adora ever return). She’s told herself that she doesn’t want Adora back, and at least partly means it. Yet we still show her care for Scorpia and Entrapta and even Shadow Weaver in Season 2. It’s when Catra realizes that Shadow Weaver has chosen Adora over her once again that she takes her darkest turn. It’s not just that she destroys reality out of spite, it’s that she rejects her chance for a better and happier life, betrays every friend she has and focuses single-mindedly on hurting Adora (and arguably herself) and then on surviving when her attempt fails. Then Catra spends an entire season both fully inhabiting her role as a villain (and not a sympathetic one - really only our history with her leaves us sympathetic) and being utterly self-destructive and miserable. At the end, as mentioned, she’s a broken, suicidal wreck who has destroyed everything she’s strived for. If this was an HBO drama, we’d roll credits here and she’d go down as another self-destructive antihero. It would perhaps be too much to call her ‘Walter White as a catgirl’, but still. Of course, her story doesn’t end there.

Something that is incredibly dark that is happening in step with this is Catra’s hardening of herself, indeed, her dehumanization of herself. We see her struggle with her natural compassion, her kindness, her need for connection, her desire for happiness, and we see her ignore it all, stamp it down and nearly snuff it out. This is a huge factor in her descent into becoming a real villain (no ‘anti’ qualifiers needed). Every step of her descent is a struggle for Catra - not going with Adora in the second part of ‘The Sword’, trying to kill Adora in ‘Promise’, going back to the Horde, betraying Entrapta, lying about Entrapta, threatening Scorpia, destroying the world - but she always chooses evil. And with every step she becomes more isolated, more callous, and more cruel. Her default reaction becomes not just bravado and mockery and insolence, but threats, bullying and intimidation, until her management style is identical to Hordak’s, and indeed, is quite a bit worse. Catra starts off fighting for Hordak and Shadow Weaver’s approval and struggling to survive, and ends up cackling maniacally at her brutal and murderous conquests. She has very deliberately turned herself into a cruel conqueror, and a tyrant. This self-dehumanization is a huge part of evil in the world, I think, and it’s really powerful to see it so clearly in a kids show.

Meanwhile her insistence on evading all responsibility finally results in a self-serving, self-protective narrative that insulates her from responsibility or self-examination but also cuts her off from reality and other people. It’s always a bit unclear to what extent her various untruths (about Adora leaving her, about Shadow Weaver’s escape and her concealment of it not being her fault, about Entrapta betraying Hordak) are things she believes, lies she is telling to have power over others (mostly Scorpia) or things that she doesn’t quite believe but is trying to convince herself of. It’s probably all of these at various times, and in different degrees for each lie. The end result is that Catra is even more alone, because only she inhabits the safe cocoon of lies she’s built around herself. It also is the key to her and the Horde’s downfall - Catra is so isolated and in such denial that she can’t see how thin her forces are spread, and this crack shows up even in episode 1 of Season 4, with her insistence that the Princess Alliance is in shambles (when, in fact, it’s already rebounding, and proves more resilient than she allows herself to believe, and is led by a woman as ruthless and determined as herself). This part of Catra’s arc brilliantly shows how deception (of yourself and others) can feel protective by keeping shame at bay, but ultimately is destructive and strips someone of so much of the intellectual and moral qualities that we call ‘human.’ It’s also chilling to see since we’ve seen the end game of this mentality play out in US national politics, at the highest level.

I said at the opening that we’ve never seen a sympathetic character like Catra in a kids show. What about Zuko? I would argue that Zuko is never a cruel, or as callous, or as self-destructive as Catra is at her worst. Zuko is motivated by a desire for recognition from his abusive father (much like Catra is initially motivated by desire for recognition from Hordak and Shadow Weaver, and indeed Adora), and perhaps a desire to belong in the Fire Nation. All of this gets wrapped together in his ‘Honor’. He’s a young man with a very weak sense of what he truly believes, instead relying on external guides to what he should do. He’s also incredibly self-involved, and initially indifferent to anyone’s pain but his own and anyone’s needs but his own need to restore his honor. Uncle Iroh is there throughout to push Zuko both to see the needs of others and to become his own person. Zuko’s redemption arc, then, is a twofold quest to recognize other people and to find his own moral center and act from it. This is a pretty powerful coming of age story in that it is about him becoming his own person and throwing off the shackles of his upbringing. Politically, it’s a powerful story of a young man taking responsibility for his own actions in an authoritarian regime and refusing to participate in its imperialism any more and to embrace a new way forward both for himself and his nation. At the same time, in some ways it is easy to sympathize with Zuko because his greatest crimes are those of weakness - he’s not strong enough to stand up to his nation and his family until midway through the last season. Catra though...Catra does what she does, eventually, because she wants to hurt people. She’s cruel, and spiteful, and destructive in ways that are truly scary and which prevent any excuse or mitigation.

Which brings up the other comparison - Azula. But while Azula is (somewhat inconsistently) shown either as a monstrous child sociopath or a traumatized and broken child who can’t help it (and thus, perversely, as not a moral agent but something like a monster), Catra is consistently shown as a moral agent. Catra chooses her own path, every step of the way. She has so many chances to do something else - Adora’s offers to leave together in the two-part series opener, Promises, Scorpia’s suggestion that they dessert the Horde and become desert gang leaders, etc - and until season 5, she turns them all down. While Azula seems destined for evil and madness, with Catra we see a young woman very deliberately walk down the path into unmitigated evil with both eyes open. And then we see it destroy her.

And after she is basically destroyed, we see her build herself back. This process actually starts in Season 4 with the creeping realization that even when she is winning she is miserable and alone. She doesn’t even notice Scorpia is gone for several episodes, then she completely loses it. She spends the entire time when she is at her most triumphant isolated and raging and borderline incoherent, as ineffectual as she accuses Hordak of being. She’s won, and she’s alone, and she’s the most unhappy she has ever been, and I think for the first time she realizes that. And that’s the worst blow to her, even before all the external things come crashing down. She’s already miserable before Double Trouble and Glimmer deal her a triple coup de grace of destroying all her armies*, turning her and Hordak against each other and then Double Trouble’s epic evisceration. By the time Glimmer shows up, Catra is, as mentioned, literally suicidal. But she’s also already begun the process of changing in that she knows that she has a problem (her, and her self/other-destructive tendencies). Moreover, she knows, at some level, that what she really wants isn’t conquest, or to prove herself as the baddest leader of the Horde, but love - and she’s seen how she’s squandered that at every opportunity.

Let’s just pause for a moment to observe how much better Glimmer is at villainous machinations than Catra. In a couple episodes she makes a faustian bargain for unlimited power, kills all her enemies armies, sets her two chief foes at each other’s throats and literally cripples one while rendering the other helpless. And given her ironic non-answer about hurting Catra (‘we’re the good guys, remember?’ and the fact that she’d tried to kill Catra twice before**, she walked into Hordak’s sanctum fully intending to end Catra’s life, one way or another. She does all this through ruthlessness, recklessness and treachery, and she could give like, a TED talk on villainy. Of course it also blows up in her face and is actually way worse than the portal did in Catra’s, endangering the whole universe (I always assumed that the portal only threatened Despondos), dooming Etheria to invasion and all that. Of course, Catra pulled that switch and then fought Adora knowing that the world was ending, while Glimmer was just ignoring warnings from...just about everyone, including Shadow Weaver. So yeah, Glimmer, best kids show antihero since Princess Bubblegum***(unless we’re counting Catra as an antihero, which works for the first half of season 5).

Anyway, at the beginning of Season 5 Catra is adrift. Though some interpretations, like TV tropes, see her as immediately falling back into old habits and casting her lot in with Prime, I see her actions from the end of Season 4 onwards as more ambivalent. She seems to be kind of...going through the motions. She doesn’t have any of the drive or passion in her plotting that she once did, she seems to be maneuvering into Prime’s good graces out of habit. At best she’s back in the survival mode of early season 1, but without the ambition and desire to prove herself that motivated her. Some interpretations put a lot of stock in Prime being someone that can’t be bargained with or appeased, but...I don’t buy it. I take him, to an extent, at his word when he says that he was ‘exalt’ Catra (I am sure it is something awful). Catra actually gets what she wants halfway through “Corridors.” Only it’s not what she wants. She’s done jockeying for advantage, especially in a world where she truly would be alone because all she has is this psychopathic narcissist and his clones for company. She wants connection. She wants to do what is right. She’s suppressed all her humanity (felinitity? Anyway) for years and it’s made her miserable, and now she’s ready to embrace it. At the same time she confronts her own culpability, seeing just how much harm she’s done and admitting it for the first time. Her first lifeline is Glimmer, the only person she can actually talk to, the only other Etherian, the woman whose mother she doomed and who has nearly killed her three times. But Glimmer is also going through her own dark night of the soul - Glimmer and Catra’s character arcs were converging at the same time that Catra’s and Adoras and Glimmer’s and Adora’s were diverging. And they come together on either side of that forcefield, just talking and being people in an environment that is designed to be as dehumanizing as possible. Even this barest lifeline is enough for Catra to hold on to for dear life, and enough to inspire her to not just feel bad about the bad things she’s done, but do something good.

But the first way she does this is a cop out. Her plan, like Shadow Weaver’s in the finale, is to sacrifice/kill herself doing ‘one good thing.’ That way she doesn’t have to figure out how to live with the consequences of her actions, face the possible rejection of the people she loves whom she’s wronged, and do the hard work of building herself back up as a better person. She gets to die a hero rather than live as a villain. That said, unlike Shadow Weaver she does at least get off one apology, and it makes all the difference.

Then Adora fucks Catra’s sacrifice up, in glorious, space operatic, gay AF pulp fiction fashion, by saving the cat. Catra is mind controlled or unconscious for most of this episode, but what she does do is so crucial. When Adora comes for her, she reaches out to her, as soon as she is able. She doesn’t push her away, she takes Adora’s help, and her love, and Adora does the rest in badass fashion. The next few episodes plus the so perfect its canon Don’t Go are my favorite part of Catra’s entire arc.

She nearly falls back into her old habits, at least partly. Now that she has to live with what she’s done rather than just dying for it she just wants to run away again. But when she has to choose between losing Adora all over again and confronting herself and her past, she chooses Adora, and asks her to stay.

Catra then spends the rest of Season 5 slowly easing herself into the very human world of the Princess Alliance - the comaradery, the dedication to others and a cause, the goofiness. I’m going to talk a lot more about her relationship with Adora in my Catradora post, but I do want to highlight three moments.

The first is Catra running away again. This is actually a big change from what she’s done before - she’s not leaving because she’s angry, or bitter, or spiteful, she’s leaving because she doesn’t want to see the woman she loves sacrifice herself yet again (maybe this time for good) after being manipulated by the woman who had abused them both. But then she comes back. And then she confronts her abuser in a way that she has never done before - for the first time in the series, she not only calls Shadow Weaver out but calls her to do the right thing, and doesn’t give up until she does (this is after Adora also calls SW out and cuts her off forever, meaning that her two charges have finally called her on her bullshit and chosen each other over her, more in my Shadow Weaver Rant...and I guess my Catradora rant).

Then, at the end, Catra both stays with Adora through her potentially fatal harnessing of the Heart of Etheria and then her comes in and rescues her by challenging her to do something for Catra and for herself. Not to be with Catra, or to kiss her, or love her, but just stay for her. Needless to say, Adora responds far more enthusiastically than Catra had dared hope. (more on this in my Catradora rant).

Catra starts the show convinced she doesn’t need anyone except Adora, and she’s willing to even push Adora away if she can’t have Adora on her own terms. She goes down that path - ambition, manipulation, treachery, cruelty and isolation - until she has nothing left. She then slowly, painfully, turns around and reaches out and begins to heal the pain in Etheria and the universe rather than causing more. This is a psychological journey in many ways, but even more than that it is a profoundly moral one. It is a story of her accepting responsibility for her actions, facing reality, reaching out to others and making amends. It is in every sense a redemption. And while it works perfectly with Adora’s own development into her own, fuller, happier, healthier person, it works not because of Adora or the power of love, but because of Catra herself. Adora’s companionship, Adora’s rescuing of her and holding her to account, all of these are necessary for Catra to change for the better. But in the end it is Catra herself who chooses the right path, maybe for the first time in her life. And that’s what makes the romance work in turn - Catra is motivated to change not simply by a desire to impress her girlfriend or by Adora’s shining goodness (to the contrary, Adora’s a healthier and less self-sacrificing person at least in the finale...she comes around later than Catra) but by her desire to be true to herself and seek out what she really needs and wants - which is love, and connection, and to do good rather than evil. It’s a gorgeous story that takes an antihero all the way down to hell and then back again, and this makes it a truly unique redemption arc in all of kids TV - not just because of how far Catra falls, but how far she travels overall.

*(I know a lot of fanficcers talk about there being a lot of Horde Soldiers left but like...in the show...they’re nearly all dead, guys. Glimmer and company...okay mostly Mermista... just about killed them all in an afternoon. The cadet Triad survives because they deserted and weren’t there to get drowned/frozen/suffocated by plants when the grand invasion of Brightmoon went sideways)

**Okay, once she was only an accessory to Shadow Weaver’s attempted murder of Catra, the other time she leaves Catra for dead in ‘Pulse’

***I stan PB so hard guys. So hard. Machiavellian genius, mad scientist, god figure, possible Nietzschean Ubermensch? She’s so great. So great.

[rainbowsky]

The Wolf Reviewed

Spoiler-free section

My life is divided into two eras: ‘before seeing GG as Ji Chong’ and ‘after seeing GG as Ji Chong’. I will never be the same.

GG is magical in this series, and Ji Chong is among my absolute favorite characters of all time (I am actually in love with this character, which is heartbreaking given the fact that he’s fictional). The show also has many interesting characters and some exciting storylines, and in spite of some of its flaws this series is quite good. Highly recommended.

Of course there’s a lot more to it than that, but I can’t give a full review without spoilers. Here’s the rest for those who have already seen the series.

Spoilers under the cut

OK, where to start?

The Characters

There were so many great characters in this story and overall I found the performances of all of them well-acted and exciting to watch. I especially loved Ji Chong and Yao Ji. Both were complex, mysterious characters who stole the show every time they were onscreen.

Ji Chong was incredible. Everything about him was over-the-top amazing. I can imagine that GG must have identified a lot with Ji Chong because he has a similarly gallant, charismatic and kind personality. Seeing GG perform a character like this was mind-blowing because of the harmony between them in spite of their physical differences.

I could go on and on about how much I love Ji Chong as a character but if you’ve seen the series you already know how great he is. I truly fell in love with that man. He was everything I love in a person, and in such a beautiful package. I loved his nimble mischievousness, his rebelliousness, his fierce independence, his devotion to those he loves, and above all, his integrity.  With one exception that I’ll get into later, everything he did in that series was consistent with the image I had of him and it made my heart melt.

And it was pretty insane to see GG go from the thin, twinkish, bubbly and somewhat diminutive Wei Wuxian to the rugged, masculine, mature and level-headed Ji Chong. Not only because of the personality differences between the two characters, but also because of the physical differences. They look like two entirely different people. Ji Chong looks so tall and imposing in the series!

It’s impressive to see GG’s acting ability shine through in these roles. He has such a gift for acting, and for drawing viewers into the hearts of the characters he plays.

Yao Ji was another character that really impressed me. She had so much intensity and complexity, and her character arc was so strong. She was also just incredibly well styled and she looked breathtaking in every single frame she appeared in. The various headpieces and hairstyles she wore were stunning, and her sidekick Zi Shen was an aesthetic marvel.

I also really loved Ma Jing. Despite the fact that she was often used for comedic effect, her character was quite nuanced and multidimensional. I loved her loyalty and strength, and the depth of the love she had for Ma Zhai Xing really shone through in every scene she was in.

The entire Night Fury group was also amazing. I loved them as a team and as individuals, and the trajectories their characters went through were interesting and engaging. I was really invested in what became of them. When Wen Yan died I was gutted, and I was grateful that Hai Die and Mo Xiao had such a satisfying conclusion to their story.

I also adored Butler Shi. What a great character. He reminded me of one or two guys I know hehe. He had such a warm, endearing quality about him.

I’m realizing that I could sit here and name almost every character in this series. Despite some of the problems that I have with it, I’m reminded that the characters are exceptionally well-realized in this series.

The Story

Overall I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the story. It was exciting and engaging, and there were some very interesting side conflicts and intrigues. There was an overall sense of adventure and plenty of action, some really emotional moments and even comic relief.

When you think about it, almost every character had something deeper going on outside of the main plot, and those side/back stories were really interesting and varied. There was complexity to the characters and their motives and experiences without it overcomplicating the plot.

The romances were not my cup of tea. I’ll get into that later on. But despite being the thread that ran through the entire story, they really didn’t feel central to it and it was easy to simply enjoy the show while putting aside the annoyances I had with the romances (I did this primarily by consciously choosing to take the story at face value, and choosing to believe that Ma Zhai Xing really was through with Prince Bo).

The show did a great job of getting me engaged and keeping me interested, giving me a story that was complex without being confusing, emotional without being too sappy (with some exceptions). The action, fight scenes, battles, etc. were exciting without feeling fake and cliche. There were some well-choreographed scenes.

I really can’t complain about much. I mean, there were times when I was watching this series that I thought I hated it, but in retrospect I can see that I really loved it in spite of some of the flaws, which I’ll discuss in a moment.

The Soundtrack

The soundtrack was quite good, even if it felt repetitive when I was bingeing the show. So many songs have stuck with me since I finished the series. I especially like Backflow by Jolin Tsai (second-last song on the playlist I linked). Of course I would have loved a song or two with GG, but the soundtrack we got was memorable.

What I hated

I really struggled with some aspects of this series.

I found Bao Na mostly unwatchable. She was incredibly annoying. As a character she had all the traits I dislike. Whiny, stalker, demanding, emotionally immature, jealous... I really couldn’t stand that character for a lot of the series.

It’s true that she started to redeem herself a bit through the course of the series but she never really evolved into someone I wanted to see more of. I definitely had some moments where I liked her and sympathized with her, but mostly she grated on my nerves.

I also hated Prince Bo through most of the series, and found it insulting that I was expected to view him as the protagonist and cheer for him to win the princess’s heart. I felt that the ‘love-hate’ thing between Prince Bo and Ma Zhai Xing was overplayed to a point where I lost all sympathy with Prince Bo and desperately wanted him to die a horrible death through much of the series.

His behavior didn’t reflect someone who was in love but wanted to protect her. Much of his behavior was excessive and gratuitous, much worse than was necessary to achieve its stated goal. He was incredibly emotionally and psychologically abusive toward Ma Zhai Xing to a degree that was often really hard to watch. Especially his near-rape of her.

This is a man that I didn’t want to see redeemed. This is a man I wanted to see burned alive. No one who truly loved Ma Zhai Xing would be even remotely capable of the actions Prince Bo took.

I will admit that he did begin to redeem himself in my eyes a bit later in the series, but not to where I could ever see him with Ma Zhai Xing. I don’t think that’s the sort of treatment one can ever redeem in a relationship. He might be able to redeem himself, but not the relationship. There are some lines, once crossed between people, that one can never come back from.

I actually felt that Yao Ji was a much better match for Prince Bo than the princess was. They were true equals with similarly difficult pasts, and similarly dark deeds to redeem themselves from. They were in so many ways perfect for each other.

Ji Chong and Ma Zhai Xing were a better match because they were more natural equals in terms of personality, values and life paths. There were tremendous parallels between the two of them. Although I ended up feeling she didn’t deserve him.

So for me, it was really difficult to get invested in the love stories I was presented with. Ultimately I found them all very unsatisfying. The people I wanted to see together were treated as unsuitable for each other in ways that were completely unbelievable, and the people I was expected to want to see together had unconvincing chemistry and incompatibilities that I couldn’t overlook.

Seeing Ma Zhai Xing die in the end was an OUTRAGE. Especially when I read about the director’s rationale for that decision.

“Her thought process on killing off “Zhai Xing” was that “King Bo” had done so much for her that it was time for her to do something for him. “Her character had matured the most in the series. Dying for Wolf Boy is the best ending for this identity of hers. To me, this perfect ending is even more in line with her character’s growth.””

I found that shocking. I couldn’t disagree more with this sentiment. She wasted so much of herself and her life for Prince Bo. He treated her like crap, and he didn’t ever truly do anything to redeem himself from that behavior. He should have been the one to die.

In my opinion, REAL character growth for Ma Zhai Xing would have been to see her overcome the fixation with Wolf Boy and with Prince Bo and just move on with her life.

I will say this, though: By the time Ma Zhai Xing died in the show, her character had already been so utterly and thoroughly decimated beyond all recognition via the Prince Bo housewife trajectory that there was no point in her surviving.

The absolute worst moment for me, though, was Ji Chong ending up with Bao Na. Talk about adding insult to injury. This is the one thing that Ji Chong did as a character that ran against my understanding of him as a character.

You could have done anything at all to Ji Chong, including killing him or turning him into a villain, and it would have been less of an insult to me than putting him with Bao Na.

I do try to interpret his invitation for them to travel together in a non-romantic way (despite the fact that in the world of the show there’s no way that a princess is going to go traveling with a prince without her reputation being ruined unless they are a couple). But when I tell myself that he took her traveling to get her away from court and give her some life experience - as friends only - then it becomes less of a bitter pill to swallow. I could see him doing that for her, and I could see them developing a strong friendship through their travels.

I just can’t see them as remotely romantically compatible. Not on any level.

I found it completely unconvincing that the most emotionally mature, honorable person in the entire series who had the healthiest boundaries and a lot of worldly experience and intelligence, would have any interest whatsoever in someone as emotionally immature, childish and inexperienced (and with no boundaries whatsoever) as Bao Na.

I would have preferred it if they’d framed that whole thing as him being a sort of big brother/mentor figure to her.

I felt like I saw chemistry and compatibility between Bao Na and Fourth Prince Chu You Ze, and I would have loved to see them end up together. They were much more at an equal footing. I was expecting that to be the outcome and it would have been a sweet one. They would have made a cute couple.

Final thoughts

The romances in this story seemed fixated on unhealthy, often misogynistic power imbalances and they were really, really hard to watch. Not just in terms of Prince Bo and Ma Zhai Xing but also the ugly Ji Chong and Princess Bao Na hookup they tried to get me to swallow at the end. I hate that kind of ‘love’ story. I prefer seeing actual equals find each other in the great wide world.

However, pretty much everything else about the series was excellent. Ji Chong owns my heart and I only wish I could see more of him. GG completely blew me away and far exceeded all of my expectations.

Overall, I really love this series and will definitely be rewatching it.

[stuckasmain]

Carrie (1976)-

Was this supposed to be a horror movie as I honestly ended up crying. You just sympathize so much with her and I feel so bad the entire time? Like this girl has a INSANE evangelical mother who teaches her very little about her body much less social skills, the kids at her school are pure evil and get a serious kick out of tormenting a awkward kid. When she gets one person who’s nice to her it causes her main tormentor to go Insane and blame her for all her shit behavior. LOOK WHERE THAT GOT YOU CHRIS, enjoy hell sweetie 💕.

However the movie itself , no matter how hard I sympathized with carry how much I kinda understand. I am a awkward kid, I keep my heads down in the halls and charge forward to my next class with that silent fear in the back of my mind all those people are talking about and judging me. Unfortunately in carries case that’s 100% what is happening. Back to the point- the movie is great honestly.

SO JOHN TRAVOLTA IS IN THIS MOVIE AND I DIDNT KNOW THAT? He plays a ripe dumbass with a  manipulative as hell girlfriend, have I mentioned how much I detest Chris yet? She’s like every bully rolled into one and it’s - it’s like a walking talking punching bag you just want to destroy. Serious props to the actress , as she’s pretty damn good if my bloods actually boiling. Also what’s up with pride ™️ chick? She’s always in a red hat with rainbow everything - like she’s trying to sell me targets pride collection? She’s just as much of a ass with one of those point and jump laughs.

The good ones-

However Carrie does have a few good people in her life. Miss Collins is a beacon of light in this movie, she is also a brain cell. She does slap a student, but in her defense— she should have hit Chris harder (did I mention I hate her yet?) she is gym teacher energy. How she acts almost motherly to Carrie, doing all the things a mother should anyway, encourage her to find herself, look pretty/be confident and get herself out there the poor girl needs it. The scene when she takes Carrie into the bathroom to show her how truely pretty she is got me 🥺. Unfortunately she suffers because of her care for Carrie , as ultimately she takes out the one person who could have prevented the prom massacre... which unfortunately resulted in her death.

Sue, I have to give her credit. Usually I can predict things pretty well I can see things coming. She kept flip flopping my radar. Was she with Chris in the plan or genuinely wanted to give Carrie a win after seeing the error in her actions?! Sometimes I guess it takes a brutal gym work out to realize- hey my actions were pretty horrific I should probably make up for that. I was kinda surprised and please where it was revealed she wasn’t apart of the blood plan. I did think she was for a solid moment as her smile watching out... rocking... waiting... but she wasn’t. Sue actually meant good and she did  survive to unfortunately have Freddy Kruger esc nightmares.

Tommy, again like sue I couldn’t tell if he was genuine or not. From the beginning you can actually tell he’s - shocker to this universe - a decent human being. Like Hess he was pushed to go to prom with Carrie but at the same time. His kindness and words were genuine , and he gave Carrie that little push to be a little more out there and discover fun. The dance scene had me crying and I wished it ended there really. Also pleased that he wasn’t apart of the plot as he was one of the many in the crowd appalled. Also did the bucket kill him? As I’m pretty sure it was the bucket it hit that man HARD.

Anyway rip these there y’all were the nice ones 😔

The themes in the film two were also extremely interesting like how Carrie interacted with the highly abusive “I’ll hurt myself so she’ll do what I want” mama. Like the line “this has got nothin’ to do with Satan mama! It’s me!” Got me hard. How the further into the film the more stuff is brought up, like the first song in prom mentions the devil, Tommy himself says a few biblical like jokes. That sort of thing.

Also this:

Which is brilliant in my eyes

As sad as the movie gets me it has its sweet moments and funny ones

Like Carrie going ham trying out the different make ups

The great ruffle tuxedo debate

Overall love the movie, I’m assuming the movie is completely different isn’t it?

[rwdestuffs]

Likely because Oz’s early attitude came off as more “Arrogant Headmaster” rather than “Traumatized Victim of his ex”, I feel more sympathy towards Salem than I do towards Oz.

It’s a major writing flaw that persists because the overall show. A lot of the early attitude of the show is kinda dropped because they don’t know what to do with these characters.

For example, Ruby’s obsession with weapons was dropped and was never mentioned again. While it’s admittedly sweet that she didn’t start fawning all over Penny when she found out that she was in essence, a living weapon, the fact that her weapons obsession was dropped early on makes that interaction less heartwarming, and more like they were just bonding.

So, when Oz’s early attitude reeks of arrogance, like when he more or less overruled a lot of Glynda’s objections, and how he more or less was implied to have known that Jaune cheated his way in, it comes off as moves that were less due to his trauma, and more due to his arrogance.

Contrast Salem, whose name not only invokes sympathy what with the witch trials, but was also introduced and had her backstory revealed not too long after said introduction, she invokes more sympathy than Oz does because of a combination of her name and her early reveal of her backstory.

While yes, both Oz and Salem were victims of abuse, Salem’s came much sooner than Oz’s after their initial reveal, which invokes more sympathy for the character.

In a similar sense, this is why Cinder isn’t that much better. Without the Cinderella motifs, nobody would have guessed that she had a rough childhood. It’s also why Adam is also demonized. The naming motifs combined with how long it took for the characters to receive any meaningful backstory (Supplemental material for Adam, and 8 volumes for the fire hag), creates a situation where it’s hard to sympathize with one because of how the naming conventions work. Like I said here, names are important to a character. Had Salem been named Lilith, after a biblical demon, she would not have received as much sympathy as she does now. Had Adam been named Maurice (After Belle’s father), he would have received more sympathy than he did. Adam invoked more similarities to Gaston than he did to any other character, resulting in him not getting as much sympathy as Cinder did, despite them both having similar backstories and actions throughout the show.

If the writers have done anything right, it would be knowing how naming conventions work.

But this still ties back into how early traits were just… dropped. Blake stopped calling out racists to their face, and stood by when Velvet was being a victim of Cardin’s bullying.

Weiss’ early racism was resolved off-screen and was never really addressed again.

Yang’s overall protective nature is only ever brought up when the plot demands it.

And Ruby’s weapons obsession, a trait that could have been used to properly describe each character’s weapons in an unforced manner, was never mentioned again.

Oz’s early arrogance was now replaced with the backstory of “He was traumatized!” And look: Oz is indeed traumatized. But it’s clear that that wasn’t something the writers thought about until recently. There were few (if any) hints that this was Oz’s situation from the start. Hos arrogance in wanting Pyrrha to give up her hopes and dreams by forcing her to take on the maiden powers with that “Become the Fall Maiden for us, or the Bad Guys win” ultimatum, combined with his overall secrecy led a lot of conclusions to think that he was more arrogant than he was traumatized.

Now, this isn’t to say that he wasn’t traumatized. His feelings and emotions towards the subject are completely valid and he deserves sympathy. But given how the early writing was, it’s hard to really feel sorry for him because again, his early actions came off as if it was fueled by arrogance, as opposed to trauma.

It’s admittedly hard to land the sweetspot for backstory reveals, especially for characters that aren’t your title character, but it really feels as if the writers didn’t know what they wanted to do with Oz until they came up with the idea of him and Salem having been romantically involved together.

They lyrics of the song Sacrifice also don’t help,

You can't have my life I'm not your sacrifice You can try, but I'm free And you won't conquer me I won't crawl, most of all I won't fall for you

The overall way the song is done implies that Oz sacrifices people for his own gain. Given that this song was made and released well before the backstory reveal, it also lends to the idea that Oz was more arrogant than traumatized. Admittedly, this is basically Raven’s song, making the views a little skewed, but again, it was made and released before Oz’s backstory reveal, meaning that it had more time to fester in peoples’ minds and be analyzed to come to the conclusion that Oz was a manipulative bastard rather than a traumatized victim.

Like I said, it’s hard to land a sweetspot for a backstory reveal. You either do it too early, and make the character lose their mystique, or you do it too late, and people won’t care about the character making the reveal pointless.

In addition, doing it too late, such as the case for Cinder, means that you have to make all prior actions make sense in this scenario. If Cinder’s backstory did anything correctly, it was that it made her attack on Weiss back in Volume 5 make sense. But all other actions don’t make sense. For example, she was a slave, so her abusing the WF into working for her makes no sense since both have had to deal with slavery. If anything, her revealing that scar would have made it make sense, even if it was off-screen, because then Adam has every reason to take her side. He would know that she was abused by the elite, and he would sympathize with the mentality of overthrowing a system that allowed such things to happen, even if it meant the deaths of a bunch of people.

Then we get to Cinder’s reveal and we find out why she was so hellbent on tearing down a hunter school. A Hunter decided to arrest her for fighting back against her abusers, so she views them all as the same: A bunch of privileged assholes who punish victims, but not the perpetrators.

If anything, Cinder’s was revealed far too late to make her actions make sense, or make audiences truly want to forgive her actions. She killed Penny and Pyrrha. Had this been revealed in Volume 4, where everyone was dealing with parental figures, Cinder’s motives would have made more sense. She was betrayed by a person she considered to be her father figure, and that led her down this path. Think about it. Yang was dealing with her dad calling her soul a temper tantrum (And no, I’m never letting that go). Weiss was dealing with her abusive father Jacques and the best parental figure ever Klein. Ruby was dealing with parental figure Qrow, and the prospect of losing him. And Blake was dealing with best biological dad Ghira and his advice on not letting the past or your fears control you. Cinder’s backstory would have fit right in.

These characters had really interesting personality traits that got dropped. I would have loved to have seen Ruby and Jaune work together to give Jaune an upgrade to his weapon that would make it cool, but still make it Jaune’s. But no. A random blacksmith does the upgrade.

It would have been so cool to learn about the other characters’ weapons through Ruby. We could have learned the names of the weapons, their function(s), and maybe even learned a it of symbolism about the weapon and the weapon’s user. Another thing the writers do well is that they make the symbolism of a weapon and their user make sense. Blake is a stealthy, quiet, and reserved character. So her weapon isn’t loud or fancy, but it has a lot of utility. Yang is loud, boisterous, and wants to tackle her problems head-on, so her weapon reflects that by giving her the option of getting in close for powerful blows. Jaune is a basic character with nothing special to him, so he gets a basic sword and shield combination.

So the weapons and semblance being the only way for us to know what a character is like is honestly really jarring when some of those character traits are no longer that applicable.

[sallyb-sin]

Just curious, what are your personal opinions on Varian and Cassandra?

Personally, Varian to me was a victim. Rapunzel not helping him in the middle of a crisis, I can understand. I’m sure Varian would have understood too if they had come to help or anything like that after the storm was over. However, that didn’t happen. Varian was left alone while Rapunzel and the rest of them did turn their backs on him to paint and have banquets. Now, I’m not saying Varian was in the right to have tricked Rapunzel, but he was having false rumors spread about him and being forced into hiding by the king and his men. All he wanted was some help, and it seemed the only way he was going to get it was by forcing it one way or another. Because, no one cared until he became the villain to them.

In the season 1 finale, the attacks and attempted murder were wrong. But, unlike Cassandra, you can understand and believe that Rapunzel deserves such an attack. You can understand how a kid who lost his father and no one chose to help would feel so backed into a corner that he would cross to the dark side to help someone he loved. Rapunzel would have understood if it was Eugene or Cassandra, or at least that’s how she is portrayed in the series, honestly. Then when Varian is defeated, he’s thrown in jail and nothing is done for him, which make it’s so his actions are kind of justified, since everyone seems too obsessed with fixing the king’s mistake to lift a finger to help or even sympathize with him.

I couldn’t even appreciate his redemption episode, because it moved to Varian taking all the blame and completely missed how Rapunzel had done some things wrong too. Yes, Varian attacked the kingdom and fought these people, but Rapunzel was not squeaky clean, and the show was so obsessed with making her as the protagonist right, it ruined the characters and themes. Varian is a great character, but he was screwed over.

Now, about Cassandra. For the record, when I first saw her, my brother and I predicted that she was a) Gothel’s daughter and the b) she would turn evil. I wasn’t sure if the first thing would come up, but I was almost certain the second point would come in later seasons. I just thought the plot and reasoning would at least make sense when it did. Cassandra was someone I appreciated, because I could see she loved her kingdom and friends and I respected her goal to be like her dad. But season 2 and 3 ruined her for me. After they left the denom inn, they had a few episodes where they bonded and it seemed as though the song at the season 2 finale was meant to be a joke. She turned into some whiny and unappreciative b*tch who betrayed her friends over the words of some stranger who was clearly turning her against her friends and kingdom.

Her suddenly betraying them came out of nowhere, even if you find out later that Zhan Tiri was the reason behind it. Still not sure what right Cassandra has to blame Rapunzel, the girl who was kidnapped from her family and forced to live with an abuser for eighteen years for something her dad forced on her (still don’t know why using the incantation wasn’t an option, which would have healed the mother and left the flower to be used by OTHER people). I could have understood if Xhan Tiri had tricked her or once she had the moonstone, it made her blindly destructive and evil, as it’s implied to be, but we didn’t get that. We got an angry, violent and gloating witch, who somehow deluded herself into thinking that anything she did (betraying her friends, attacking her kingdom, listening to some suspicious ghost girl who was telling her these things were okay) was right as a “dark hero” and what’s worse is that she was clearly acting like a villain. She threatened, tortured and almost killed Varian, almost killed Eugene and left Rapunzel to die. And it was all the more frustrating, because Rapunzel refused to “turn her back on here” till the end, which was completely stupid, considering Cassandra was much worse than Varian. And Varian was JUSTIFIED!

Then, we get her in the second to last episode, suddenly wondering whether she’s in the right or not, and all I could do was laugh at how far this series had fallen. Then, she destroyed the kingdom and the season 3 finale, she’s still gloating up a storm, until she loses her power. Now she’s sorry, now that she’s no longer in control and winning, and we’re supposed to believe that’s genuine? What sucks the most is that she isn’t put in jail or exiled for her VOLUNTARY acts, she just leaves to find her “destiny” (why do they keep using that word?!) and I just couldn’t respect or appreciate the show ending like that.

Varian was a villain you could support, because ultimately, it was to save his dad after everyone either fought him and turned against him. Cassandra was a dark villain who suddenly realized that everything she had wasn’t good enough for her, and I was so disappointed the show just let her get away with that.

Hope that sums up my thoughts

[linkspooky]

Hello! Do you think that one day, Deku's flaws will have consequences? You pointed out that Shigaraki always face consequences for them, so in your opinion, do you think the manga could lead to something more equal on this? I know he is the Hero and all, but wouldn't it undermind the whole thing if in the end he just ignores the society's problems by just pushing heroism as the miracle solution?

Good question, anon. Let’s take a more serious look at Deku’s flaws. Deku so far has two main flaws. 

Self-Harming - Deku has consistently valued himself less than others. His way of saving others almost always includes breaking his own body, and when you consider how low Deku’s self esteem is and how he was constantly told he would never be good enough to be a hero growing up this pattern of behavior borders on self-harming. 

Hero Worship - Deku doesn’t question anything about hero society, which makes him incredibly naive and unaware of what’s going on in the world around him. Deku hasn’t done anything yet to seperate himself from being just another All Might Wannabe. Deku wants to save people, but doesn’t really even know what saving people means. 

Deku doesn’t care if he gets hurt, and Deku doesn’t sympathize with villains, even ones who have sympathetic reasons for their actions, and this has led to Deku running off without thinking to try to fight Shigaraki to the death. 

1. Self Harm

So one possible interpretation of Deku’s habits of breaking his body when trying to save people is that he’s internalized the idea that without a quirk, he can’t become a hero. Everything that other people including bullies like Bakugo told him when he was younger, that he’s worthless because he was born quirkless, that he can’t become a hero, over and over again is still inside of him. 

Even what All Might tells him at first is a repettition of this idea. Deku can only be a hero if he’s strong. What’s most important to becoming a hero is strength, and having a strong quirk. Even though All Might eventually opens up the path for Deku being a hero, he only lets him after he proves his strength. Deku has to reach a certain power threshold before he’s even allowed to be at the starting lines. 

Every single character in class UA is hardworking, but Deku is especially characterized as being OBSESSED with training, and also being the one who pushes himself to such extremes that his body is constantly on the verge of breaking. 

Deku as a character is constantly told how worthless he is, because he wasn’t born with a quirk, because he’s borrowing someone else’s power, because he didn’t deserve to succeed All Might. Deku’s response to this has always been to try to prove his worth by pushing himself. 

Deku’s very unhealthy idea of what a hero is, also resembles what All Might told him in the first chapter. That heroes have to risk their lives in incredibly risky ways like this in order to walk the walk. Deku has always worshipped All Might’s way of always sacrificing himself without realizing what absolute havoc All Might wreaked on ihs body. 

Deku’s habit of breaking himself has shown to have had some consequences so far. It made his mom cry. He was warned that he would do permanent damage to his left arm if he ever suffered a serious break like that again and would even eventually lose it. There’s also All Might’s early forced retirement which happened because he kept on going when everyone told him to stop, which is a possible future for Deku if he doesn’t seriously change his ways. However, there is no lasting consequence yet. 

Another thing that’s important about Deku’s character is that he wants to be a hero so badly, and yet doesn’t really seem to know what kind of hero he wants to be. 

Deku so far has imitated All Might in a very empty way, without ever thinking that the heroes he loves so much might be flawed, or really understanding how many mistakes All Might made. His hero worship blinds him to the hero’s flaws, and when he’s confronted with All Might’s mistakes he’s often completely blindsided.

All Might keeps secrets from him pretty regularly, and Deku just doesn’t question him because he’s just so busy in his hero worship. Due to that a lot of Deku’s progression as a character has stagnated. Even his idea of what a hero is, is extremely vague at best. 

Deku says he wants to be the greatest hero who saves everyone. Much like Mirio who wanted to be a hero who saved a million people. However, what does that mean? How is Deku going to surpass All Might. He hasn’t really thought about these things yet, or what kind of hero he’s going to be. 

Because Deku can’t see the flaws in the hero system he can’t really be better than the previous generation of heroes. 

2. Self Destruction

Deku has a critical lack of self awareness. His goal is to save everyone, but he doesn’t really think of what that means. Aren’t villains in need of saving too? This relates back to the Dabi quote. 

Who is it that really needs saving? 

Villains need to be stopped, but what creates those villains? 

Deku’s sympathies always lie with the pro-heroes but he’s so wrapped up in hero worship he doesn’t really think about their actions. Remember, Deku’s last big fight against this was against Chisaki a child abuser to protect Eri, an abused child. 

Eri doesn’t just resemble Shigaraki. Eri is Shigaraki. They’re both children who were kidnapped by crimelords when they were young, told that they were monsters because of their quirks, and then experimented on. Shigaraki can’t consent to being experimented on because he was kidnapped since he was five and groomed all along with the intent that one day he would have this surgery performed on him so he could inherit AFO. 

Ujiko commits horrible grievous experimentation on Shigaraki, and then says he’s doing this all for Shigaraki’s sake, that he’s given him everything. He’s supposed to sound like an abusive parent here. 

So this time rather than fighting to save Eri, Deku is fighting against Eri’s foil, but all grown up, with about zero self awareness. What allowed Deku to win in the fight against Chisaki was his ability to see the good in Eri, and fight against Chisaki’s insistence that she was a monster because she was born with a dangerous quirk. He humanized Eri.

But, his response to Shigaraki is consistent dehumanization. Deku fought against Chisaki’s dehumanization of Eri, but is on the side of people who say things like this about Shigaraki. 

It’s once again this blind loyalty and inability to question what we see is an extremely flawed system. Who is it in this situation that really needs saving? Endeavor? Gran Torino? 

Gran Torino is partially at fault for the creation of Shigaraki, because if he had stopped Nana Shimura from abandoning her son, or even checked up on Koutarou and Tenko just once this entire situation could have been avoided. 

It all goes back to Dabi’s question. Who is the one who needs saving here?

The biggest victims of the hero system, the ones most in need of saving are the villains, but Deku can’t see that, so he can’t really do anything to help them right now. 

And yes. Deku should save Shigaraki. That’s the point of their foiling. They’re both Jungian Shadows of each other. 

In Jungian psychology, the shadow, (also known as id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

Shigaraki is Deku’s foil and opposite, but they’re also like... the exact same dude. 

The fact that Shigaraki started in the same place as Deku, that what he really needed was for someone to tell him that he could be a hero too, isn’t just there to be sad and tragic. It means that deep down, Shigaraki still wants someone to tell him he can be a hero, to show him another path other than being a villain, the same way All Might once told Deku he could be a hero. 

The shadow is a part of yourself.  The shadow is who you are deep down inside. That’s why a shadow can’t be killed.  It’s the same thing as self destruction. 

A shadow has to be reconciled. Part of self improvement is just learning to accept and look at the worst parts of yourselves in order to move on from them. You don’t get better by denying or remaining ignorant of the problem. Deku has consistently refused to even acknowledge Shigaraki. 

Deku has said I can never understand you, we’re nothing alike, and yet we as the audience know they’re like the exact same guy. There’s no point in setting up such a parallel unless it’s going to be paid off in some way.

Deku’s not trying to accept his shadow though, he’s fighting with everything he has to destroy his shadow, and that shouldn’t work. 

Metaphorically.

It’s like Deku is trying to destroy himself. Which as I’ve said above Deku has a tendency to be self destructive. Star Wars doesn’t end with Luke killing Darth Vader, it ends with Luke reconciling with Anakin his father. 

Deku is warned several times in the last chapter not to charge straight ahead at Shigaraki, not to fight him on his own. We even see Bakugo in the flashback talk about how Deku doesn’t consider himself in the equation, or think about protecting himself at all which is why he destroys his own body so much.

So, if even Bakugo is like Deku you’re going to get yourself killed, and every adult around him is yelling at Deku to run away because he might get himself killed, and Deku himself thinks.  I don’t care what happens to me I’m going to destroy Shigaraki no matter what. Then, there should be a conseqeunce here.

 Because this. This is self destruction. Deku’s trying to kill the guy that is... literally just him. 

In other words if everybody if yelling Deku don’t do the thing. And then Deku just, does the thing anyway. There should be a consequence!  Deku’s goal isn’t to destroy Shigaraki, or to kill him to put a stop to him, it’s reconciliation with his jungian shadow. It should be to become the hero who saves everyone, by telling Shigaraki the words he wanted to hear for a long time that he can be a hero too. FInally passing on the words All Might gave him to someone else, and making up for the previous generation’s mistakes with Shigaraki. 

So, not only is Deku attempting to do the wrong thing. He’s also fighting in the wrong way (by hurting himself again). 

Which means, Deku probably shouldn’t win this fight. A good consequence would be Deku losing here, even with the last minute power up, and breaking his entire body trying to defeat Shigaraki. 

Characters are most interesting when they fail, and Deku should fail here. 

[sou-ver-2-0]

out of the current cast, who do you think is most likely to be the mastermind? or do you think its someone we havent met yet? imo theres very few people who would make zero sense as the mastermind (mainly shin because he's gotten his arc + him being the mastermind would be a bit redundant, seeing as he already played the villain role) but aside from that i could see almost anyone from the group as the Big Bad

I don’t think that anyone in our main group is the mastermind, because I am most convinced by the theory that the mastermind is the Man from the Memorandum.

I think that the Man from the Memorandum became the new leader of Asu-Naro after winning the previous Death Game, and now he is hosting another one. I think he’s currently calling himself “Meister” and that he hosted the Russian Roulette challenge.

@ct-multifandom​ recently wrote an excellent post spelling out this theory right here.

I also wrote a post about my feelings on this theory here, where I tried to dig into potential parallels between Meister and Shin, and how they differ from each other.

I think it’s very likely that Meister wants Sara to win, because we know from reading the Memorandum that he was distraught that his beloved high school girl died in the first game. Now, he seems to have a “second chance” with Sara, who currently has the highest chance of winning.

Personally, I would be stunned if anyone in the main cast was revealed to be the “Big Bad,” since I’m already convinced it’s Meister. However, I am anticipating “shady plot twists” for the following characters:

1. Keiji: Keiji has been acting suspicious from the get-go. I really like the theory that he also saw the percentage papers in his first trial, because that makes for a great parallel with Shin. He definitely learned something about Sara from the beginning. We need to learn what that “something” was.

2. Gin: There are many mysteries surrounding Gin. And while he is lovable, he has been a flat character. I’m certain that there will be upcoming plot twists concerning him. However, I am hoping that Gin will be written as a pitiful pawn in a villain’s game, rather than a devious 12-year-old, since that seems a more realistic way to portray a child. (Though there’s also the chance that he is not even human, and he could be some kind of newfangled doll that bleeds.)

3. Shin: We still need to learn how he unlocked his collar! Was it because of the key necklace? Where did he get it? Was it a gift, or did he steal it? Am I completely wrong about the key necklace?? I’m honestly expecting that Shin’s past will be written sympathetically—he’ll have plenty of chances to make bad choices in the present day—but I still had to mention him!

4. Kanna: I like the theory that Kanna is likely related to Original Sou Hiyori by blood. And possibly Meister, though that’s me being wildly speculative.

5. Sara: Sara is clearly central to the Death Game, and Mr. Chidouin seems to have played a part as well. Sometimes I wonder if Sara may have lost her memories about being connected to Asu-Naro before the Death Game began, since losing memories is an ongoing issue in this story. That would make for an exciting plot twist for the player, since we would be learning about Sara’s “missing memories” at the same time she does. That’s a trope I’ve seen in other smart videogames as well. Regardless of whether Sara has missing memories or not, we need to learn more about her suspicious family.

I’m actually hopeful that all of these characters will still be written sympathetically, even if there are “shady plot twists” coming for them.

There are other fans who speculate a lot about the dummies and how suspicious they are, but I am not very good at theorizing about the dummies. We still don’t know them very well. Though again…I still have this instinct to sympathize with all of the Death Game participants, haha.

(I even have instinctive sympathy for Original Sou, since he was also supposed to be a participant. He might have been forced into that position. I’m just saying!! There’s lots of room for different shades of moral grayness in the participants.)

As I was writing this, I started thinking about how YTTD is concerned with themes of the cycle of abuse. We see this most notably in the dynamic of: Original Sou --> Shin --> Kanna.

I’m speculating that we may be able to extend that cycle to: Meister --> Original Sou --> Shin --> Kanna.

(Since Meister is at least Original Sou’s boss.)

Even with Meister—the man I’m accusing of being the Mastermind, and the person I have the least sympathy for—even he was once a Death Game participant, same as everyone else. The Man from the Memorandum was forced to suffer through the Hades Incident.

The cycle of abuse can be seen broadly in how the Death Game is repeating itself. We had one in the past, and now there’s another in the present.

And it’s even possible that the victor of this Death Game will continue to perpetuate it in the future.