#and she’s maybe got some biases to work through about villains

[thebluestbluewords]

hey what if this wasn’t the first time Jay’s run into potential academic trouble at Auradon Prep??

“Jay, can you stay back for a moment? I just want to ask you a question about your test.” 

Miss Lacey Harvey’s most troublesome student pulls up short, so quickly that he overcorrects and has to stick one booted foot out in an exaggerated motion to counterbalance himself. She hears him murmur something to one of his buddies, another boy from one of the sports teams, wearing a matching jacket. Lacey doesn’t often pay attention to what her students are wearing, but she’s only teaches one of the students from the Isle of the Lost this semester, and it was quite a change the first day that he showed up in a blue and gold school varsity jacket instead of his typical black and red leather. 

Lacey waits. It’s no trouble to let her students say goodbye to their friends before she pulls them aside for a little history come-to-god moment. 

Sure enough, Jay turns around a moment later.

“You wanted to see me, miss?” 

Ah. 

“Yes.” Lacey says firmly. “You’ll get the test back, don’t worry about that. I just need you to walk me through what I’m seeing here first.” 

Jay leans down to look at the test Lacey has laid out on the desk in front of her. He’s a good looking boy, and he knows it, so she wishes she could be surprised when he looks up at her through those dark lashes with a proud little smile. “I crushed it, yeah?”

She takes in a deep breath. Time to crush the academic dreams of a boy who’s never been to a prep school before, who by all accounts is probably doing his best given the circumstances, and who still, despite all the extenuating circumstances working against him, goes out of his way to be a pain in her ass every class period.  “Well, you could say that. Your answers on the multiple choice section were good, you did well there, but… I have to ask. It looks like you missed this section here, where you were supposed to answer some questions about the passage.” 

“What, no way. Miss, that’s bull–” he catches himself, audibly swallowing the second half of his words. “--crap. It’s bullcrap, miss. I answered the hell out of this test.” 

Lacey looks up into the honest, open face of her student. All of the boys in her late morning section are so tall this year, she’s constantly looking up at them when they stand by her desk. The thought strikes her that she really ought to get a stepstool, and save her neck the trouble. 

She files the idea away for later. Later, when she doesn’t have a student in front of her. And not just any student, but one that’s been giving her trouble since the start of the year. The trouble, you see, with teaching teenagers is that they’re quick to spin you a tale the moment they think they might be in trouble. Lacey’s heard a lot of teenagers put on the song and dance for her, and if this one is lying, then he’s doing a very good job of it. 

A little intimidation will usually break the weak ones. 

“You have to understand that we take academic integrity very seriously here at Auradon Prep,” Lacey explains, putting on her best stern, spectacle-wearing teacher expression. “I expect each and every one of my students to bring their best into my classroom. If you have anything to tell me about your test, I would prefer to settle this outside of the honor board. I’m sure you would prefer the same.” 

Lacey watches 

Jay furrows his face, squinting down at the test. “Miss, I just missed the page. It must have been stuck together or something. I’ll redo it for you.” 

Right. 

No. 

“Jay, this is the problem with your tests. You are constantly skipping sections and missing questions. If I didn’t know better, I would think that you’re just skipping over all the questions that you don’t want to answer.” 

He snaps his mouth down into a hard line. “Miss, it was a mistake, I promise.” 

“I want to believe you,” Lacey says slowly, allowing her student a chance to stop digging the hole he’s created even deeper. “But—“

Jay’s face goes hard, and then evens out into a tremulous version of his usual cocky smile. “But you don’t trust villains. I get it.” 

“No, it’s not like that,” Lacey hurries to reassure him. “It’s just that I’ve seen a pattern on your tests, and I wanted to address it before the problem gets out of hand, that’s all.” 

“But I’m the only one here.” 

“I prefer not to humiliate students in front of their peers,” she snaps, before she can think better of herself. “If you would prefer that I do otherwise, please, tell me, and I would be happy to waste valuable class time that your peers could spend learning on disciplining you instead.” 

The boy in front of her drops his head. “Go for it. Discipline me.” 

No. 

She—

No. 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. 

Villains, even the young ones, have a way of getting under your skin. 

“I will not.” Lacey says calmly, taking a moment to catch her breath. “Punish you for missing a question. I am here to teach you, not to dole out punishment for what you claim was an honest mistake. I’m giving you an extra study hall. Come to the study room after dinner tonight, and I’ll have one of my tutors there to help you go over the questions you’ve missed.” 

Jay straightens up, and it’s like the past few moments never happened, and he never dropped the cocky, confident face of the boy who roughhouses with his teammates in the back of her classroom. “I have a game.” 

“After that.” Lacey assures him. “The extra study hall isn’t a punishment. I am here to give you a learning opportunity. Sports games end at what, seven pm?” 

He grins. “Would you believe me if I said eight?” 

Lacey may be a history teacher, but she isn’t stupid. “I would not. Stay here while I write out your tutoring slip, and I’ll have a TA meet you in the western study room at seven thirty.” 

He shrugs, bright and easy. “Worth a shot. I’ll learn more with a cute girl as a tutor.” 

Lacey crosses Jane Fey off her list of potential TA students. “You will not.” 

“Will so.” 

“Absolutely not, and if you continue along this line, I’ll tutor you myself.” 

He flashes her a look that’s not exactly an assessment, but it does linger on her entirely too long for comfort. “You won’t find me complaining about that, Miss.” 

Lacey shrugs back a shiver. The little villains go out of their way to behave unnervingly, she knows this, and she won’t allow it to get under her skin this time. “Take this,” she commends, holding out the study slip. “And get out of my classroom before you’re late for next period.” 

He does.

Lacey lets out a breath she hasn’t consciously been holding once the door clicks shut. Villains, even little ones, aren’t a handful that she’s overjoyed to need to continue dealing with. 

With that thought in mind, she opens her school email account. 

“Dear Fairy Godmother,” Lacey whispers to herself as she types. “I am writing to inform you of an incident occurring today, which pertains to the trial run of the four children from the isle of the lost….” 

Yes. 

She’ll keep the higher-ups well informed of this incident.  It’s her duty as a teacher, nothing more, to keep her administration informed of how the new students are settling in. 

And if she recommends that some students in particular may not be suited for a preparatory environment, well, that’s just her opinion as an educated member of the educational staff. No more, no less. She’d like to see every student succeed in the classroom, but she’s made the same recommendation for a few royal children who couldn’t keep up with their academics, and those few were seen very tidily off to lower-ranked classrooms, and eventually their home kingdom’s local colleges, framed as a very humble move, of course, to support local educational institutions within their home kingdoms. An emphasis on their humility and loyalty to their kingdoms of birth.

She’d like to see each and every one of her students succeed. Naturally. 

She’s just setting up a few backup plans. 

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Since I asked you about Sephiroth, I also wanted to ask about what you think of Aerith’s character and her characterization throughout the franchise.

Hhh oh god. Yeah.

So, again, Aerith begins in Final Fantasy VII as a seemingly intentional semi-subversion of the Princess Holy Maiden White Mage JRPG trope.

Mechanically she is absolutely a classic white mage, but she's also a street kid with way more life experience than Cloud, who both connects instantly with him due to his similarities with Zack, her dead ex (because, of course, Cloud is directly copying Zack's entire personality), but she also notably pushes back against him, and repeatedly refuses to let him treat her like a damsel in distress, and takes direct agency over where the story is going and what's going to happen.

As she becomes more and more conscious of her Magic Special Lineage, she changes, of course, and... arguably falls a bit more into a straight rendition of the Holy Maiden trope. Albeit I have always quite loved the reveal that Aerith isn't killed by Sephiroth just as a big tragic fridging to advance the story through Cloud's pain, but as an intentional gambit on her part to ultimately defeat the villain. The translation of the game is famously a bit wonky, but my reading of the story is that she

realizes that Sephiroth is manipulating Cloud as his primary agent in the world and that she needs to get away from him

realizes that in order to cast Holy and defeat Meteor she needs to enter the Lifestream, so

she manipulates Jenova/Sephiroth into killing her in the one place on the Planet that has the strongest connection with the Ancients so she can take advantage of their knowledge to figure out how to make Holy work.

It also kinda seems to me like she realizes that Cloud is the best chance the planet has of a champion who can defeat Sephiroth and unblock the Lifestream for the Holy spell, and maybe she sacrifices herself in part in the hopes of breaking Cloud out of Sephiroth's influence. which, yeah, that is definitely some fridging-trope nonsense.

The original game absolutely isn't perfect on how it handles it, but Aerith is (especially for the late 90s) a remarkably active player in the story, with a lot of agency entirely separate from the male protagonist, who comes into a role that requires her to separate herself from the main party and go off to set her own plans into motion.

I am overall less fond of how she got portrayed in media after the original FF7, where she really did seem to get boxed into an entirely unironic Holy Maiden trope - especially by Advent Children which casts her as a literal lover/mother to Cloud, whose especially pure and holy influence heals the blight of Geostigma once her darling Cloud overcomes his personal conflict. And certainly, a lot of portrayals of Aerith I've seen tend to focus way more on her mystical, divine Cetra Chosen One-ness than on her actual upbringing as a scrappy sassy street kid.

The Remake games... have generally walked the line okay, I think? Aerith with the steel chair might genuinely be my favourite gif from any videogame ever,

(she's just so happy to be beating the shit out of this man)

although I do feel like her portrayal in those games make her a bit too much of a Love Interest To The Protagonist character. I feel the balance in the original focused a lot more on her coming into an understanding of her role in the story separate from her attachment to Cloud, but I also have massive nostalgia glasses on my face about Final Fantasy VII, so I recognize that I am biased here.

I'm curious how the Remake trilogy, which is a wild metacommentary on the legacy of its own original, will ultimately handle her, and I really do hope it doesn't confuse the idea of a "good ending" for Aerith with the idea of being romantically paired up to a male character, or with the idea of literal or metaphorical motherhood or some other bioessentialist nonsense.

[impactrueno]

I don't think the crew's comments about Lydia and Beetlejuice being endgame should be taken seriously. If that was seriously considered I feel like the movie would have gone on a different direction, they were pretty consistent with Lydia being disgusted by Beetlejuice and he's the villain all the way to the end

yeah that's kiiind of how i feel too. i would not say he's the villain though? i think he's more of an anti-hero type of character in this one. definitely not a good guy though lol not by a long shot

ultimately the cast isn't the one who's making the story here, however they do have some insight the audience might not have. like i feel like they know something we don't and that's why they feel that way, because they were all VERY sure about it.

this is just my guess so take this with a grain of salt, but i feel like the cast might be a little biased because they know michael personally and he's nice to everyone behind the scenes, you can tell everyone has a lot of love for him. i don't like assuming stuff like this so AGAIN don't take this as fact, but i remember winona saying something along the lines of like, him making sure she wasn't uncomfortable while filming the first movie, so maybe that kinda stuck with her and she conflated it with beetlejuice's character. she speaks of the whole thing in a very shy fangirl manner (which is honestly kind of adorable winona youre 52 and acting like this) like she knows it's silly and she knows she shouldn't want them to be endgame but she does anyway. so THAT feels like it really is her own personal opinion that hasn't much to do with what's planned for them (if there's anything planned at all because we don't know anything for sure, we can only guess and hope there'll be a third one)

tim burton has talked about how he wanted the whole macarthur park scene to be straightforwardly romantic and emotionally intimate, in its own fucked up beetlejuicey way of course. i think it can be all that and still be pretty one-sided idk i personally enjoy the one-sided aspect? macarthur park IS a breakup song after all. so i think i kinda see where he was going with that. it's uh. kind of an enigmatic scene once you stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it all and try to analyze it lol

sorry i lost my train of thought there i got interrupted many times while typing this

i think what i was trying to say is that, even with the one-sidedness and breakup song and all that, there could still be a possibility that things take a strange turn in a third movie if it happens. it's just. wow. how would they even make THAT work, you know? because this movie didn't push hard enough in that direction. it's not impossible but if they do go for it, it will be insanely hard to pull off successfully. fics are one thing, you can do whatever you want in fanfiction, but canon can't be approached like that.

who knows man. lately i've been thinking about how i would've reacted to learning about the events of the sequel if i hadn't been eased into it with trailers and promos and through the movie and its storytelling, and i just know i would've thought "that's insane and would not happen, ever, come on" and now here i am. accepting it. breaking it down and analyzing it. enjoying it! i love this crazy ass movie.

at this point i think anything could happen even if i'm also very skeptic about everything. i won't believe anything until i see it.

[justanotherhh]

something i haven't seen much of so far is analysis of charlie's journey from the perspective of someone who also needs to change how she engages with others (vaggie too, but that feels more obvious as she's an ex-angel/exorcist and a sinner)

when charlie tries to help angel by confronting valentino it's been built to in the other episodes, because it's made very clear that she doesn't respect sex work -- she's got that "we need to save them from themselves" type attitude you see a lot with people who haven't done critical analysis into their own biases from a position of mildly-to-severe privileged disgust and haven't engaged with the perspectives of sex workers as people who can frame and understand their own experiences (whatever work they engage in and why they do sex work to begin with). same for her opinions on addiction

the scene where angel has to do a reenactment with sir pentious frames addiction as

something to be judged

something pitiable

something predatory

which isn't exactly a great way to bring angel onboard with the programme/make him feel less like shit. meanwhile the anti-sex + weirdly heteronormative attitude is also present in that scene by having sir pentious dress up as a virginal young girl in an anime-type school uniform with a big lollipop (the irony of this being practically indistinguishable from a porn setup feels very intentional), who declares that "she" won't be having sex before marriage as the great crescendo (sidenote, monogamy in the afterlife sounds.... like a long time to be monogamous......... yzma voice: "why do we even have marriage??")

angel, up until his duet with husk, is having it made clear again and again that the people seemingly helping him find the essence of his being inherently gross. he likes sex -- yeah there's the performance/face he has to wear to get through the day, but i think the bdsm club was a sincere suggestion and vaggie literally calls it disgusting/shoots it down without thinking about how to do so respectfully (again, she's an ex-angel/exorcist, she has biases of her own to contend with, but also the implications that nobody in heaven is having fun sex or negotiated kink and bdsm... tragic. do they even have a sex club called consent up there?)

charlie is a fairly conservative person at the beginning of the story. yes, she wants to help, but her framing of what "help" looks like doesn't take into account her own biases; presumably she grew up with the idea that "sinners are bad people" as much as anyone else did, if not more considering lucifer gave up on the sinners and that's been her environment from birth -- cut off from the people she's supposedly in charge of, but "hearing stories." (in both the pilot and happy day in hell she clearly has a fondness for the sinners, but it's as an outsider, someone who does not relate to them, and generally there's that overtone of "royalty doesn't know shit about what anyone is going through" which, charlie being a ruler, i wonder if that will be a focal point or just something to accept, it's not a dealbreaker for me, just something i noticed, esp as helluva boss has poked on power dynamics in hell along those same lines). the yearly murdering of demons is, likewise, something that is simply status quo and so even getting to a place of "hey maybe we shouldn't do that" is big and was inevitably going to create more cracks in the logic of black-and-white heaven-or-hell, so it's cool that that's where we the audience get to first meet her -- right as those threads are about to start unravelling

but at the very beginning, in some ways she echoes elements of characters like adam and lute (who are of course far more in-your-face, being villains) in her original assessment of what makes someone "a bad person" -- it causes her to create a system that doesn't actually work, and then of course the hotel is destroyed, but next time they'll build it to be better! (metaphor *jazz hands*)

why is angel in hell, is the question later asked. is it because he was/is an addict? because he drinks? because he does sex work? because he likes sex? (it may be because he's killed people/was in the mafia, but we don't have all the context yet, for now those are the things people know in the story itself) at the beginning charlie isn't asking the right questions, questions that would need her to go into herself and challenge her own biases, but throughout season 1 she goes from merely proclaiming that "everyone" can be saved, to sincerely challenging the idea of "needing to be saved" from things that shouldn't be judged in the first place. "if angels can do whatever and remain in the sky." yeah, how are we stipulating what's allowed and what isn't hmmmmmm? stay tuned for s2

(and youknow, apologises to angel for overstepping his boundaries, so it's not like angel doesn't know that she does care for him, ep4 gives a lot of development for their relationship as well -- it's the tipping point for a lot of what comes next)

interested to see how that challenging will continue in s2. she's gone from "we have to make you into a good person by cutting out things that make me (and others) uncomfortable from a conservative/purity-based judgemental framework" to "why do we have these systems of judgement in the first place?"

tl;dr angel changed a looot in s1 but so did charlie. she understands better now that the work she's doing is going to look very different from what she'd first anticipated, and poking at her own biases in relation to angel helped that journey and brought her closer to actually understanding and relating to the people around her

(there's another element here about charlie and vaggie as queer women in this particular universe, but it's a slight tangent so... different post)

[unladyboss]

WHY DID CLAIRE GIVE UP SO EASILY?

It just occurred to me, that someone who was so persistent and insistent and accepting shouldn't IN THEORY have given up so easily on Carmy

Ok, it's safe to assume that she left the I love you message on his phone and thought he got it by then. Then she heard him say all the 'waste of time stuff' and was super hurt.

I GET IT.

However, did she hear all the OTHER stuff he said about how he doesn't DESERVE the enjoyment etc?

This is Claire who ran into Carmy at the grocery store and was satisfied with a banal conversation.

This is Claire who, sensed that Carmy was a little turned off when she said she remembered him, but proceeded to try and get his number anyway.

This is Claire who, having realized Carmy gave her the wrong number, tracked down a FAK to get his number.

This is Claire who told him never ever apologize

This is Claire who told him nobody is keeping track of shoes

This is Claire who drove him to deliver a letter

This is Claire who is dating a big time chef, but was fine with eating spaghetti Bolognese

This is Claire whose THING is MANAGING sad (drunk) people

This is Claire who is all smiles no matter what (if you believe the Claire hype)

So why'd she give up so quickly? Why would someone who put up with no real dates and crumbs of emotion, not try to talk him through or out of his slump? Why not manage THIS sad person some more?

But oh wait, they've hung out so much but never actually talked. Is that true or was she managing and not listening?

But now I remember that this is CLAIRE who brushed it off when Carmy said she's good at listening.

She doesn't really listen, so she didn't hear all he said.

Didn't hear the implication that it isn't about HER.

Remember this is CLAIRE who told Carmy that she stared at that kid's broken arm not because she wanted to FIX it, but because she wanted to understand it. So she's not that into doing the work to fix the thing (she HAS to as a doctor, but otherwise, meh?)

Remember THIS is Claire, who is smiles in front of Carmy, and in back of him says all the right things for him to HEAR her sweetness, but is scowling at the thing happening right in front of her (which doesn't suit HER needs)

Maybe that's why Carmy and her talk on the phone instead of him texting like he does with Syd. So he can HEAR the implied sweetness and tone of voice and all the right words when you craft a conversation, as opposed to texting where you can SEE everything in back and white

Remember THIS is Claire.

I'm not trying to make Claire into a villain. I'm the type of person who'd leave immediately too, but that's not what she or the show tried to portray her as.

Maybe she'll try again?

Maybe we'll see her with Carmy again.

I kinda don't mind seeing her again.

There's a thing that happens to me anytime I try to describe Claire though. I default to how SWEET she is. Then my brain goes

She's really sweet?

There's a disconnect in what they've tried to make us see and what's there.

I have to admit I'm biased. I think Claire is sweet but I'm biased.

Or unsure? I dunno. There's something...

[peony-pearl]

"someone PLEASE dare me to talk about the writing of Ursa's story from the comics"

This is your sign, child. Tell me all you've got

BLESS YOU!!!!!!!!

A bit of a foreword to anyone reading: I am going to be speaking about the writing of Ursa's trials from the comics in a critical light in the ways that her story was chosen to be written this way. If you find any kind of comfort or catharsis in her story, this post may not be for you. I am not here to be an anti, I am here to look at changes made to a character that I think could have been a lot more interesting if she had been allowed to keep her original backstory.

That being said:

Ursa's story of being plucked out of a happy home to marry 'the bad guy' could be interesting!

My problem with it is the inconsistencies it creates in it's own narrative... and the fact that it's such painful woobification of a woman who was willing to commit a high crime to save her son in the way that her circumstances create an issue where she is nothing but a martyr. It also continues the whole 'good lineage vs bad lineage' idea that completely undermines the power of Zuko's arc.

Ursa, in the comics, is presented to us as this bright eyed hopeful actress, in love with a man named Ikem when Azulon rolls up with Ozai, unlike some earlier lore where she was born into royalty and was the perfect match for Ozai. Now she's subjected to a wretched life which I can only imagine they put her through to make her completely sympathetic, because otherwise she would have been just like the rest of the royal family - EVIL.

Which I really hate that train of thought, but this is a family friendly show and as good as atla does with it's good vs evil nuances, I often remember I have to cut it some slack... but then I get a bit more frustrated because of the whole 'just because it's family friendly means they can simplify things' which I also don't care for but again... eh. I can't be too picky at times. (I was also raised on Gargoyles which did a great job on showing villains in sympathetic moments and heroes having big major flaws so I'm already a little biased)

Regardless; completely rewriting Ursa's backstory to the point that we no longer see her view of the war (or Ikem's! So they're good people!! We promise!) just comes off as almost manipulative and middle-school fanfiction-y. Ursa is a good person to sympathize with because she's being forced into these situations :C

And as such, she's a good person because of Roku!! And so Zuko is a good person because his mom loved him so much!!

And such, they don't have to show any changes on Ursa's part. No moral failings, no her and Zuko butting heads once they reunite to show how much he's grown... his morals come from her and Roku, because Avatar lineage = good.

And that grinds my gears so hard because then just like Ursa, that's robbing Zuko of his autonomy to make bad choices.

When Iroh tells Zuko in The Avatar and the Fire Lord that his legacy is the good and evil within him, it sucks because Zuko's legacy should solely be his own choices (I have my own issues with Zuko's view of the crown). Not the bloodline within him that he can't control. THAT'S A MAJOR POINT OF THE SHOW. People aren't born evil.

and yet Ursa is GOOD because she is Roku's GRANDDAUGHTER. That's really it. Yes, I can understand that she was raised in the moral compass left behind by him. But Ozai is only really good/charming to Ursa right up until their wedding when suddenly he's just EVIL and he's like 'you're MINE now hehehehe' like there's no in between, you just have to show Ursa in this miserable predicament which then also doesn't allow for any interesting development in our Ozai, aka previous big bad which could have been him following his father's orders to marry some woman and maybe he legitimately TRIED to make things work because NO ONE IS BORN EVIL. Ozai is such a shadow of Zuko that he would try to appease his father, and he might take this marriage on in the hopes that it would start building a bridge between them.

And we're not even getting into the fact that we don't learn that Ursa is the Avatar's granddaughter until the final season, JUST IN TIME for Zuko to learn this while he's locked in his self loathing and is utterly directionless. Again, this takes away the importance of his own choices. The boy who started the series completely devoted to returning home, willing to put himself and others through constant danger and misery just to appease his father is given a free ride card of 'oh you're actually good on the inside! Just do the good thing!'

Because he's Ursa's son, the woman who didn't want to marry Ozai because he was so so awful that his bloodline is OBVIOUSLY why Azula is the way she is (ugh).

Like this could work in more fairytale/simpler story settings but atla has gone so far out of it's way to continue to say 'no one is born evil' and 'people can change'; but when it comes down to it, they're really restricting the moral compass.

In the end, Ursa is good and suffered. Ozai is BAD because VILLAIN. (which yes he is but... ugh).

I don't know if I've made sense. I had a more cohesive idea when I wrote those tags but this is more or less my views of Comic!Ursa.

I don't hate her. But I hate that they just kind of shoved her on the misery train and kind of went 'wow that sucks right? This makes you want to see Zuko find her right?'

And then he does and all is well. Because Ursa is a GOOD WOMAN unlike that EVIL OZAI.

[dejaroze]

Big fat rant about nothing, just me yapping about TOH’s ending under the cut🦟

Okay so obviously I have massive witterot but like it’s so severe like I’m so ill about 2 fictional dead guys and one has committed serval acts of genocide but HES HOT SO HEAR ME OUT

I wish we got more content regrading the trio ( Caleb,Philip, and Evelyn ) because all we got were the pictures in hollow mind, and even that wasn’t much. Like yeah, we know what happened, partially. And that’s only Philips POV too, so this part of the fandom is literally just living off of scraps

Call me crazy but, I think TOH would’ve been better if there wasn’t a happy ending. I am so tired of happy endings in shows, like if they’re executed well then I enjoy them, but if TOH was for a slightly older age group and didn’t end in sunshine and rainbows, I would’ve been so happy. Please let the villain win for once, that’s all I ask.

That’s not even me being biased about Belos and stuff, just genuinely, how did this man with centuries of experience get overthrown by a 15 year old girl who didn’t even have to do that much to earn it? Luz found out about glyphs like a week into the demon realm?! Excuse me?! Like I do sort of understand since Eda is a wild witch n all, she might’ve practiced this stuff before hand or May have books about it, but it’s clearly stated in s1 ep4 that she doesn’t know how witches used to do magic?

And even then that raises questions, did Belos completely erase the existence of glyphs from the public eye? Are there no books about this stuff? Did he just destroy all records of this stuff? And how did he do that? Was it before or after he became emperor? Because all we know is that he’s been in power for a little over 50 years out of the maybe 350-400 he tried to recruit people to his cause. How do people not question how this man stays alive?! We don’t know for sure how long witches live, and even if they do live that long in the sense they don’t questions Belos’s age, then wouldn’t some people from the 1600-1700s still be alive to call him out on his bs?

This is why if we had info on how long witches live, it would help plan the timeline out so much more.

Witches seem to age like humans do though, so I assume they would live 80 years on average like humans? Because Edas mom, depending on how old she was when she had Lilith, is actually the age most people would be when their kids are 40 or so.

ive had this in my head for awhile, I might be overanalyzing this quote but in s1 ep13, Principal Bump says “Only 300 years till retirement” but in the finale, 4 years later, he’s seen being retired. So maybe time runs differently in the demon realm? Or that quote could’ve been a joke, but still, that’s a thing.

Back to Luz’s magic development though, in the matter of like 2 months, she learned all 4 of the main glyphs meanwhile Philip learned them way later. Now yes, I know Philip did say “it’s almost as if the Titan wanted to keep them hidden from me.” BUT this raises another question!

Did Philip only start learning glyphs AFTER CALEBS DEATH? Because we know the Titan can look over the isles through the middle realm, and maybe he knew Philips intentions weren’t pure so he hid the glyphs, but also how does he still have the power to do that if he’s assumably been dead for thousands of years? I mean clearly it didn’t work, but it still hid them to some extent.

And when did Philip change his identity? We can assume it’s after he met the collector, but did the collector tell him to do all of that? HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN PLANNING THIS? Has he been planning this even before Caleb’s death? You would assume so.

My god this whole timeline is fucked

[pickypickypeak]

The kind of Wish criticisms that annoy the hell out of me are the ones where people unnecessarily compare the film to other movies released at the same time and even Disney's older works. There's nothing wrong with comparisons as a "what to do, what not to do example", the issue I have is that these are often be hella biased.

I like the classical and renaissance Disney movies but I would be lying my ass off saying they don't have problems (the racism, characters of color being played by white actors, outdated stereotypes and gender roles). Some people dismiss these issues because they prioritize on their own nostalgia more than improving them. Hell, they say Snow White was the worst princess but when Disney announces a live action remake, they defend her largely because a mixed race latina actress as casted to play her.

Some of these comparisons can be nonsensical if one were to pay attention. They say Trolls 3's villain song is better, even though Mount Rageous a pop cover mashup while This is the Thanks I Get?! is an original in a poo style. They say Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a better movie about wishes even though TLW's theme is about appreciating life and the family and friends you have while Wish's themes is about encouraging and supporting each others to pursue their dreams. They use Bruce Almighty as a comparable movie yet they let Bruce off the hook despite he misused of his powers out kf laziness and causing the town into brief chaos before fixing it while they villainize Asha for Magnifico's own actions and the non existent "consequences" of returning people their wishes as if Magnifico allowed the non existent "bad wishes" to be in his hoard in the first place (he deemed Sabino's wish as bad because he didn't like knowing people other than him getting attention and he flat out spites Asha and Sabino during the ceremony).

THIS!!! Here’s an example (I probably used it before but it really fits now): some people are like “why have the forbidden book in the first place? It makes no sense the writing for this movie is so bad” well where the hell did the beast get the enchanted mirror?? How does the evil queen have a talking mirror in her castle and no one questions it? Where did the genie’s lamp come from? In frozen we just had to believe elsa was born with ice magic for no reason (they invented lore for the sequel but it wasn’t planned. They were gonna leave it with no explication hadn’t been for the incredible success). Theses are NOT plot holes; they’re just things you’re supposed to not ask questions about in a fairytale. It’s literally not that deep. Or better, you CAN ask questions and maybe imagine scenarios, but a movie isn’t inherently bad for not explaining it all to you. We’re not required to know how the queen got the mirror, or how magnifico got the book. It’s not “bad writing”; you’re just evaluating a disney fairytale movie through average mcu youtuber’s lens (everything needs to be addressed, otherwise it’s poorly written and “it makes no sense” (so what? Does a singing lion and warthog make sense in the first place?)).

Not to talk about the other problems you’ve mentioned; the stereotypes, the gender roles… as much as we love them, ANY movie has its issues. Many things wish gets blamed for, I can find them in other movies too. And actually, some of them aren’t even bad things, or at least they weren’t until wish did it. I’ve seen someone go “asha’s friends are just for the sake of diversity🙄” but like… is that a bad thing? Big hero 6 members were diverse too. Gee, winx are 20 years old and they’re all diverse. How am I supposed to take that criticism seriously? “They’re just forcing diversity on kids” my man I’ll tell you something. Remember when pocahontas (with all its issues) had a whole song about painting with the colors of the wind. Well I know this is shocking news to you but. It wasn’t actually the wind. She was talking about skin colors. The song was about racism. It’s from the 90s.

And the songs comparisons oh my. “Good to be king from journey to bethlehem is a way better villain song than this is the thanks I get” yeah, this is 100% relevant! It totally makes sense to draw a comparison between the guy who killed infants because he was not sure about which one was Jesus, and king magnifico from wish! I’m so surprised king herod’s song sounds so ominous! I’m sure ALL of these people have the journey to bethlehem soundtrack on their playlists and sing the songs out loud because they are SO much better!!❤️

Don’t get me started about the snow white drama, you are absolutely right, people get mad over something they couldn’t care less seconds ago (just like they did for ariel and tinker bell lmao). They’ve been shitting on snow white for years, there’s been ENDLESS youtube parodies and essays about disney princesses and especially snow white being “weak”, “a bad example for girls because she makes chores and settles for a man” and other bullshit but! As soon as the actress playing her (who happens to be not white) says the exact same thing, everyone is like “oh my goddd!!! Disrespect for our snow white!!! A woman can have love dreams!!! Walt disney is turning in his grave!!!” Like wow bro. You suddenly care now. You are so coherent and definitely not racist👍🏻

[writer-and-artist27]

🦄 Is there a new POV you'd like to try writing?, 🦷 Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're dreading to write (but is necessary to your plot)? Share a snippet or tell us about it!, 🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don't meet your goals?

⊂(・﹏・⊂) Thankie, Carim. Your messages in my inbox just makes my day, I hope you know that and that I appreciate you lots.

🦄 Is there a new POV you'd like to try writing?

...Maybe some of the villains in Fate/Grand Order and Naruto when it comes to my WIPs? Because I know Kiara Sessyoin and Madara Uchiha are still on my shit list, trying to write for them would be a good challenge to me writing outside of my biases.

Also some of the Servants in FGO that I haven't bonded with as much, off the top of my head. David, Avicebron, Blackbeard, so on, so forth.

🎉 How are you going to be kind to yourself if you don't meet your goals?

Build lots of Gundam model kits and listen to ASMR. Also just try to sleep in on the weekends when I can, bike, paddleboard, and hike. That's what I got off the top of my head.

Also seeing my boyfriend for hugs and kisses.

🦷 Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're dreading to write (but is necessary to your plot)? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

...This is a definite no brainer for me. All of the WIP Day 55 for Passing Days right now, because it's all about Passionlip and how she comes to terms with Robin's presence in my Chaldea. Let it be said writing her alone is hard, even outside of my love for the May King, and the following scene I'm putting under the cut here gave me a lot of emotional damage I had to nap on afterwards during my COVID isolation (even put to the side to start a Muramasa chapter in Day 54 to give myself a break, on my rl Robin's urging after he advised me on what the in-story Robin would say in response to Lip's entire bit here).

I'll just keep doing my best, Carim. (o_ _)o That's all I can guarantee these days now.

-------------------------

“Wh-Why—” Passionlip was doing her best to breathe, backing away while keeping her claws in front of her face. It didn’t help much when seeing that green cloak at Vy’s side. Why did her past self think that cloak could’ve made a good ribbon for her hair? It was so dirty, and the man underneath wasn’t much better. “Why is Robin-san here?! I’m really, really bad with him, Master, just from a physical standpoint! So why—?!” 

“Lip, I…” Vy trailed off into unsure silence. And to Robin’s credit, he had his hood up, hiding his eyes away as he stood like a knight in shining armor at Vy’s side, the only sign he was bothered being his arms tightly crossed over his chest. (And did Lip hear him mutter under his breath, “Are you done with your hissy fit yet?” Lip wasn’t sure.) Vy’s gaze merely darted between him and Lip both, a look caught between fear and uncertainty sitting on her face as one hand came up to cling to the nearest edge of Robin's cloak she could reach. Had Lip tried that kind of thing back in the Moon Cell, she would’ve been yelled at. Maybe spanked too, considering her strength with her claws. But Vy — Vy was holding onto Robin’s cloak and Robin wasn’t complaining.

What was their deal? 

“I asked him to be here, Lip, not Vy,” Meltryllis says in the same calm voice as before, and turning on her heels revealed her sister crossing her arms in the same way Robin was past her sleeves, the look in her blue eyes quiet but foreboding. “Even if he’s just a ‘useless Matcha’ to Mother, that doesn’t mean he has to be that way for you or me. Besides, I already got used to him, and he’s… decent enough, Grails or not.” Meltryllis then tossed a sleeve-covered arm his way, muttering something like “darn lovebirds” while rolling her eyes once Robin twitched slightly through his cloak. “Plus if you’re going to keep working with Master, you’re gonna have to be aware that he comes with the packaged deal.”

“Why, though?” Lip was still tempted to cry. “Why, Melt? He’s just a useless—”

“Mu-mu-mu, Lip, don’t finish that!” A paw was coming into Lip’s face before Lip could articulate more, and Lip felt her breathing slowly even out once she could make out a fox tail and familiar ginger-tipped ears. “I personally know how uncomfy it can be having a fox you don’t trust in the room—” Tamamo Cat proceeded to ignore Robin’s deadpan “Hey” in favor of raising her paw to pat Lip’s head. “—But this cat can tell you the fox won’t be coming close to you! He’s too busy looking after Vy in the backline with Mash-y anyways, woof!” Cat, in her maid outfit and black dress, merely grinned to show fangs as she raised both paws in the air to cheer. “Besides, Master assigned me to be with you and Melt in the frontlines for this simulation! So don’t worry, Lip, woof! This cat’ll take good care of you!” 

“I-If you’re sure…” Curious, Lip looked past her fear and Cat’s comforting presence to peek at the May King, and to her surprise, he wasn’t even looking at her, taking the care to keep the hood of his cloak on so she couldn’t see his face and focusing his gaze on Vy and Mash nearby instead. Sure, it also meant she couldn’t read what he was saying, but judging by how he took Vy’s cloak-clinging hand into his to squeeze, there was something lying there that didn’t promise trouble.

At least, for now.

“Now then, with that out of the way,” Meltryllis flipped her hair back, giving Lip a grin that eased her nerves, “let’s get this simulation started, shall we? I need to stretch my legs after walking around in those metal ones back at the base.” With an overexaggerated stretch of her arms and legs past her white dress that Final Ascension had provided, Meltryllis glanced towards the control panel connecting the simulator room to whatever programs were set up. In a louder yet gentler voice Lip had never heard before (except from that SERAPH version of her sister), Melt then added, “Whenever you’re ready, Albrecht.” 

“A-Alright, Melt-san.” Vy finally smiled once Meltryllis addressed her, slowly letting go of Robin’s hand after regaining some apparent confidence through the touch to approach the control panel in question. “One simulation battle, then?”

“Just one,” Melt agreed. “For me and Lip.”

“Aye.” Once Vy pressed the glowing blue “START” button, Lip thought in hindsight she should’ve really probed her sister more on that request. When looking back, it was just asking for more trouble to happen.

[failure-bnuuy-girl]

It's been 2 years since this post but this came up while scrolling through #limstella so...

**Long post ahead... As in, really long**

Now that we have most of the Black Fang members in FEH + three of them as fallen heroes, I would be foolish to dismiss the most welcome extra lore(?) they gave us.

First off: Nergal is indeed Bad ParentTM. He's really a total piece of garbage (after his villain arc started, iirc he wasn't bad per se before obsessing with Quintessence). Idek why I feel so drawn to him to the point I sparked for him on the 80th summon in this month's banner, he has no redeeming qualities and isn't even a Villain You Love To Hate trope. (Ok maybe bc he gave us Limstella... Am I just too biased...?)

What I find most interesting is about the morphs themselves. I never thought I would see someone else thinking of the morphs as humans, but here we go.

Let's first consider what Quintessence itself is. This is basically akin, if not straight up, someone's soul + life force. Which means it's inexorably tied to emotions. So Nergal, upon creating the Morphs, had to give them not just life force for them to move around and act, but also (knowingly or otherwise) some emotion, but in the most notable cases this was beyond just devotion or obedience. Arguably with all the nameless morphs the army mows down it would be impossible to give them all some personality, and thus see them as anything more than mere zombies. But then we get the named morphs and things change, because they CLEARLY have emotions.

Ephidel is sadistic and ruthless, there's not much to expand on. Ephidel is the child who sees his parents being ruthless and tries to mimic, and in turn is being kept around for being useful.

Denning's analysis is something that messes you up when you think about it. So far into the game we've seen a couple nameless morphs as bosses that upon dying just go "welp, I fulfilled my purpose". But Denning was made by Nergal into nothing but a spam caller, forced to repeat the same thing over and over. And initially it reinforces the thought of morphs as emotionless constructs. But the way the message fades out... feels more like relief. Finally being released from a living hell. This wasn't a morph that just followed orders out of devotion, respect or anything like that. This was Denning's persona being specifically molded for one purpose, and them unable to do any more than that. And that's beyond messed up. Denning is the child whose parents molded them into what they wanted and lost all their personality in the way.

Kishuna is also such a messed up example. Nergal's discarded project when he saw that they weren't capable of gathering quintessence for him, nor had any fighting capabilities. But despite their sadness upon being thrown away, they still yearn for his validation and work for him. And yet Kishuna has such an interesting gimmick. This one has a darn nullification aura around them! Sure, they can't harvest quintessence themselves, but this doesn't mean they're "useless". I'm hoping SO MUCH that they give us Kishuna in FEH because I would LOVE to see what they do with this, but that's me coping. Kishuna is the child whose talent wasn't specifically what their parents wanted, and got shunned for it.

Sonia. I hate Sonia with a burning passion. Her treatment of Ursula and Nino, her poisoning of the whole of the Black Fang's ideals, but also, as I have been surround by people who project their own issues into others, I hate people like her. But there are loads about her own personality. She despises Limstella because she's jealous of them, being Nergal's "perfect creation". She despises Nino (and fallen Ursula in FEH) because she doesn't see her as useful, which translates into herself not being useful to Nergal. Since she gave birth to Nino: "if my child isn't useful, does this mean I myself failed?" What fuels Sonia is the despair and terror, the need to prove herself worthy, the need to be acknowledged, the need for perfect results. Her ruthlessness is just a side effect. Sonia is the child who became a ruthless bully to distract from the fact her own insecurities devour her from the inside, so instead she projects them upon others.

Limstella, one of my favourite characters, is the messed up cherry on top of this messed up cake. Nergal's "perfect creation", constantly being acknowledged as such by others and Nergal himself. And they're proud of it. They may think of themselves as simply Nergal's puppet, but they know they're the best. And this has also led them to mock Sonia, which is just... *chef's kiss*. But what fucks me up the most is the other side there is to Limstella. First there's their own admiration towards quintessence. They are drawn to it, the stronger the better. And this can either be their own trait, or it can be like a child who sees something shiny or beautiful and wants to share it with their parents. And second, they really think they're just a puppet, so when they feel something else they entirely disregard it as a construct just like themselves are. But they feel. Their death quote alone was enough, expressing their sorrow upon being slain. But then we have their lv40 quote in FEH. And knowing that they feel joy and sorrow when Nergal calls upon them... really fucks me up. Limstella is the image of a "perfect child", who strives for nothing more than their parent's satisfaction. Yet unlike Kishuna, it's Limstella themselves who disregard their own self in pursuit of this perfection.

But I also want to talk about FEH, and the 3 fallen versions of the Black Fang we've got so far: Linus, Lloyd and Ursula.

Because in FE7 after the army slays Limstella and prepare themselves to face Nergal, they come across quite a surprise, having to face once more characters they had previously killed or knew had died, reanimated as... morphs?! Except these morphs were different than the others. Even the lesses boss-type morphs had dialogue. But these versions of Ursula, Linus, Lloyd, Brendan and the others... are completely silent. Even when Nino herself goes against the later 3, they show no response whatsoever. And it births the thought, just what is this? On top of the other morphs, we just saw Limstella express their own sorrow. So why are these morphs just... zombies? Initially, back when I first played the game, I thought that maybe Nergal just reanimated them with barely anything more than enough to move around, just as a distraction while he finished opening the Gate. But later I remembered Denning and though... Fuck, have they all just been... Erased? Overwritten? Forced to say nothing and do nothing other than act as a meat wall? (morph wall?) Because it made no sense that, if they had been given nothing but the bare minimum or if they were reanimated in a hurry, these guys were still so strong when we had just faced Limstella. And now with FEH giving us more dialogue... We know that they also retained their feelings.

Ursula retained her desire for perfection, and her devotion and admiration towards Sonia. As well as her fear of herself not being perfect.

Linus retained his loyalty to the Black Fang's ideals, and his contempt towards Sonia and her actions.

And Lloyd, just like his brother, retained his loyalty to the Black Fang. But also his care for Nino, and the now corrupted desire to avenge Linus.

So even after being reanimated as morphs, these 3 still had their own emotions and memories. They simply had been reanimated to be controlled, as more of Nergal's puppets.

This is all so messed up...

The morphs are humans, full stop: cliffnotes edition

ok I said I wanted to write a full mini-essay on this but I need to get this out of my system NOW and I don’t have time for even a half-assed analysis, so here’s a…quarter…assed….here’s some bullet points:

Keep reading

[ganymedesclock]

These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user. 

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist. 

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

-

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

[mcheang]

Too much kindness

Watching Chinese dramas made me angry because the villains were forgotten/forgiven and practically came back to harm the heroine.

Marinette had been watching Chinese dramas with her mother and recently, she realized something. The heroines were kind and decided to move on from the hurts their enemies gave them, before being pretty much taken offguard when their enemy striked again.

Marinette thought about her past situations. She agreed to ignore Lila and her declaration of war after Adrien’s advice. The next thing she knew, she got expelled. Even after she was readmitted, Lila practically warned her that their enmity was still there.

And no matter how much Ladybug scolded or gave Chloé second chances, the bully was as vain and mean as ever. I mean, come on, she sided with Hawkmoth. Hawkmoth!

Marinette didn’t want to be taken offguard again, of having to deal with another one of their dramas.

It was time to end their influence and power once and for all.

What were her obstacles?

Lack of influence: Damocles was weak when Chloé threatened to sic the mayor on him or Lila warned that disturbing a diplomat at the embassy was a bad idea.

Solution: Hello, she’s Ladybug. Paris’ beloved heroine. If it came to a public showdown between her and the mayor, given Chloe’s infamy, the public would side with her. And as Lila’s so-called BFF, Ladybug can easily shut down that nonsense with a little help from some celebrities who would be glad to help her. Jagged and Clara are fans of hers.

Then there was Adrien. Marinette quailed at the idea of disappointing him. She hated to do that. But if it was between his disapproval (Tikki reminded Marinette that he is still friends with the class after they celebrated Chloé moving to New York, so he’ll be fine) or another impending incident where Marinette is in trouble....ok it took a while for her to settle on the second option. But she’s crazy when it comes to Adrien.

Besides, her priority is that he like Marinette, not Ladybug. Even though she really wants him to like both aspects of her.

So even if he disapproves of Ladybug, at least he’ll still be Marinette’s friend.

And who knows, if Lila or Chloé succeed at their next round, he might hate her too! So really, the second option is better, right? (Tikki: right!)

When all the public exposure was over (basically Alya live-streamed Ladybug demanding Damocles be a proper principal and stop letting Chloé off the hook or blindly believing Lila)

Surprisingly Chat Noir was fine with Lila’s exposure and admitted he found out she faked an injury during Onii Chan’s attack.

Ladybug stared at her partner. “And you just left me with her?”

Chat’s upcoming lecture about how Chloé should be given another chance was halted at the accusation in her eyes. “It’s not like she could hurt you.”

Ladybug: she can still try to steal my earrings if I actually had to send her home. What the hell, Chat? Why didn’t you tell me this?

Chat: i didn’t want you to get any angrier with her.

Ladybug: so you’d rather I believe Lila had forgiven me when she really rather I get impaled by a sword?

Chat: i...i...

Ladybug: you know what, don’t talk to me again until you can prove you actually have my back. I don’t need a partner like you. I need someone I can actually count on.

Chat flinched.

Ladybug swung away angrily.

While Tikki tried to get Marinette to calm down and forgive Chat, she replied, “I could have died Tikki. Died. Like Joan did.”

Tikki stopped. Ok, so maybe Chat did need to think things through.

Adrien asked Plagg what he should do.

Plagg yawned. “Quit being so wishy washy. You need to pick a side and stay there.”

Adrien: but I don’t want to hurt anyone

Plagg: you think Ladybug wanted to humiliate others? She gave Chloé and Lila another chance and apologized or whatever. They didn’t learn. So she finally put her foot down.

Adrien: they would have learned, in time

Plagg: but we are at war with Hawkmoth. Chloé creating more negative emotions is not good. And neither is letting Lila grow in influence. Better to stop a problem now before it grows worse.

Adrien: there had to have been a better way.

Plagg: well, it certainly wasn’t your way. Chloé is still mean to your friends and even worked with Hawkmoth! and Lila got pigtails expelled. Do you honestly still think your way is the best way?

Adrien:...it wasn’t the right answer. But neither is Ladybug’s.

Plagg: well, we gave your way a shot. Let’s see if the bug’s way is the right answer.

Chloé had been sentenced for allying with a terrorist. She was sent to a correctional facility due to her age, but she was banned from Paris. What a scandal this caused the mayor.

Lila had been discredited and was currently grounded by her furious mother. Everyone knew her now, just not in the way she wished. She had been fired by Gabriel. And since Ladybug learned the truth from Chat, she was insistent Lila go away because she won’t risk another Chloé incident with her.

With Chloé gone, the class certainly was happier. Adrien was the exception, but Marinette reminded him he could visit Chloé. The latter asked for Adrien to help bail her out. Gabriel forbade it since associating with Chloé would ruin his image. And Chloé doesn’t help from a mangy cat.

With Lila exposed, eh life went on as normal and Adrien wasn’t sorry for her.

Akumas came and went but Ladybug treated Chat professionally.

Chat wanted her to talk to him but he was still unhappy about the Chloé situation. Plagg told him to just choose a side already. He was miserable when all his friends were happy.

Plagg: why do you care about Chloé anyway? If you were just a normal boy, she wouldn’t even look at you. She only befriended you because of your father, hence why you were worthy of her friendship.

It struck home. After all the insults Chloé threw Chat’s way, this question finally hit true.

Adrien began to doubt his friendship with Chloé. And it was enough for him to choose a side.

Chat called Ladybug and explained that he was upset with her charges against Chloé but he trusted her and will support her even if he doesn’t agree entirely with her decision.

Ladybug raised a brow. “It’s a start.”

And Ladybug’s plan was a success. Chloé and Lila were no longer around to cause trouble for her. They were being punished until they learned to correct their ways.

When Gabriel was suspected after the theory of “what if Hawkmoth can akumatize himself?” came up, Plagg reminded Adrien to choose a side. If his father is really Hawkmoth, can Ladybug count on him?

When faced with this fact, Adrien admitted he could not. He has personal feelings about this and he can’t be biased.

Plagg: does that mean you’ll hinder her investigation?

Adrien paused. If he did, and if his father was Hawkmoth, would he be aiding a terrorist?

No.

Personal feelings aside, Adrien does have morals. He cannot condone what Hawkmoth has done.

Conviction renewed, Chat joins Ladybug’s investigation with zeal. He wants to put his all into this investigation because if his father is really Hawkmoth, Adrien hopes to stop him from committing any more heinous acts, and save his father from himself.

[sunandmoongobrrr]

Korra and her Brutalization: A Legend of Korra Meta

In honor of International Womens’ Day, I want to talk a little bit about Legend of Korra and the treatment of Korra (and to a small extent other women) throughout the show. Content warning: there's some disturbing scenes that I show here, but if you've watched all of LoK, you should be fine.

Korra starts off confident; she is a young avatar who is eager to learn and feels suffocated from the isolation she is kept in from a very young age. But that doesn’t stop her, and like the headstrong girl she is, she moves to Republic City to make a difference and step into her role as the avatar.

Korra immediately starts to doubt herself; she becomes unsure of her abilities and frustrated with herself, and through that she learns to become emotionally vulnerable with Tenzin. To me, this was really great. It showed that you can be confident and vulnerable, and that the two aren’t necessarily independent of each other.

(I’m going to be honest, the 2nd season I didn’t really remember much of, so I’m just going to skip over that. Because what I really want to talk about is season 3.)

In season three, Korra faces the Red Lotus, an “anarchist” group that essentially wants to kill her. And they get pretty close. First, I want to talk about how Tenzin is beaten by the Red Lotus. This has been brought up in Lily Orchard’s (in?)famous LOK video, and while I disagree with her on many many topics of the show, I really think she has a point here. When Tenzin is being brutalized by the Red Lotus, the camera pans away. It is SO painful to see him like this, and the directors know it. It’s TOO painful to see it, so they don’t show you it, and the episode ends before we can see him be defeated.

Contrast that with Korra. They show you every detail of this. And I mean every detail.

It’s disgusting, and they refuse to treat her with any sort of decency or respect like they do Tenzin. It’s almost like they want us to enjoy her torturing. It’s genuinely gross.

People will often refute this by saying “LoK is just a darker show! Look at what they did to the Earth Queen!” And while yes, it is marketed towards an older audience, there’s still no point in brutalizing Korra this way. The main difference between Korra and the Earth Queen is that… well, Korra’s the protagonist. We’re supposed to be rooting for her, and while the Earth Queen being suffocated was definitely dark, it wasn’t unprecedented. The audience was never supposed to like the Earth Queen—she exploited and kidnapped her own people, so of course we wouldn’t care THAT much if she died. But we’ve been with Korra since the beginning. We’re supposed to want her to be happy, and why on earth would we want her to be tortured brutally in such a disgusting way that gives her absolutely no dignity? If we want her to succeed?

(here Zaheer uses the same technique used on the Earth Queen to suffocate here on Korra. for some reason)

In Season 4, the main focus is on Korra and her healing from the brutal things the Red Lotus did to her. She is clearly still struggling, and it could have been another great way to show how being physically strong and confident doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. But they make a lot of bad choices in this season.

One of my main gripes is that in order to heal, she has to return to her abuser, Zaheer, and HE has to teach her how to feel better.

I don’t want to compare LoK to ATLA, although it’s very important to mention that a show that’s a direct sequel, uses its old characters, and banks off of references, should be able to be compared to its predecessor. But I think it’s important to compare Korra’s arc here to Zuko. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; Korra has a lot of similarities to Zuko. The chopping of her hair is a significant turning point in her arc, and there’s an episode called “Korra Alone” (which is clearly a direct callback; shown below).

The difference between Zuko and Katara is that, a. Zuko never had to accept his abuser, and b. Zuko started off as a villain.

One of Zuko’s major points is when he confronts his father—his abuser. He does not bow to him and give in, saying that maybe he had a few good points or his heart was in the right place, but he directly says that Ozai was wrong for what he did. This isn’t the case with Korra. For some reason, Korra has to learn to trust her abuser. The person who did this to her:

And she has to hear him out.

This leads me to my second point, and what’s basically the complaint I have; despite being a protagonist, the show treats Korra like a villain. It frames her torture scenes as if we’re supposed to be excited that she’s being brutalized, as if we’re supposed to think she deserves it. And it’s not even handled properly as one of the villains we know so well—Zuko, who was able to overcome his abuse and become a protagonist who we root for. Again, Zuko and Korra aren’t directly the same characters, but there are parallels between the two and the show encourages their comparison. When it comes to Korra, however, we’re supposed to believe that she deserves everything that comes to her; the brutal scenes and the lack of dignity, even if she is a protagonist.

And in the end, that’s what we’re meant to believe; that Korra deserved what happened to her. In the finale, Korra says, “I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others.”

This is, to put it short, ridiculous. I hate this so much I can’t even begin to say how much I hate it. No, Korra did not have to go through the torture she went through. She did not have to go through the mercury poisoning. She did not have to go through every hardship she did. This “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is so harmful because Korra’s healing revolved around accepting her abuser and thanking him for the awful things he did to her. Korra wasn’t even that cocky by the end of the first season, so what it’s essentially indirectly teaching girls is that if you’re confident, you’ll pay. It’s disgusting.

Zuko got a banishment to the Earth Kingdom, got to have his ideas and practices challenged, but he never got physically tortured. I truly, truly believe that one of the main reasons why Korra is quite literally villainized by the show is because she was a confident, brown teenage girl. None of the male characters are treated with such disrespect and we never get told that they need to be “humbled” by abuse.

This is not completely resolved to LoK; there are some aspects in ATLA that I think could’ve been fixed had there been more women in the room. I tag her a lot (bc her metas are awesome), but I really recommend you read @araeph 's Katara: Consumed by Destiny series. I also have a meta here about how Katara is treated in ATLA, specifically in “The Fortuneteller.” (I want to emphasize that while I am anti-Kataang, I don’t believe that Katara’s treatment had to do with the ship itself or that kataang is inherently anti-Katara. It’s just a note about how her character is treated in this episode and beyond.)

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re ‘glad’ that LoK didn’t feature Suki or Mai or Ty Lee, because they can’t imagine how poorly they’d be represented. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

This isn’t to say that we need to stop watching LOK or even ATLA. I think the internet has this weird problem where we’ve been told that the way to get rid of problematic media is to just stop consuming anything even remotely problematic altogether. But certain aspects of media will always be relatively problematic, since as content creators we sometimes input our biases into the things we create. The solution, then, is not to banish anyone who puts any harmful stereotypes into their content from society, but to actively and healthily criticize it. Bryke are not God, but they’re also not demons put on the earth to suppress woc. They’re white guys that have implicit biases that have worked their way into the content they produce. I think the lesson learned here, is to have women, especially BIWOC, in writing rooms, to prevent atrocious acts from happening to future Korra's.

Happy International Women’s Day, y’all.

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

[imthepunchlord]

Different nonnie, I went through your After Wish AU tag after seeing that ask and it’s a really interesting premise ngl!! Would Emilie be alive and well in the new universe Adrien and Marinette created (going off of the concept image of what I’m guessing is her PV self standing with PV!Gabriel and the PV!Gorillas)? I always got the inkling that Emilie in-show, given the pre-story circumstantial evidence, isn’t nearly as sweet and innocent as we’re lead to believe by Adrien, especially since he would be a very biased narrator anyway, and it even seems that she and Nathalie were meant to be one character in the same way the twins seem to be what the Gorilla eventually came from, though being conceptual I naturally can’t say for sure. And on that note, are those four along with PV!Felix Adrien’s new family since they’re all designed similarly enough to really look related (the twins could maybe be his older cousins/Felix’s older brothers since they look more like young adults)? I saw that note you made about Gabriel still being Adrien’s father since the Wish works in some sort of karma as punishment for making it, so it would be very thematically fitting for Adrien to get the close, tight-knit family he so desperately craved in his past life only for them to also be cold, vindictive crime lords with the only other black sheep in the family (or I suppose white sheep since he’s ultimately a hero) being closed-off and distant in his own right.

Ok, so first off, I haven't thought about After Wish in a long time, so anything previous to it, you take with a pinch of salt as it's open to be changed, especially if I really get the au going. I also may combine it concept wise with Airy Fairy.

For what I remember, I don't think Adrien remembers that previous reality, so having a more cold family isn't going to hit him the same if he had his memories of that previous reality. But I'm not sure as I haven't thought of this set up in a long time.

I also can't remember what he wished for, but I remember Airy Fairy's wish: that his family never came in contact with miraculous. Might just keep that.

But on Emilie being secretly evil, that is up in the air as I just can't say for certain as canon won't really give me details. And when they do, it's questionable canon like Shanghai special. It's a similar issue I'm facing for the au of Marinette winding up with the Peafowl instead of the Agrestes.

Were they always villains and somehow knew about the miraculouses? Did they discover it by chance and then became evil? Is Gabriel's villainy just a response to Emilie's fate? If they never came across the Peafowl, would they even still get the Butterfly and book? Also, was the Peafowl broken before or after the Agrestes got it?

I need canon to give me some sort of answer to work off of (though realistically it'd probably be better to just answer them myself), so for an au like After Wish on whether Emilie is evil or not, I can't entirely answer. I don't have enough facts and honestly I haven't thought about this au in a long time and barely remember it.

Not a lot I can give you at this moment.

[demigoddessnation]

(excessive) Teresa slander

and everything wrong with it

— an essay by me

1. People lose sight of the real villain in the story. We were really given this power-hungry, violently elitistic organization put in charge of a decaying world and decided to pin the entire blame on a teenage girl. Teresa was a pawn in a game she deliberately wasn't provided full understanding of. A rather biased pawn at that. The actual evil behind all this were the people who had the power of life and death in their hands - those who could exploit a potential cure to their personal gain and advantage. While those people would've been driven by selfishness and lusting after population control, she was motivated by her own moral compass, which was unfortunately very much manipulated from the very beginning.

2. She was (to her death) a kid. She's a fictional character, yes. But slandering a teenager for not being lawfully good is like pushing penguins off a cliff and frowning when they don't avoid the fall by flying. Like any young person, she had a cause she wholeheartedly believed in and supported. She allowed herself and her friends to get hurt in the name of this cause which she believed transcended the pain of the individual and worked for the greater good. It's not easy to agree to this when all you know of the world is pain, loss and death, and though her decisions didn't work out, they were made with the sternness of someone who's lived through too much for their age.

3. There's a suspicious hint of ✨misogyny✨ to it. Interesting, really, how all the hate goes to Teresa whereas she didn't exactly execute all the betrayals and scheming by herself. Aris also had a significant part in all that, but people seem to dismiss his role in that case. Maybe it's the movies that watered it down, but he was in the epicenter of events just like her. Also, if you dig further, you'd see that the rest of the guys are all constantly having their trauma discussed in depth (specifically the Ivy Trio and Gally) while Teresa's past is hardly ever acknowledged. Trauma can't and mustn't be compared between characters and to say that every single one of them was severely (unfairly) traumatized is an understatement, but ignoring traumatic experience for the sake of villainizing someone is profoundly wrong. If you're going to be judgmental, do it fairly and correctly, without picking and choosing whatever appeals to your own personal opinion.

4. "I laughed when she died" shouldn't be a thing. Again, she's a fictional character, yes. But on a mental level our brains can't functionally distinguish between fictional characters and real people (that's why falling for a fictional character can feel as intense as falling for someone in real world). There's still something inherently wrong with laughing at someone's death, just saying.

5. Even if there is intense hate for Teresa, it shouldn't be directed to Kaya Scodelario. There's this fine but important line to draw between a character and the actor who plays them. The case with Kaya and Teresa is one of the most problematic parts of this fandom because the actress can't possibly be held responsible for something her character has done!! This is a role and it in no way means Kaya condones what Teresa's said or done. People get paid to act in movies, not to magically merge with the person they're scripted to play. Also, Kaya is a very kind and educated person. She's not from the Maze Runner or Skins, she's an actual person with actual feelings. Everyone needs to respect this and treat it accordingly.

6. Teresa has been demonized and manipulated for so so long. Even if you don't understand her point of view and motives, it's still heartbreaking to see how badly and harshly life had treated her since she was a child. The very first time she was found as the only survivor in a village of dead bodies, she was thought of as a ghost, an evil omen. She has always been "the only one" - the only one immune, forced to watch her family die; the only girl amid a group of guys with a variety of underlying trauma and issues; the trigger for change. It doesn't help that she used to be separated from the others with Thomas and labeled an elite subject. She was meant to be an outcast and the fact that she never really got to bond with them contributed to her being clay in the hands of WCKD. Even if she was fed a lot of information about the world, the cure and the vileness of the WCKD trials, she would still choose to side with the organization because the promise of finding a remedy prevailed in her mind, as opposed to the mindset of Thomas whose righteousness did get him in some difficult situations but kept him from becoming a radical idealist (which made him more aware of how impractical and painful the process of finding a cure actually was).

7. The story wouldn't have worked without her. Maze Runner is a great analogy for elitism, class division and government problematicness but its most impactful message comes from how the readers get to see the victims of the global catastrophe that is the Flare. We get insight into the Cranks, the violent work of WCKD and the mass panic that quickly spreads worldwide but what truly works out the resonance here is the fact that we see that the group of main characters isn't entirely impenetrable in their righteousness and incorruptibility. We have a bunch of broken people who set off on a journey to find life outside of running and fighting for survival. However, without the chaos factor that's Teresa, the battle against WCKD seems linear which can't possibly be true since the line between good and evil is basically obliterated at this point of global deterioration. She's the turning point where you realize that there are no winners in the war, nor are there good or bad guys, only victims and opportunists.

In conclusion, I hope to see a day when the psyche of characters is better explained and understood instead of bashed the way it is now. There's some really great character building going on in TMR and it's a matter of time we progressed past the need to point fingers left and right when we could take in the bigger picture of the story. The way we react to characters like Teresa actually says a lot about how we would react to her behavior in real life, and sometimes that could be limiting us from figuring out that at the end of the day people like this exist and will continue to exist under the influence of grand promises, corrupt authority and crisis.