#and someone always gets treated by the narrative as if they're perfect and the other one is treated as useless

[atrophiedemotion]

escapism vs reality in alien stage

in this post (elaborated greatly by geo's tags as well) i mentioned a big sua/till parallel i noticed (but didn't go into much detail because i didn't want to derail the post lol), and i wanted to go into more detail on that and the overall reality vs fantasy theme alnst has going.

sua & till both use their love for mizi as a form of escapism. sua's love for mizi and the weight of her knowledge of their universe causes her to create a safe (fake) bubble for her and mizi to exist in & makes it as perfect as it can be before they're out of time. till uses his love & admiration for mizi as a beacon of hope, as motivation to go on despite how horribly he's treated in day to day life. mizi is the brightness in both of their dull lives.

this view of mizi as a hopeful, optimistic sort-of deity sheds light onto an entire theme of alien stage, escapism vs reality. it also shows that mizi & ivan, in this specific instance, are antitheses of each other.

mizi, as a character, symbolizes hope and escapism. she is the only character out of the main four that didn't understand the exact conditions of their world due to how she was raised. she does not fully grasp how horrifying the alnst universe is until she watches sua die, which is the inciting incident for the entire series. escapism isn't possible anymore, but hope is still there when she gets rescued by hyuna and joins the rebellion.

ivan, on the other hand, literally symbolizes truth and the reality of their world. since he was born he understood the cruelty the segyein are capable of and knows exactly where he stands in the world. he is seen to be fatalistic and even nihilistic. his death, which he sees as an inevitability, is the second inciting incident (the one where everything goes to shit chaos afterward). it is a brutal reminder of the truth of alien stage to both the characters and the audience.

sua & till actively seek out mizi as solace in their pain, and they both actively avoid ivan (in their own ways) and the connections he has to reality.

sua avoids ivan because, well, he's mean to her, but mostly because he's not even trying to be mean, he's just objectively right and she doesn't want to hear it. he is a reminder not only of the cruel world they live in but her own 'twistedness'. he reminds her that she is not solely the fantasy she's created with mizi, but someone with unavoidable knowledge of the inevitable (as well as someone who is willfully keeping this information from an unknowing mizi).

till avoids confronting his feelings for ivan and confronting ivan in general because ivan confuses him. his feelings for ivan aren't cut and dry in the way his feelings for mizi are, because ivan is and always will be tied to pain and suffering for till (their first meeting in the auction shop, their miscommunication/strange relationship, the fact that ivan is the only one who sees him at his most vulnerable, etc). ivan's death forces him to confront these feelings (for ivan & about their world in general) but even then he's repressing them until he physically can't anymore.

mizi is escapism & hope, literally realized because she escapes. ivan is reality & a representation of the fate of alnst contestants, literally realized through his death.

it doesn't end there, though. sua & till are escapists running from reality (with diverging paths that are both narratively important in their own ways), while mizi represents escapism & ivan represents reality. along similar lines, but going a step further, hyuna & luka showcase these exact themes.

hyuna is the legitimate showcase of hope, of freedom. she is a free human (as free as you can get in the alnst universe) and the leader of a human rebellion focused on uprising as a race against the segyein.

luka is the perfect example of compliance within reality. he is now a two time alien stage champion and the definition of a pet, no matter how he actually feels.

hyuna & luka are similar to, but a step beyond, mizi & ivan. mizi symbolizes escapism, but she is faced with reality and must grapple it, while hyuna is freedom personified (albeit with demons of her own). ivan symbolizes reality, but he still yearns for something he thinks he'll never have, while luka completely shuts off those emotions because he knows they will only jeopardize his chances of survival.

the characters of alien stage perfectly embody one of the core themes of alien stage, the discrepancy between fantasy and truth, and the way those can coincide in a world.

[bittergirlsworld]

love triangle with just one point of view simply does not work bc it's clear who the writer prefers and it shows. one love interest has goals memories personality conflicts and the frozen devotion from the main character and the other one is like. there. a plot device to develop the couple. a npc basically

[josru]

a little rant:

If you need to understand one thing about the Bear subreddit, here it is.

It's not a supportive place for women, let alone black women/women of colour. (Not surprising, as reddit is male and white dominated.) Sydney gets mad hate for daring to be apart of the main relationship in the show (that is now defunct), something that the writers wrote for her? Regardless if you see Sydcarmy as romantic or not. The whole point of the Bear is their partnership.

And yet the Bear fandom on reddit loves to diminish her role, and act as if Sydney is an uppity black woman who needs to be rid of. They act like it's surprising that people want to talk about her or like her. And they also think Sydcarmy is mad overrated and implausible. They bring it up constantly because it pisses them off that a sizeable portion of us love it.

Probably because Sydney is an actual character we can relate to and root for. But oh no, men don't like that because that means she isn't a perfect little white fantasy, and she has actual problems and ideas and speaks on them, and she's BLACK, god forbid!! And they could never have empathy for someone who wasn't themselves. Sydney is annoying to them because it reminds them they don't care about other people.

It's barely a place for white women too, because they only like you if you're a gf/therapist/not your own person. A flat, 2-D image with no problems. They don't care about Jess or Claire, they just want to fuck them. Even in this post, the respect of relatability and empathy is given to Richie in the title, because he finally "got some", despite the picture being of Jess. Like, great, guys, you diminished a woman (a PERSON) to being a "win" for a man, because that's all that matters, right? Whether or not a woman is a fuckable prize?

Even the writing of the show actually just pushes the whole "if women = gf, = only gf, nothing else" trope. So in a weird way, I guess I know where they're getting it from, but I expected more from adult men? My bad.

Women deserve to be more than someone's fantasy!! I am sick and tired of this misogynistic drivel. I also think it's fucked up how much of these dudes on reddit love Richie this much. Like, we get it, you think he's a self-help sigma alpha chad king now. Just keep ignoring the problems he keeps creating, how irritating he can be sometimes, as well as the fact that men picking up their lives will always have way more support than female characters. Richie is not some underdog character lol. The narrative of the show has made it clear he is very beloved and will have a nice, sweet arc.

Unlike Sydney, and Marcus, and apparently maybe even Tina. But yes, keep talking about how your white male character is the underdog who is being sooo mistreated and finally got something he deserved, even though in actuality, Syd and every other POC got treated like shit this season. It's like they swapped them, the real main characters, and made them the underdogs/tertiary while Richie has become so important. But it's key to reddit's white male victim complex that Richie is finally getting "good treatment" when he never suffered being completely ignored by the writers at all, and he was never at risk of that either.

[maxdibert]

What do you think about Severus's "obsession" with Lily that Snaters always use as an argument? It's so frustrating that they're constantly portraying him as a creepy stalker or an incel

People will make up any nonsense to hate on Severus, and if that nonsense paints him as a sexual deviant, even better, because it gives them the perfect excuse to stick to their prejudices and outright condemn him. But the reality is that Severus was neither an incel nor a stalker, and that’s what I’m going to make clear from the start, because I’m done with terms and behaviors being twisted for convenience and confusing fiction with reality.

First, Severus never, ever, confessed his feelings to Lily. In fact, it’s Rowling who confirms he was in love with her; within the books, romantic love is never explicitly mentioned. What we see is that they were friends since childhood and that Severus clearly had a deep attachment to Lily. But that attachment can easily be explained by the fact that Severus was a child from a terribly violent and dysfunctional environment, who was alone, and Lily was probably the first person to treat him kindly and offer him affection. That, for a child with severe emotional neglect, creates an immense emotional attachment to the person who finally provides some comfort and love. And that’s not the behavior of someone who is sexually unwell; it’s completely normal behavior for people with avoidant or disorganized attachment styles due to family dynamics. You could even interpret it as something purely platonic, but it’s clear that Rowling had a different idea, so we accept it if she wants (or wanted) it to be romantic.

Fine, starting from there, the reality is—as I’ve said—that he never confesses, never puts her on the spot to go out with him, never tells her he’ll hurt someone if she doesn’t date him (cough unlike James Potter cough cough), and when Lily cuts ties with him, he accepts it, and apparently, they never speak again. Severus doesn’t become bitter towards women because of that. He doesn’t specifically hate women because his best friend/crush told him to get lost. First, because she didn’t reject him romantically—Lily ended their friendship due to political differences, not emotional ones—so the incel narrative of being rejected by women doesn’t apply, as this wasn’t an emotional or sexual rejection. Second, because Severus does not hate women. In fact, throughout the series, we see him interact much better with girls than with boys. Yes, he’s harsh with Hermione, but his treatment of her, despite everything (despite everything, I repeat), is much softer than his treatment of Harry, Neville, or Ron. He has a cordial relationship with McGonagall, and we can infer he had a rather close relationship with Narcissa from the scene in HBP where she even seems to know how to easily find his house, and from the way they speak to each other.

There is no evidence that Severus harbored anything specifically against women, either before or after Lily. This image created in fanfiction to make him the absolute villain is absurd because it contradicts canon. In the canon, we see Severus constantly triggered and having direct, very violent confrontations with various male characters—it’s not the same with female ones. Severus’s abusers throughout his life have always been men (his father, James, Sirius...), and not just any men, but men who represented hegemonic, toxic masculinity. It’s with them that he has active conflicts, not women. The incel theory falls apart on its own.

Now onto the stalking. When? I mean, Severus and Lily were friends who spent time together not because he followed her around, but because they had a friendship dating back to before Hogwarts, and to top it off, they lived near each other. Let’s go back to the fact that Lily tells him to get lost, and Severus leaves. He doesn’t insist. He doesn’t pressure her. He accepts her words and leaves. The scene where he goes to the Potters’ house after Voldemort’s attack is something that happens in the movies, not in the book canon. As far as we know, he wasn’t even aware that the prophecy would involve Lily until Voldemort chose the Potters as his targets. So we can assume Severus wasn’t stewing over Lily all those years—he was busy with his own messes, not chasing her everywhere. That’s not the behavior of a stalker, and I’m sorry, but caring about someone who was basically the most important person in your life during your childhood and teenage years and not wanting them to be killed—even if it’s been years since you spoke—isn’t obsessive; it’s just being human.

I mean, think about a friend you had in school or university with whom you shared some of your best moments, and then suddenly, years after losing touch, someone is going to kill them. Would your logical reaction really not be to try and do something? It’s crazy to say that’s weird or out of place.

Lastly, let’s address the “obsession.” I don’t know if the problem is that the people who repeat this mantra have never lost someone violently and don’t understand grief and trauma or what, but I’ve lost several people in my life, and to this day, many years later, every time something reminds me of them, I cry, or my mood just plummets. Because the wounds of loss don’t heal; you learn to live with them, but they don’t close. Anyone who has experienced that kind of loss—that sudden, premature loss—knows it. Severus isn’t obsessed with Lily. Severus feels guilty for having played a part in Lily’s death, and he feels terribly guilty.

What drives him isn’t obsessive love; it’s guilt, it’s grief. It’s knowing that maybe, if he hadn’t overheard the prophecy, she’d still be alive. It’s not having been able to stop the attack. Imagine someone you love deeply dies, and you think it’s your fault, or you think you could have prevented it. Are you seriously going to tell me that wouldn’t haunt you for the rest of your life? Because I don’t know if I’d be able to live with it. I think people don’t understand that what motivates Severus is the need to settle the debt he feels he owes Lily, to atone for his sins and make up for the damage he caused—not an unhealthy romantic obsession. It’s his way of dealing with grief and guilt, and honestly, if people don’t get that, they should talk to a therapist to learn a thing or two about trauma and loss because they need some advices very hard.

[marzipanandminutiae]

today's Historical WTF of the Morning:

in 1840, a group of Comanche rode into San Antonio for a peace meeting with white colonists. they had brought back 14-year-old Matilda Lockhart, previously kidnapped in a raid, to be ransomed back to her family. the girl's ransom was paid, Colonel Hugh McLeod interviewed her and remarked on her intelligence, her aunt Catherine attested to her release in a letter to a relative, having earlier written that she heard the captives were being "kindly treated" and writing nothing in her later account to contradict this, and that was the end of her part in the story

(which ended in a "fight" with 35 of the 65 Comanche in the party being killed including 2 children, and 29 being taken prisoner. seven Texians died as well, and while later claims held that the attack on the Comanche was justified because they seemed insufficiently trustworthy in their promise to return more prisoners, the actual situation in the Council House that day remains unclear)

in 1895, Mary Maverick- who, by the account of her own diary on that day, had been at home when fighting broke out at the meeting -claimed she had been the one to tend Lockhart, and that the girl had been gang-raped showed extensive signs of torture including her nose being burned off

something that. um.

I think would have come up in contemporary reports? maybe? that's pretty conspicuous and people would have noticed? especially her aunt, since that is decidedly not being Kindly Treated?

there was a news article from 1840 in Houston claiming that Lockhart had been burned and beaten, and that her hair had been torn out, but no mention of facial disfigurement is made. and again, contemporary sources from people who definitely 100% saw her when she was released don't mention ANY outward signs of abuse AT ALL. I found a description of her release from 1884 that doesn't mention the nose-burning, either- it seems like that was only introduced to the narrative in the 1890s "memoir"

like, look. I'm not saying no white person taken captive by Native Americans was ever mistreated. they're human beings, and human beings can do terrible things to other people regardless of demographic group, or macro-level oppression. some Native people did terrible things to other Native people long before Europeans got here, and it's dehumanizing to treat them like magical perfect fantasy elves or whatever. and it's possible Matilda Lockhart had injuries covered by her clothing, or later revealed abuse she suffered that didn't show marks, and that got dramatized into her missing nose or hair

but. I don't know. it's just galling that not only was this girl who went through, at minimum, the trauma of being taken prisoner as a child was reduced to a symbol in a much larger conflict, but also we once again have the employment of Someone Abused A White Woman/Girl So Whatever We Do To This Entire Demographic Group Is Justified narrative

(which is, as always, employed by people who don't give an actual shit about the lives of the women they use to justify racism. unless Lockhart had lived to be like 80, she'd still never have had franchise or- and even then, STILL not full human rights in her own country. and the people who wanted to use her as a symbol to justify racism probably would have fought tooth and nail to keep her from getting them)

[nevermeyers]

regarding the whole jjk& gege hatespread movement going on rn, i think this is the perfect illustration of what happened when """trendhoppers""" (i really do not like that term) get into a popular manga because of the characters (fangirls) or the powerscale (..reddit anime bros?😭). and like, to some extent, that's fine!! fangirls are and will always be a big part of fandoms and are a big part of what keeps the community alive. i think the problem lays on the fact that jjk got a wide audience who is used to very binary good guys/bad guys representation in anime with same schemes repeated all over and never questioned their grounding bases. and some really don't like to be confronted to new characters paths or visions (especially if they do not accord to their own).

also the fact that people tend to move to the next shiny thing when the hype is over usually leaves the fandom with people who are actually interested in the story, whereas jjk never left the big screens. so i feel like a lot of the people who take a lot of place in this discourse are only there because they want to argue about who bodies who and "x could wipe the floor with y" and "x is so me guys" etc. they completely disregard the story and it's building, which is (besides interesting (and it is always good to remind it)) the WORK of SOMEONE who puts his time and effort into it.

most people treat work as content (which is bad)(coughcapitalismcough) and get angry when it's not presented in the way they want it to be☹️

You are so right anon!

And do you know what's the worst thing I've ever seen? Someone who said that Satoru couldn't die because the consumer (us, the readers) is always right ☠️ That take is so fucking disgusting, I don't even know where to begin to express the disgust I feel. There are people in the fandom who don't understand anything, they are the typical self-centered people who believe it's okay to throw trash on the school floor because there are hired cleaners. They are disgusting, I don't regret saying it.

The good thing about these chapters is that it's being shown who in the fandom are good people and who are narcissistic and ethnocentric wrecks who believe they have the power to decide on the author of the work. I've spent the last few months mass blocking these guys, ugh, I can't stand them. Worst of all, they live in their own delulu world where a sad ending (or//insert any ending they don't like) is not allowed. They really think jjk should have an ending where Sukuna is defeated and that is, again, self-centered. They say that, otherwise, everything would have been for nothing. Hmm? Since when does letting evil win undo an entire story? They are unable to value jjk for its history. They are doing the same thing that the jujutsu world did with Satoru, they are dehumanizing everything and they are so self-centered they don't even realize it.

People are literally dehumanizing both the author and the characters themselves, forcing their own vision of the narrative at the expense of whatever. Also, I've noticed that many of these profiles just spew hate, literally. That's their whole personality. You see a review in your dash, you enter the profile and surprise! that person hates everything they consume, they don't have a single good word in absolutely any chapter, they hate the author and claim that “Gege doesn't know his own characters” (as if characters aren't allowed to change and evolve in their views, ideology, etc, lmao)

These people are the worst, they spread super negative vibes. They seem very immature to me, because, if you don't like something, why would you continue consuming it? That's straight toxic, and I don't think they have a proper mental health if they're like this with the rest of things happening in their lives. They like to hate and they live off it, that is the only answer.

On the other hand, they are forcing “Gege has a bad narrative” to cover up the fact they are incapable of leaving the fandom and seeing the characters as characters and not their puppets, they force their fanon vision on them and then cry when they discover that they aren't like they expected. Shoko is an example of this. She was always certainly cold, but the fandom always painted her as Satoru's super hyper bestie, as a victim of Satoru's “selfisness” after the kfc breakup (god forbid a teenager grieving) and forced on her that she's a very good person when in reality she is still a doctor who passed her exams by cheating and who showed no empathy in lots of situations, when seeing, for example, Yuuji's corpse.

People also complain that the final fight is taking too long, lol, fights in shonen are like that, that's the point of the genre, babe, jjk is literally sold and promoted as a fight shonen. I honestly think that those who say that are people with a tiktok span of attention. (they would complain if the fight lasted for ten chapters too) Also, what a coincidence gege's narrative dropped when they started waiting weekly for a chapter, huh? What a coincidence they started disliking jjk when they started waiting, also all characters now seemed to be bad written after they started waiting another coincidence! Fast consuming has RUINED people's perception of media.

The moral of this is: enjoy what you consume, be mature about your consuming choices and have a good relationship with the things you like. Stay away from the negativity! And, most importantly, don't treat the author as your slave.

By the way, ik people have a twitter mentality so i'll say this for those. I'm not saying people can't have their own opinions, don't force that narrative on me lol It's the way you express your views that categorizes wether you're a normal person or an asshole. For example, I would have loved Yūta to stay out of this and leave Sukuna to Yuuji, since it was his time to shine! I think Yuuji deserves to have the spotlight and end everything (or try to), carry the final fight and all that. But I won't complain about it, nor drop the manga, because I'm not an inmature self-centered fifteen year old :)

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[presidentofthelipglossclub]

Please, tell me more

About Heatwave and Bumblebee siblings dynamic

It sounds stupidly fun

And with lots of shenanigans

Tell me👀

YESSSS OK.

listen this just started out because i had the passing thought that we all joke about heatwave being optimus's kid and it's been a pretty popular joke for a long time to say that about bumblebee as well. it was just a joke headcanon. but then i got to thinking.

heatwave and bumblebee are actually a really interesting duo (even tho they barely interacted in canon) for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that they're functionally narrative foils. in case anyone doesn't know what a foil is, foils are characters who are opposites in ways meant to highlight specific qualities each character possesses. in some cases, the foil for the protagonist is an antagonist, but not always. also, when i say narrative foil what i mean is the development and storyline the characters follow are opposites.

the narrative foils between heatwave and bee are more easily drawn between rescue bots and robots in disguise, because in rid bumblebee becomes team leader, like heatwave. because of that all the stuff i'm saying is about them post war, during rid.

firstly, heatwave starts out as team leader, while bumblebee we see growing into the role. this creates an interesting dynamic because optimus has always known heatwave as a leader, while for a very long time bumblebee was someone under his command. the differences in how optimus treats their decision making could cause some sibling rivalry. bumblebee is jealous of heatwave because optimus trusts him more, and because optimus isn't constantly hovering. heatwave is jealous of bumblebee because optimus actually spends time with him, and because they know each other better.

another interesting thing about them is their backgrounds. heatwave's dream was to be on optimus's team, because he wanted to prove himself. he loves fighting, and wanted nothing more than to help by joining in on the action. to heatwave, bumblebee is living the dream. but bee would much rather live like heatwave, away from cybertron where everybody expects him to just move on. of course they both understand that the other's life isn't perfect, but they're both seeing through rose colored glasses. the grass is greener on the other side, so to speak.

also, bumblebee loves earth, like, a lot. in rid he's constantly talking about how beautiful it is, and how interesting humans are. heatwave is the complete opposite. even after cody convinced him to stay, he was still the least interested in earth. to him, it's just another mission, which makes sense because he'd been to plenty of other planets for the same reasons. earth isn't anything special to him. but for bumblebee, someone who rarely had the chance to explore the life of other planets, earth is unique. the autobots were too busy fighting to take in the sights in the earlier days of war, and by the time they moved to new planets the old ones were usually destroyed anyways. being able to just exist on another planet is something he hasn't done, and especially not in a post war situation.

i think bumblebee would harbor a lot of negative feelings towards heatwave (especially in the beginning) just because he's known optimus for way less time but earned his trust much faster. also because heatwave has a lot of potential? i guess? because of his quadruple changer status and as the last rescue bot leader. and since i headcanon him as a psychic, heatwave is really a golden child, so to speak. bumblebee resents him, but then he feels guilty for resenting heatwave because even if he's jealous that's still his brother.

heatwave is less resentful of bumblebee (although there is still a level of resentment) and more openly admiring of him. to the rescue bots, who have been kept from knowing anything about the war, bumblebee is a hero. i mean to a lot of people he's a hero, but the rescue bots get most of their info about everything that's going on from bumblebee because optimus doesn't want them to know. heatwave wants to fight, but optimus won't let him. he feels weak and unworthy (serious survivor's guilt btw), and so he sees bumblebee as what he needs to become.

a lot of this stuff is kinda angsty which i didn't intend because i genuinely do think they would also get along really well and could become close. but also there would be a LOT of sibling rivalry between them just because of the kinds of people they are.

(also important to note: i personally see bumblebee taking on an older sibling role especially during rid because it fits his character arc of maturing and growing into leadership. this adds another layer of complicated to their already weird relationship because heatwave has always been the one responsible for others while bumblebee is very new to it. but as bee gets more comfortable exercising his own agency and heatwave gets more used to trusting others, they settle into a sibling dynamic that actually works.)

[homerforsure]

TL;DR: it's not my ship, but they were done dirty

I always always always come back to that weird little reveal that when they were first floating the idea to bring Tommy back, they said it was to do a storyline with Eddie and it got switched to Buck because it was too weird or tricky to have them both break up with their LIs offscreen but only one actress could come back.

Because a stepping stone relationship makes perfect sense for Eddie. Something short and intense with angst and softness for him to get to this moment of letting himself feel joy and to taste how truly good it can be. He didn't need an endgame relationship right now. He did need to have his "first."

Buck didn't need that. Buck is absolutely ready for his forever and he has been for a while and giving him the "inviting Natalia to move in and then catching his own bad habit for once and backing out" would have been great.

But that didn't happen. Instead Eddie had to sit like a hot dog on one of those rolling warmers for a season while Buck started the queer dominos falling (and I admit this is a little bit from a Buddie endgame perspective because it doesn't feel to me like the show was deciding to explore the a character's sexuality just for exploratory purposes and I'm willing to admit I have a blind spot here.)

And honestly I think the fact that Oliver cares so much about Buck and telling this story well both for the character and everyone who sees himself in him and that Lou met that energy turned the storyline and the relationship into a more beautiful beginning than it would have been in the hands of other actors.

Which gave the show it's next problem. Because we can all see that Buck is ready for his forever love and you introduced a new love interest and then instead of sticking to a few episodes of awakening and moving on, I think they saw that people were starving for it and latched onto it and Tommy harder than they expected. So it's an easy thing to do to milk that for a little bit longer, but it was absolutely the wrong choice because people got invested in a way they wouldn't have if this had ended after the original number of episodes we expected.

And Buck and Tommy worked! I think you can nitpick relationship things if you weren't that into it and write a breakup narrative using those seeds, but their puzzle pieces absolutely fit together. So much so that they definitely had forever after potential that everyone could see and a lot of people were excited about and investing in and oops wait that wasn't the plan.

So what do you do? You either abandon the plan and embrace the accidental beauty that you discovered and let it ride or you write your way out of it. Give them some hurdles, some angst. Give them a tear-jerking breakup that respects what you built and the viewers who are invested in it and slowly work your way back to where you wanted to be.

They didn't write their way out of it.

And I so don't want to believe that after the work the actors put in and the viewer feedback that they were still viewing the relationship as a placeholder ready to be yeeted once Eddie's arc got back in position again, but I'm not sure what the alternatives are?

Either it's being talked about that this is the last season and so if they're really doing buddie then it's now or never? Or actually the internet is not a valid reflection of the viewership as a whole and someone from on high said the plug should be pulled?

Or the storyline was stumbled into and fumbled around from the beginning and never treated with as much care by the people in charge of it as it was by the people who loved it.

IDK it's just messy messy storytelling and I say that as someone who is not a multishipper but who does value a good story and a good narrative. They let the relationship go on for too long to end it so abruptly. If there was going to be a breakup, there was a better one to be had and it doesn't make me feel good that my preferred happy ending could come from one that breaks the heart of so many of my friends. And if it isn't in the service of a bigger, already in motion endgame, literally what the fuck?

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I am really getting annoyed with people said "loki is just narcissistic person, strange is just arrogant doctor, Wanda is just selfish crazy", okey they are lie that more than that but somehow everyone forgetting that they have trauma and pain(not justify bad actions but still) and they keep insist that they need getting more punishment.

Then we have stark, yeah we know him and if someone say he is just arrogant selfish billionaire other standard will say he ore than that and they said stark didn't deserve punishment what he did , really?

I am have to say I have one fanfic not Wanda friendly but I take theme in MOM because how I hate Wanda in MOM (thanks Waldron make me hate Wanda) from all her on screen MOM is in my hate list.

Also you can see how many Wanda, loki and strange got punishment in fanfic rather than stark, they justify his actions.

They never cared to humanize Stark's victims. We just had that woman in CW who was written horribly and to make matters worse, Stark was framed sympathetically in that scene. Go figure! And of course that scene is followed by him claiming the entire team has to be """held accountable""" (not just him, the team) and when some of them push back he's shown to be the rational one. What a joke.

With that kind of absolute narrative protection, is it any wonder so many people claim he feeling bad for 0.2 seconds is enough?

Whereas with Wanda we know the names of the people she hurt, we heard them speak and explain how much pain they were in. (I always laugh every time I see someone claim WandaVision was on Wanda's side.. lol no).

In Loki's case, his whole past and characterization were retconned and simplified by Waldron and Feige, and those around him were framed in a positive light while he was shown as an evil character who will always have to be paying for his mistakes. Odin, Thor, Sylvie, Mobius... none of them are held accountable so the difference in framing is even clearer.

And with Stephen, he's so unlucky that he got his own movie taken from him and once again his story was simplified for some reason I do not understand. His pain, sacrifices, his story are an afterthought in MoM and ironically enough, he was written miles better in NWH than in his own film. And of course, we got other characters telling him he's evil, he's selfish, he's a villain, bla bla.

In short: he's defined (negatively) by others. Just like Loki. Ever see them defining or defending themselves? Nah. If they defend themselves they're "arrogant" and "narcissistic" 🙄

So I'm not surprised those three are treated like crap by the fandom while Stark is praised to the heavens and back.

Stephen, Wanda and Loki are not perfect. But the thing is... they don't need to be. In fact, they shouldn't be. That's what makes them so interesting, it's what sets them apart from the clear-cut heroes. What we should be getting about them is the why they're not perfect + the circumstances behind their actions and beliefs, those are crucial when it comes to morally grey characters. Otherwise we just end up with "they did x so they're y" bullshit writing.

[sleepy-crypt1d]

One of my favorite parts of COF that I find is commonly overlooked is the fact that it doesn't sanitized itself for a broader audience, it comes in with a message, with a story to tell that's hard to swallow with characters that are realistic and heartbreaking, and it doesn't apologize for this once.

Something interesting that occurred to me was how people who have never experienced severe mental health struggles view COF- the specific instance I'm thinking of is when I was explaining the plot to my mom, and had explained the different endings to her and how to get those endings, and what each one seemed to imply both for Simon and his relationship with those in his life, and her takeaway from the conversation was- "I don't like that the mentally ill main character becomes a killer. I don't like that he's the bad guy"

And this was interesting to me because, that's kind of the whole reason why I started to love Simon in the first place.

So infrequently are we shown mentally ill characters who do bad things yet still deserve redemption. Who still deserve to be treated as a person, because they are one. In a world that is becoming largely comfortable with the idea "bad person = deserves to die" it was insanely refreshing to see a character like Simon, who we see hurt people, who we see become obsessed and stalkerish and violent, gain redemption through healing. Through therapy and community and the belief from others that he will get better. That he isn't a lost cause.

In ending 2, one of the darker endings of the experience, we learn that Simon is alone. That his friends and family have all left him. That he's been abandoned due to his disability and general mental health struggles, and this was devastating to me. Upsetting to a degree that had me thinking about it for days afterward. Not helped by Simon's plea to Dr. Purnell to not feel bad because "not everyone can be saved". The way Simon views himself is much too similar to my own view of myself as someone who has struggled with similar issues.

As someone who was led down a path of harm due to untreated issues and still struggles with believing I "deserve" redemption.

Because I do, and so does he.

And it's always so upsetting seeing so many people who view victims as one note stories. As people who just cry sometimes and have trouble talking to people or get sad every once in awhile. Mental health is messy and hard to live with and life ruining at times, and this stripping of it's nuance is so frustrating to see happen over and over and over again.

Victims are not your savior story. They are not cookie cutter helpless children that need to be protected. Abuse and severe struggles do not make you stronger, they do not make you better, they do not magically make you more empathetic or loving and I'm fucking tired of that narrative. I'm tired of being talked over by people who've never experienced it or other victims who think they're the "good" ones because, well, they never did that which means anyone who did is horrible. I'm tired of stories of illness being sanitized for other people's comfort.

Victims can become perpetrators, that does not take away from their victim status. That does not change the fact that they still deserve help. That does not take away from their personhood. They are a human being that needs help, not a death sentence. Should they take accountability? Of fucking course. Does their trauma absolve them of wrongdoing? No. But I'm tired of people acting like cycles don't exist, like the second you act out on your trauma you're past saving.

Simon's story is perfect the way it is. A story of redemption and acceptance, of learning to live and grow and learn from past mistakes and find a way to live peacefully. To take responsibility and attempt to rekindle the relationships you lost, the ones you hurt.

Ending 4 and his admittance to the hospital, as well as his continued friendship with Sophie but acceptance of his loss of a romantic one, is heart breakingly bittersweet in a way that is hard for me to describe. Him getting better but living with what he's done, growing from it and learning to live anyways.

Another part of this is that, in his happy ending, in the ending where he does get better; he doesn't do it alone. Largely, the narrative of community is lost in these stories, how helpful a support system can be. Simon gets better because he has people there for him, because he has Purnell and Sophie and his mom looking out for him. He has his doctors and the staff at the hospital and people who know he can get better, that he's still a person deserving and capable of good.

People need people, and this seems an obvious note to me in the story of COF. Simon needs people. He needed people the entire time. Someone, anyone, to listen to him and give him the hand he needed.

And it's so refreshing to see a character like Simon still be loved and cared about and helped even when he was "the bad guy". Let mental ill characters be realistic. I'm begging you.

[thefinalwitness]

it hit me this morning why i like the uniformity of the ancients so much and why i generally disagree with the idea they should be more visually weird. not that i think anyone is BAD for thinking this, i totally get it, especially in the context of azem and wanting to make yours FEEL like your own. (tangentially, i also think azem is one of the best ancient characters TO deviate from the uniformity, given what we know about them and the people born of their soul.)

but what i find so compelling about a society of people whose Whole Thing is creation magic, the ability to Make Anything, having a lot of stigma against deviation in the form of self expression with one's own body is how SAD it is. how DYSTOPIAN it is. you can invent the most creative, stunning objects and creatures known to man, but you can't even show your face.

i think it's a really powerful, subtle piece of the puzzle that ties the whole concept of the world unsundered together—in particular, how miserable it really was, how unsustainable their society really was, how prone to characters like hermes and venat it really was. it reminds me of some of the worst elements of real life; how creators and inventors are lost and forgotten behind their works (instead accredited to companies, or a single person), how artistic and creative careers are typically treated as unsustainable and simultaneously exploited, how unyielding and suffocating the concept of "normal people" is (to the detriment of anyone who deviates, be it by gender, sexuality, race, abledness, religion...). i think it's genuinely meant to be a commentary on things like that, or at least i think regardless of intention it IS an incredible commentary on that.

i think the ancients are SUPPOSED to be boring and uninspired—wearing the same clothes, concealing their faces, never using their transformations—and i think it reflects such an important element of why the world unsundered was awful: ancients were amounted to their creations and duties, not their own selves. you can even see this in the convocation seats, how you're given a new name that EVERYONE, even your closest friends, almost exclusively refers to you by; the implication that you must not only uphold your duties, but blend in seamlessly with your predecessors and successors, that you must be indistinguishable.

this is HOW characters like hermes and venat developed their respective discontentments with their lives; you were not your own person, but a cog in the star. you did not get to have your own passions, styles, ideas—and even when your role was complete, you couldn't be yourself. you were expected to remove yourself from society. you were expected to cease to exist beyond your function. even despite the fact that the ancients WERE individuals with personalities and dreams. their actual bodies vary widely, their eyes glow vibrantly; almost as if they're MEANT to burst with uniqueness. and it's all buried in black robes and masks.

and i think all this is why i LIKE the uniformity so much, because narratively speaking, it's such a fascinating concept. there's a lot of room to explore how it works, why the people of the unsundered world got to that point, how it might disproportionately benefit some people and hinder others. emet-selch calls it perfect and a paradise, but i always got the impression he was meant to be an INCREDIBLY unreliable narrator; i think he was among the people that benefitted from the uniformity and the "this is just how life is, don't resist it" of it all, and i think you can see him recreating it even worse in allag and garlemald. i think it explains the DEPTHS of his hatred for the sundered too, beyond obvious things like "they're not the people he lost".

because the sundered world, conversely, is FULL of individuality. people look, act, talk and live countless different ways; every city and region has a completely different way of life, so much so that you can tell where someone's from just by how they talk or dress. i think venat understood, especially after meeting the wol, that people needed to be free; that a world like hydaelyn would be someplace people like hermes could thrive. and that this plethora of individuality would be the world's salvation—in all things, not just the song of oblivion. i think this is what "hear, feel, think" MEANS.

and so, to me, so much of the picture is lost if the ancients had utilized their creativity inwardly. that's not to say i'm telling anyone NOT to do it—again, i think azem is a great character TO push against this ideology, and i even have an ancient oc (non-azem) who does the same! i think these people absolutely existed, and were simply drowned out and ostracized by the rest of society. mostly i'm just excited to finally be able to articulate this, and i've seen people also question why the ancients are so boring, and wanted to share my thoughts in case it helps! i really like the ancients because i think they're startlingly human (to say nothing of their actual human resemblance), and i think that's so much more interesting than if they'd been super diverse and alien BECAUSE of how much it harms them as a society. super flawed characters fascinate me and make me reflect on my own choices and ideologies, and i think that's both a lot of fun and super useful just in general!

edited to add: i think there's also the mechanical element of game design, and signaling things to players. while a fictional world can be endlessly different from our own, as creators, we still need to communicate the ideas in a way people who live in our world understand. this is, for example, why i think the ancients appear human; being FROM a world where everybody's human, we immediately associate their resemblance to us as benign and unremarkable. and that's what the ancients, i think, are SUPPOSED to be, or rather, what their society has imposed as "correct". the developers using appearances that we'd see in everyday life makes us think, "oh, that's not very fantastical," which is exactly what the ancients' society wanted people TO think of each other. obviously this is a much more technical reason than the rest of this post, but i think it helps explain why they specifically are uniformly human, and not, like, uniformly purple mantis people (which would be cool and different and fantastical, hence muddying the message!).

[weirdestcornelius]

I think the way Eve and Ally are treated by the narrative is weird.

Out of character, Kc has called both of their behaviors unreasonable. i forget the exact wording but kit said something about them being non-perfect and extremely flawed, that they weren’t necessarily wholly good as people. She seems to accept that their behavior is concerning, yet when writing the comic neither of them are given any kind of punishment. No one is ever called out (except Barry telling Eve to be nice like once i think??), nobody ever thinks back on their actions and tries to change, and with the recent development that “actually Sly is totally fine with Eve bullying her!!!” It feels like theres some weird disconnect between what Kc says and what she shows us in canon.

Sorry if this doesnt make sense or is a stupid thought

- 🃏

Don't worry, it makes sense! And I completely agree.

Kc says that they are flawed people, and that they're not perfect. Which they aren't! And I feel like the fact that they're never called out for their actions could make an interesting character arc. Such as Sly finally getting tired of the way Eve treats fen and blowing up on squeak instead of staying silent forever. Or Howie telling Ally that kits anger issues are an issue and stresses him out. But nope

Kc TELLS us that Ally and Eve are flawed characters, but we don't see that. There's no conflict. Everyone bends to their will, and while again; that would be interesting for a character arc, it's painted so that Eve and Ally are always in the right. "Ally gets angry when people say aliens aren't real because of kits autism!" Is a perfectly fine way to explain why she acts like that, but it is not an excuse for her to throw such giant tantrums that put others in literal danger.

I said this before on another blog, but using your mental disorders or neurodivergence as a shield to deflect people's problems with how you behave is ignorant and childish. While it can explain why you do something, if your actions hurt others around you (mentally or physically, both are terrible) then you need to change said actions. Even if your brain is wired differently, that is not an excuse to hurt others around you.

The fact that Kc is completely ignoring all of Sly's trauma and past thoughts and actions (take her toyhouse, for example) and retconning it to be that Sly is completely fine with everything Eve does and finds it FUNNY is terrible writing at best, and sticking up the middle finger to every family trauma victim that spoke up about it. The fact that buns hides Ally behind a shield of her autism is also upsetting; autistic or neurodivergent people do not get a free pass to hurt others just because of their neurodivergence. And just because Eve has been traumatized in the past does not give her an excuse to traumatize others, and that's coming from someone who rewrote Cuddles to act that way! It doesn't excuse her actions, because squeak is continuing the cycle of trauma and Kc is glorifying it.

[theerurishipper]

I remembered seeing an old post that comparing Marinette and Chloe and how they have similar behavior. I forgot the detail but the more season I watch, the more it clicked.

They both don't think of problem as "how it affect others" it's always "how it affect me", they both think of Adrien as a property, they both also never get a "no" from their parents, now I think again. In Animaestro Marinette insist that she want to help despite her clumsyness and they end up give in with Sabine say "we should make double batch just in case".

And I think that's why Marinette is the way she is : she's good at putting boundaries but bad at respecting other boundaries, she thought if she insist enough they'll give in (and she's not wrong, almost everyone in the show end up give in to her demand/request, event Su Han) Her parents spoiled her in different way than Andre does to Chloe but in the end, they're spoiled and never/rarely get a "no" from their parents, they let them do what they want.

I wish I could say the difference between them is that Marinette has higher moral ground than Chloe but after s5 I don't know if that's valid.

Reding back now I feel bad for Adrien because those who pursue him think of him more as a property than actual person with feelings, except Kagami.

I think that's uncharitable to Marinette. She does have trouble understanding others, but it's often when she's trying to help and she always means well, it's just that she isn't good at considering others' perspectives. Chloe on the other hand doesn't care about the people she torments (I don't include Andre in this list for obvious reasons). The one exception to this is probably Sabrina, whom she likes but treats poorly regardless.

And I don't agree with the comparison between Andre and Tom and Sabine. Tom and Sabine are good parents. I don't think them agreeing to let Marinette help them is a bad thing, in fact it's good that they are allowing her such opportunities. She didn't browbeat them into anything or ask for anything that was unreasonable. Marinette's parents don't spoil her, they give her responsibilities (Timebreaker), and they do take her to task when they have to, (Simon Says). We see less of that in the future seasons, but we don't see much of her parents in general, so.

I also disagree that they think of Adrien as property. Both Marinette and Chloe think Adrien is perfect, as does almost everyone else, but they also genuinely care about him. Marinette tries to help Adrien many times throughout the show (The Collector, the New York Special, etc.) and Chloe also cares about Adrien as a person (Felix). Marinette is bad at recognizing Adrien's feelings and sometimes her crush on him overtakes that care for him (Glaciator 2), but she does care.

They can both be self-centered and can think of themselves, yes. But their reasons are entirely different. Chloe thinks about herself because she doesn't care about whether she hurts someone or not, because she considers herself better than them and derives joy from hurting them. Marinette is self-centered because she can be very anxious about things, and this can cause her to get stuck in her own head and forget to think of others. It's something she needs to work on, but she's also shown that she does try to work on it. Of course, Chloe isn't evil or anything and most of her worldview is derived from her abusive mother and her enabling father, but still.

But I will mention this:

I wish I could say the difference between them is that Marinette has higher moral ground than Chloe but after s5 I don't know if that's valid.

I do sort of agree. I harp on and on about the protagonist-centered morality that began pervading this show in Season 4, and that is once again the problem here. Marinette is not as bad as Chloe thanks to her intentions being pure and because of her willingness to grow and change, but the narrative started to justify her actions, which started getting worse. I think she can't be compared to Chloe, because the mistakes they make are different and stem from different situations and reasons, but my point that Marinette is never portrayed as being in the wrong still stands. She's the most amazing person in the world, and everyone must apologize to her.

Marinette is not a bully. She's not cruel and she's not arrogant. She's not like Chloe. But there's not just one type of mistake in the world, and Marinette is making an entirely different kind of egregious mistake by doubling down on her lying and covering for Gabriel, all after she spent a while deceiving her partner. She hasn't grown as a person, she hasn't learnt to consider other people and listen to them, she hasn't learnt not to deceive them (which is especially bad since that was the whole point of the conflict last season), she's doubled down on her flaws and her mistakes and she's gaslighting her boyfriend into loving his abuser. And the show portrays her as in the right.

(And not to be nitpicky here but I think the Season 5 finale dashed the idea that Kagami respects Adrien as a person, because she also seems to be on board with the lying and the gaslighting, so.)

I think it's not fair to compare Marinette to Chloe, but as of the Season 5 finale, she's awful in a completely different way. And honestly, I wish I could chalk it up to it being OOC for her, but it's not. She's poorly written as in she doesn't develop and is always justified, but honestly, it's not out of character for her, and so I can't even wave it away like that in my head. And she angers me more than Chloe does, because like, at least Chloe gets called out. But yeah, that's what I think.

Thank you for your ask!

[self-loving-vampire]

While on that subject, one of the stories about abuse that resonated the most with me (besides Tsukihime, which is also about a ton of other things) is the short manga titled May My Father Die Soon.

Part of this is that it avoids the "perfect victim" narrative I complained about the other night (although not to the same extent as some other characters I know).

Spoilers and discussions of child abuse (including a couple of personal things) below the cut.

Asuka is obviously the sympathetic party, but the abuse coming her way is not depicted as just random outbursts with no rhyme or reason like in some other stories. Abusers like that do exist, to be clear, but my experience was more with violence as a tool to coerce and attempt to shape behavior.

The abuser often has some kind of excuse for what they're doing. Something that helps them convince themselves that what they are doing is right and proper, maybe even necessary. It doesn't mean their behavior is good, but it means there's a logic to it that the victim comes to understand and navigate.

The first time we really witness what Asuka's home situation is like is when she neglects her chores to play video games with her sister.

Hitting children for not doing the laundry is wrong, but it is something that a lot of abusive parents would find to be justified. They think they are teaching their children discipline and virtuous behavior when they do that. They think they are preventing their children from becoming spoiled and lazy.

Sometimes people are even abused after doing things that are legitimately wrong, but this does not justify the abuse. It's a type of nuance that is missing from depictions in which the abuser is just a gleeful sadist who just hates their victim and enjoys hurting them.

A lot of these parents think they are doing the right thing and use violence as a means rather than an end. After stomping on his own daughter he refers to what he just did as "discipline" and acts as if it's just a burdensome duty he has to deal with rather than an act of violence he inflicted on an actual human being.

He is also quick to pull out the "I give you food and shelter so be eternally grateful and always obey me" card.

Which is, again, something I have heard expressed by multiple authoritarian parents both in my personal life and online. "I pay the bills so they must do everything I say" or "I am a good parent because I do the legal minimum to provide for them".

I also like how Asuka does not react to her abuse in a perfectly meek and submissive way like the "perfect victim" archetype usually does. She not only eventually contemplates patricide out of desperation but also shares her sister's anger even if she tries to put on a more "role model-like" front about it.

She hates how she's being treated, and she even lashes out against her sister and feels disgusted with herself afterwards. It's very different from the depictions where the victim only has "nice" and endearing symptoms like low self-esteem.

The scene in which she tries to get help from the law only for her to be dismissed (her father is a respected and influential person) and punished for it also carries a sort of despair that I'm very familiar with.

One of the times my mother came to sleep in my room because my father was being violent (I used to protect her from him) I naively suggested calling the police. She said it would only provoke him into potentially lethal escalation and that the police would not act unless he did something extreme, like killing or hospitalizing someone. Hearing that from an experienced lawyer would have been pretty chilling if I had not already been dissociating for years at that point, but the information and its implications sank in regardless of how I felt about it.

He was a rich business administrator and CEO considered a good and successful person in the adult world. He once even mockingly dared me to call the police on him, knowing nothing would come out of it.

The only reason I still bothered to fight back against him physically is because I did not care about myself enough not to at that time. Might as well inconvenience and hurt him if I'm fucked either way.

Her father then proceeds to draft her into his company (hey that seems like a very specific and unusual thing but it also happened to me!) in a way that further highlights the way in which his behavior is actually in accord with authoritarian parenting norms.

His reasoning is that he's not going to just give her handouts. She needs to work for a living. This sounds reasonable to a lot of people, who worry about "spoiling" their children by being too generous in providing for them without demanding effort, but here we can see the ways in which it tightens the leash.

She can't decide on her own future and is impeded in independently financing her escape because her finances are going to be dependent on him and his approval.

This is something that a lot of people actually miss when thinking about the children of abusive but wealthy parents. You don't actually have free access to your parents' resources. You have purely conditional access that relies on pleasing them and conforming to their wishes. Meanwhile, they have an increased level of reach, resources, and respectability to prevent you from escaping.

Another heartbreaking bit is how the abuse has become so life-defining for her that she doesn't really know what she wants to do with herself. The one wish she can think of is just not being abused anymore.

She is eventually forbidden from freely leaving the house entirely, and while sexually abusing her again he once again makes it explicit that he considers her property...

And when the subject of Hotaru (Asuka's younger sister) comes up, he goes on a monologue that those of us who defied authoritarian parents may be familiar with.

The whole "I have been too nice but it only made you spoiled (as proven by your defiance) so from now on I'm going to hurt and control you more" thing.

And he also drops this line.

To an authoritarian parent, disobedience of any kind to any degree is a deadly sin that must be beaten out of children as if they were dogs in training. If you read conservative parenting "experts" like James Dobson you can even find them saying this kind of thing explicitly.

I also like that Hotaru provides a different, also resonant exploration of how someone might react to abuse in addition to Asuka. Even after being hit to the point of bleeding by her father, she remains willful and tries to hold on to her own independence even if obedience would hurt less.

And, like Asuka, she's not a Perfect Victim either. She is the one who helps finish her own father off after all (after being given a lecture on rehabilitation no less). The conversation she has with her sister regarding worker ants also shows she is interested in her own autonomy and leisure to a degree that would be considered "spoiled" by a lot of people. She should aspire to be a hard worker who pleases others at the cost of her own happiness like her older sister was raised to do, right?

I especially like that she's wearing an "I love myself <3" T-shirt during the scene in which she rejects the efforts to beat her into submission as well as Asuka's recommendation to give in and obey. Kind of heavy-handed, but cute.

I also like the flashback that shows that there was once a time Asuka's parents were kind to her and she sincerely loved them.

Children are in a situation where they are strongly predisposed towards loving their parents by default and need to be loved back. It often takes a lot to change that. Some people, like Hotaru, change pretty early on while others try to cling to this need for a lot longer.

This is complicated by the fact that the parents may start out "kind" until their children start disobeying them, at which point they turn increasingly violent and controlling.

Asuka eventually realizes that she will never be truly happy if her life revolves around being her father's property. That even if she was to hollow herself out into exactly the kind of obedient doll he wants her to be she will be miserable. With no options left to escape, she becomes suicidal.

This leads to a panel that is like... pretty much straight-up an exact conversation I have had before.

"I provide. I have money that you benefit from. Your life is way better than that of poor people. You should be grateful and do everything I say." again.

Like paying the bills mean they own you and can do as they please.

It really feels like a good understanding of not just the victims involved but also of this type of abuser as well, and even now I get the impression that if I had failed to think of a plan for how to escape them my own situation could have also ended up with a murder, a suicide, or both even though I'm not a violent person at all. The desperation as all of your peaceful options are cut off is very real.

I'm really happy it did not come to that in my case, but I still did many things that a "perfect victim" would not be allowed to, like becoming manipulative and deceiving my parents for the sake of escaping. I don't feel guilty about it either, and eventually lost much of my sense of empathy (oddly, this happened after I had already gotten away).

So even though I did not actually kill my abuser I still relate to characters who end up doing that, because to me it feels like a bad ending I was this close to getting despite not really wanting that to happen.

Anyway, I feel really seen and understood by this story to a much greater degree than I do in more sanitized, black and white stories about abuse in which the victims never do anything remotely bad and the abusers are moral aberrations who just enjoy hurting people for fun.

[sweatertheman]

oh boy more ralsei thoughts, hope you like those

i see some stuff with ralsei being used for horror sometimes. i kind of get it, because ralsei IS very much unstable, but i do take issues with the execution.

one form of ralsei horror is the idea of him being "yandere." this doesn't work for me. while yes, ralsei is desperate for the love and attention of lightners (kris in particular) he thinks of himself as beneath. he is weak, his life holds no significance outside of serving a higher power, he possesses no free will, stuff like that. the idea of forcing someone to stay with him against their will, and abusing them into loving him, is something he just wouldn't do, let alone could do. while ralsei doesnt enjoy being left alone or mistreated, he's very good at crushing these feelings. all fear is buried, all resentment turned inward, all sadness distracted from. on top of this, even if ralsei lacks a developed sense of right and wrong, ralsei believes that doing harm to a lightner is one of the wrongest things he could do. in a sense, Ralsei is a Puritan. he's not a misogynist, but he believes that he and all his fellow darkners are born into a meaningless and sinful life, and that they can only find meaning and be cleansed by serving their gods. he suppresses all his individuality, and is rude to people he thinks are "bad." for ralsei to act selfishly and maliciously towards his gods would be massively out of character for him, since even thinking about doing that sort of thing would have him hating himself.

another strain of ralsei horror is... i guess eldritch horror? the idea of ralsei as a mindless puppet of a malicious entity, who does horrifying things with a sweet smile on his face, like some sort of siren luring you into a trap or something. this is inaccurate to canon ralsei, but i think it could work, since ralsei would like to be thist. he possesses free will, and is capable of doubt and regret, and he hates that. ralsei's ideal self is perfect and obedient, never doing wrong by whatever higher power he follows (lightners or the prophecy), doesn't think, doesn't doubt, and is always happy. whether or not the power he serves is malicious, ralsei would absolutely choose to become a mindless drone if he could, and even when he possesses free will, he encourages others to pursue this as well, and this is where the horror comes from. one day you might see him and he's not himself anymore, and he might try and make you like that too. even then, even as just himself, there's a demon inside him that wants him to destroy himself and become an empty husk that serves obediently, a demon placed there by trauma, broken ideology, and fantasical narrative. he's effectively been brainwashed, and the horror comes from the idea that one day he might fully succumb to that. it doesn't help that this ideology literally tells him "being obedient to lightners is the only way to be happy."

sorry if these thoughts are disjointed.

as a finshing note, mindless drone ralsei WOULD imprison and manipulate you on orders from a higher power, because he's incapable of deeper connection or internal conflict. if you didnt want to obey the prophecy, he might lock you up until you agree to help, but at the same time he'd be smothering you with love and affection and indoctrinating you into his cult, because you're a lightner. and that's legitimately scary. normal ralsei wouldn't do that, especially not now, since he's growing as a person. he likes and cares about kris and susie beyond them being lightners and delta warriors. he wouldnt want to lock them up, and even if he tried to indoctrinate them, he'd feel guilty and ashamed over it, and he'd care that they were upset with him. mindless drone ralsei wouldn't feel conflicted, because under his rigid programming, he hasn't done anything wrong. he's treating the lightners well, and even if they're upset with him, he's ultimately doing the right thing because the prophecy is the ultimate moral good, and he's just helping them onto the right path.

[ilikekidsshows]

Hello, I have a couple Adrien-related questions I'd love to get your thoughts on, if you don't mind? I'll send the other separately, but for now: 1. In your opinion, how does one differentiate between Adrien's trauma response and him more generally being kind, forgiving, etc.? Not to create a false dichotomy, but I figured you might have some interesting insight.

2. At the end of season 5 Adrien is saying things like "Marinette and I are forever" and "I'm angry at myself for falling short of [her] love". I initially interpreted this as a sign that the boy needs therapy, for his own wellbeing (and I mean that in the best way possible). Things like Plagg responding with "forever!?" told me this was intentional, that the writing team is aware and will address it one day. But now I have my doubts, that it's just supposed to be "romantic." Thoughts?

And I'm sorry, but one more thing to add to my second question: they go out of their way to show things beyond his control preventing him from telling Marinette about London (Marinette interrupting him, Chloe interrupting him, etc.). It seems like the narrative isn't really blaming him, then? For struggling to tell her? Unless I misinterpreted. But regardless this was another thing that, at least initially, led me to believe the writers were intentional in writing his trauma response.

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I’ll preface this by stating that I’m not the originator of the “Adrien’s fawning is a response to abuse” reading, so this might not cover all there is to it, but here’s my take: it's about how Adrien responds specifically to himself being wronged and how it differs from the way he acts in other conflict situations.

I'll use a comparison to illustrate. Adrien doesn't react to Chloé's behavior the same way he does to Gabriel's and Ladybug's. This is the key difference between thinking “Adrien is just nice/forgiving” and “this reaction has been conditioned through abuse”. Adrien can talk back to Chloé, disagree with her vehemently and will hold his ground even when she doesn't want to budge. Adrien also doesn't make excuses for her because he can admit she's in the wrong. Even when Chloé pushes his boundaries, like trying to kiss him, Adrien can enforce said boundaries by pulling away or pushing her back.

Meanwhile, with Gabriel and Ladybug, Adrien doesn't feel safe in arguing back. He used to do so with Ladybug, but the more unreasonable she's become, the more he backs down. Furthermore, even when he doesn't think the way he’s being treated is right, he makes excuses for Gabriel and Ladybug. “My father is busy”, “you were perfect, as you always are” are things Adrien has to tell himself so that he doesn't have to say: “they don't care about how I feel”. Attempting to enforce his own boundaries with these people almost every time leads to those boundaries being crossed anyway, and that's when Adrien bothers to even try.

As for the second part, I’ve been wondering similar things, and the wisemen of the groupchat have come to the consensus that someone in the writing team knows what they're doing, but they have to go with what Astruc wants in terms of the big picture so that the working environment doesn't become unbearable. Astruc ghosted and blocked a friend he liked so much he based a character on them when they agreed with some criticism of the show. Imagine being employed under this man, and trying to tell him his main romance is toxic and both parties need therapy. Yeah.

There are so many throwaway lines in Miraculous that acknowledge how unhealthy and blatantly wrong the things depicted in it are, that the story at large ignores. It honestly feels like someone on staff is sneaking that stuff in to give the audience at least a minor cue that what they're seeing isn't fine even as Astruc insists it is and carries on like it is. So, basically, someone on the writing team is aware of it, but it still won't ever get addressed because Astruc is ignoring the issues.

As for the “things beyond Adrien's control stopping him” part, that's the metaphorical tower. The writers have called Adrien the “princess in the tower”, and the show gets in on this association with the princess/knight Adrinette imagery. Adrien isn't being blamed for the tower he’s trapped in because Marinette will save him. Can't save him from something that's his own fault, so, for once, Adrien doesn't get victim blamed.