#and then i see people disliking seeing female characters get away with being shitty and i just don’t get why?? the male characters in fandom

[thechosenthree]

love people being judgy about traumatized teenage girls lying and making bad decisions on the lying and making bad decisions show :/

[spotlightlowlife]

Leave aces the hell alone

if you haven't realised, the title's a pun, there's a little jest but just a little

If this show wants to sex, ships and 'it's complicated' to be it's main focus to the point of drowning out the plot and stripping away the tiny nuisance it once had, OK, can't speak for myself but enough people seem to be enjoying things this way.

But leave the aces out of it.

Let's not pretend they're not vilified for existing, having a life and interests.

The "cockblocking" child whose rare screentime takes away from her daddies mlm proship, simply for daring to want her dad to follow through on their plans

and the 'ugly who nobody wants to fuck' (particularly trashy statement since he's ace and doesn't want to fuck neither) fat guy who runs a business but working for him (or just working) takes away from the other leading mlm ship. He's pretty much a banker too, we all hate them don't we?

Factor in that Stella and Striker 'wouldn't attend' pride parade so were excluded, dispite being highly relevant characters who we have seen a number of times (unlike Stella's bro and the red birdman yet to be introduced).

One comically called out all the sex a few times and the other is a victim of child marriage made to become a teenage mother yet managed a totally unheard of, social life.

Like Octavia and Mammon, both seem to have interests and some major purpose in the plot, dispite being side characters.

Like Mammon and Octavia, both get in the way of a leading mlm ship, dispite being side characters.

Like Octavia and Mammon, they have good reasons fo their interactions.

Yet alas, homophobia is implied for Stella and Striker, then ace is branded on Mammon and Octavia, the 'perfect explanation' for them to be a problem., only aces generally be minding their own business yet catch strays from those who feel judged by that one lack of common interest. Sex is used as a solution, a power and a major part of the personality within the helluverse so yes, it matters that these characters who have other things going on and get in the way of 'romance' have their own orientation, lack of or apparent dislike of put on blast.

I personally find the shipping very shallow and don't believe the LGBTQ rep is any good in this show, the best rep easily being Moxxie who was an ordinary someone dating another ordinary someone who hurt him, who happened to be another guy, no somehow rubbing shoulders with powerful but neutered or retconned immortal royalty and then becoming 'the one', just an ordinary shitty relationship between a well meaning person and a user that was a mistake in hindsight, now this latest relationship is (Millie's character is Moxxie's fangirl) just fine.

Aces should be easy to represent simply by letting them exist! Be their own personality without the need for someone else to fill in the other half slot, but no, bad representation from those who can't fathom the not caring for sex or sexual relationships has to worm it's way into something that should literally be nothing.

Dare a child whose orientation or lack of we don't even need to know, who seems reasonable want to see the stars with her dad, an interest he clearly instilled in her. The greedy entrepreneur acts a greedy entrepreneur, in other news bears shit in the woods. Both these pest third wheels share something in common? Not gonna to get it?

If only these picked on characters hadn't been used to represent already picked on asexuals, there would pretty much just be the bland female sexual representation to critique.

[transgressivegirlification]

sorta. learning how to separate my gender from how other people perceive and treat me. that and separating my gender identity from gender performance and the idea that i have to DO anything or have any specific trait to be a woman

i dunno. if gender describes your relationship to society and your relationship to your body and sex characteristics, then there is an expectation to perform specific roles based on your relationship to your body, which is pretty wierd and we could probably do without that. so, i guess in that sense, im a gender abolitionist

i don’t consider myself a woman because i was assigned female at birth, i consider myself a woman because it describes my relationship to my body. i don’t consider my (de)transition a return because i don’t remember what it was like to live as someone who was perceived as a girl and i’ve never been perceived as a woman, just a feminine trans person (and only online, offline i’m treated as an autistic cis man) so i’m having to figure out what my womanhood means to me for the first time instead of having it just given to me or something i had at some nebulous ~before~

but it’s. i don’t think being a woman means you have to be feminine in any meaning of the word. i don’t think i have to be seen as a woman to be one. i don’t even think i have to dislike masculine terms being used for me. i also don’t think that not conforming to the expected presentations of my gender makes me nonbinary. (nb people are chill i am just tired of being degendered in trans* spaces and having people making a big deal over my gender/pronouns because i don’t “look like” my gender)

i’m just a woman with a deep voice and body hair and broad shoulders and facial hair and an adam’s apple and a strong brow. i’m just a woman that wears clothing made for men and who wears binders instead of bras most of the time. i’m just a woman who wears makeup only once or twice a year and who doesn’t do anything centered around anti-aging. none of that makes me less of a woman, it just makes me less feminine which is fine

femininity is nice but a lot of it is either based on making women more consumable to men or just isn’t ideal for a construction worker. like. i love lolita fashion but it is not remotely osha approved. i can barely get away with tying my jacket around my waist lmafo

and i mean. i like men. 90% of my coworkers are men and i generally fuck with them. i’m also promised to a man who is my priority in life.

but at the same time, i’m not going to go out of my way to be appealing to men or even think about it in my day to day life because i’m a person who enjoys men, not a perfume ad. yeah i dress up for dates and enjoy when my promised finds me attractive but being desirable isn’t the same as being consumable. when i perform femininity for my promised, he enjoys the show but sees me as an actor instead of a character if that makes sense?

i dunno. i love being feminine in over the top ways that make me feel powerful and confident but it’s… a lot to do outside of the context of conventions (shout out to conventions for giving me a way to explore new presentations in public without being afraid of getting hate crimed fr)

i guess for me it feels wierd to be a woman almost exclusively attracted to men because so much of how people talk about wlm is centered around the man’s attraction to the woman or the woman making herself attractive to the man when i center myself in my attraction to men. i generally don’t think about making myself attractive to a man i’m not actively going on a date with, i think about what i want to do to him and what he could do for me. yeah it’s a little selfish but nobody’s complained yet B;)

tl;dr: i’m still a woman when i fulfill male stereotypes. femininity as a way to feel powerful, pretty, and/or desirable is nice. femininity as a set of rules pushed on women for the purpose of centering men’s consumption and dehumanization of women in their expression of feminine womanhood is shitty

[utilitycaster]

I find the argument of "you dislike this thing about Vex/Jester, therefore you hate Laura's choices" to be valid when it comes to the actual campaigns where nobody else has influence over her characters. However, I find it pretty dumb to claim the same when it comes to how TLoVM is adapting Vex. Not bc I think Laura had no input, I'm sure she did, but the reality is there are 11 other executive producers of TLoVM besides her, at least two of which have a much greater influence over how things

get adapted, plus other directors and writers of individual episodes and in such a sea of voices I'm not gullible enough to believe every little thing Vex does or says was explicitly approved by Laura or that she's the only one who had input. Regardless, we have no clue which decisions were explicitly made by her during the adaptation process and which were made by other producers. We do know her her choices during the campaign and many of them don't line up with TLoVM's depiction of Vex.

----

I do, in fact, think that it's dumb to assume that Laura (and specifically Laura; I'm not seeing this sort of statement about anyone else despite changes to their characters as well) does not have some kind of final say. She may not write every single change, but I do think that she would approve anything significant. Maybe you don't. That's fine; I suspect neither of us have ever been in a writer's room so I'm going off of "this is what I get the sense of from the watch party discussions, and also, the cast as a whole has always been a far better steward of the female characters on CR than the fandom, which generally sands them into something flat and all-too-palatable or else throws them away for falling in love with the wrong person."

Many of her choices don't line up with TLOVM's depiction of Vex. This is true. That's not a bad thing. This is an adaptation. There are changes. They have much less time to work with. I do not personally find the changes that were made alter my fundamental understanding of Vex's character, and I think they made sense given those changes, ie, the timing when they went to the Feywild, the differences in Syldor's behavior and that this was their first and not second meeting in adulthood, the fact that she was involved with the Slayer's Take when younger (which no one seemed to take issue with in my inbox despite that also being a significant change, so I think it's pretty dumb to focus on the fact that there are significant changes rather than consider why changes were made and what they are), and the differences in Vax's arc, with which hers is fundamentally intertwined. I also think that they are less significant than many people think, because they're going off their memories of the character, which sand her down into, at least per the anon I deleted, some shitty sassy 90s girl power fantasy archetype.

Regardless, it's fine if you don't like it, but I'm enjoying her depiction.

[domreader-headcannon-scenarios]

This might seem like a pretty out of the blue question but, how do you feel about characters that, due to trauma or a bad past, act very aggressive and/or distant to hide their fear of being hurt again?

I'm asking because, in addition to characters from series like Black Butler (Ciel), Vanitas no Carte (Vanitas) and TWST, a lot of people tend to ignore their pain just to focus on how bad of a person they are/were.

I was reading a Chinese manhua I borrowed from my friend at her place, and the main female is a girl who acts aggressive and has a short temper but it turns out that she's trapped in an unhealthy and abusive relationship with a man who's obsessed with trying to bring back his dead wife. Why is it abusive? The man makes her wear a pendant that he monitors her with, uses emotional and psychological abuse and manipulation, gaslighting, threats of r*pe and murder to control the girl's life and keep her as his bodyguard for fuck knows how long. All the while, he sleeps with and steals the souls of several people, convinced that his wife would forgive him for his infidelity (?) and cruelty.

According to my friend, a lot of people who read the manhua dislike the girl because, aside from her temper and bluntness, she slapped the main protagonist for trying to help her (he said "I'm here to help you. Stop acting like this." which triggered some bad memories. He meant no harm, mind you.) even after learning of her relationship with the man, saying stuff like "She's a powerful mage, isn't she? She'll be fine." or "She shouldn't have slapped him. This is her karma for acting bitchy."

So as someone with severe trauma and a lot of fucking issues, there is SO MUCH to unpack here if I get into detail so lemme put this here

Ok, so I don’t mean this to offend/upset anyone, and let me say, everyone responds to trauma differently, the brain isn’t programmed to handle lifelong trauma which can lead to acting out or doing odd things as trauma affects the mental state of an individual

Trauma actually is proven to mentally age children people far faster as it forces them to ‘grow’ faster (ex: Ciel, Jamil, Riddle) which can have a huge impact on their life (almost never good)

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If you act aggressive as an adult and hurt people, it doesn’t matter the trauma, you don’t have an excuse to hurt others physically or mentally, you are an adult, how you acts is on YOU. I’m told I’m overly nice (especially for someon whose literally died briefly and was physically/mentally abused for my entire child hood)

In childhood acting out with violence is common especially when uncomfortable or scared is normal and expected as they have no controlling their emotions.

Adults are different, irl im distant for dozens of reasons but I don’t take it out on people, and yes I’ve verbally gotten aggressive when accidentally (or intentionally) triggered by someone but I have a brain so I know to fucking apologize since trauma doesn’t excuse such inappropriate behavior.

For instance, I have trauma that some of characters above have, and less than others but I HATE seeing people use it to excuse shitty behavior (Twst is a HUGE example of this)

People react differently to trauma, that’s normal but once your an adult, do know you are responsible for your own decisions, for what YOU do. For instance, that woman from a manhua (idk what that is/ hadn’t read) has no right to physically slap another individual (especially one openigly stating they are tryna help) she could have fucking said ‘no’ or ‘go away’ or WALKED AWAY. Honestly she’s just making me dislike her based on that (like what was the trigger? I obviously don’t know the situation but it just seems like she wanted to take out frustrations on him)

I’ve been r*ped, beaten/abused, neglected, etc. for 23 YEARS NOW (OBVIOUSLY NOT FIR EVERY SECOND BUT STILL). How many people have I hit because of it? 0 (minus the ‘trigger’ I had while I was defending myself once but it did nothing, actually made things worse) how many people have I yelled at? A fuck ton. How many did I apologize to? Almost all of them.

I don’t give a shit when you yell at people in an argument but know this, you’re trauma doesn’t excuse what you say and due, it’s a fucking burden you’re stuck with , that has no upside. Yelling/attacking people is turning you into the monster and making others miserable and guess fucking what? OTHER PEOPLE CAN HAVE TRAUMA. What if you just fucking lashed out at someone more broken than you? You feel good now?

Lashing out isn’t a good option, she didn’t deserve what happened to her, but she has no excuse for harming the hero AT ALL, trauma isn’t an excuse to attack others to help yourself, yes when scared you want to fight but, APOLOGIZE... What, did she think hurting him would stop everyone who will and has ever existed from asking her the same thing? What if that hero has trauma and had a breakdown? Is that still ‘ok’ for her to do? No not unless it’s her abuser.

Like with that girl, aside from being resurrected and a husband, I’ve been through all the trauma she has since I was a young child (actually a lil more since there’s a LOT I’ve been through she hasn’t but I’m younger). And I’ve felt with it, so many time since then and I have breakdown often. I’ve had people who remind me of my abusive father whose almost killed me more times than I can count and I have literally permanent injuries from.

It’s ok to hurt but it’s not ok to hurt others(without concent), I know I sound like a broken record but it’s important to remember to an extent you can control your trauma, get therapy or have someone you trust who you can talk to about your feels.

Basically it’s ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ that will cause more issues and fix nothing

If someone slapped me for ASKING if they were ok, I’d fucking panic and cry, running the fuck away and avoid that person till I fucking die. Like. You hurt me for asking if you were ok. That’s not ok under any circumstances what the fuck? I’d rather die in a ditch than talk to you…at least the ditch won’t hurt me.

It’s just, so BAD to hurt someone over a circumstance like that, unless he racked her to the ground or smn that physical violence is uncalled for completely.

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[f1carsgovroomvroom]

How to ruin a friendship

Pairing: Max Verstappen x Celine (female) - his girl best friend that also works for his PR team

Word count: 6.9k

Warnings: as requested by a few anons, it has a bit of smut.

Note: I will probably write a part 2 to this. Max was quite a big request but also a Max x character x Charles was requested so I might get Charles into the Max X Celine mix 😂

Sometimes the headlines and stories that the media comes up with, just simply drive me crazy. Being close friends with a famous person, always makes you realise that the actual articles that end up on most websites are just full of bullshit. 
Being friends with a guy that a lot of people have a strong dislike for, makes you realise that they run for the new title that validates people and their shitty opinions. In my case, I am friends with Max Verstappen. The guy that is told to have stolen the world championship from the big Lewis Hamilton, the guy that had to apparently crash into him and so on. What they do not know is that he worked for every single day, most of his life to get where he is. Most drivers in F1 do but people just fail to see it.


When I became friends with him, I didn’t even know anything about the sport, didn’t know him and he didn’t know me either but that did not stop him from helping me, after a paparazzi knocked me out with their camera. Max took it on himself and took me to the hospital, as I was bleeding. One thing lead to another and we realised that from certain points of view we are similar. Our awkwardness when we are in public, to our stupid jokes and uncontrollable laugh. The one thing that differentiated us was the fact that I was scared to drive any car on this planet, but he was doing that as a full time job. Months and months later, he actually helped me get a job with his team, part of his PR, to improve his image and if the thought of shitty articles was already annoying me, knowing pretty much everything Max was up to but people still finding bad things to post about, really annoyed me. Part of me being annoyed was that most of them were untrue and some of the ones that had a bit of truth in them, were taken completely out of context just to make Max look bad.


2022 season is set to be different, they call this the comeback of Ferrari, which Max is not worried about, he is excited. One of his longest rivals, Charles Leclerc is driving for Ferrari and Max enjoys their fights more than any other fights. They are respectful of each other but they push each other to the limits, but now, as they have grown up, they do not cause “inchidents” and they do not even touch each other’s cars during the races. The first half of the season was good, Max’s image improving a bit, with ups and downs but the fight he has with Leclerc has made the media concentrate on their relationship, their past, their fights. It’s no news that the media loves them and the fans adore the mutual respect and excitement when the other one does well. 
My phone lands on the sofa, after I threw it. Max being a few centimetres away from where it went.


“These journalists just twist every single word that come out of your mouth or Leclerc’s mouth. Apparently you’re due to have a really bad second of the season because you both will crash into one another, allowing Hamilton to win.” Frustration ran through my veins instead of blood. 
Max snorted. “God, do they not have any new shit to make up? Charles and I are not going to crash. We very much enjoy being on the track at the same time. If Hamilton wants to get his 8th world championship, he will need to fight with us, but Charles and I will not take each other out, that’s for sure.” 
Max often referred to Charles as “Charles” and Lewis Hamilton as “Hamilton”. You could tell by the way he spoke which one was the friendly rival and which one left a mark on him after the toxic rivalry and toxic fights during the races. Max still respected Hamilton, he looked up to him growing up because he was a good driver, as Max often said to the media. Just because he lost to him last year, did not make him any less worthy of the 7 championships he had behind him. What Max disliked was the inferiority he felt quite often when it came to him. That’s why he enjoyed Charles. Charles, as talented as F1 drivers can be, knew his worth, knew how good he was but he also allowed other people to see their own worth without making it about himself. Max was similar to him from this point of view. The only thing Max and Charles were very different in, was the way the media pictures them.


Max is often the bad person, the aggressive driver, the ruthless man that would do anything to win. Charles, on the other hand, is the sweet, little boy that no one should hurt. They are as aggressive when it comes to racing and they are as willing to sacrifice anything to get to the top of that podium. 
Is it something bad? No, I adore their determination more than anything. I always find them completely fascinating, because they have so much motivation and so much drive, that nothing can stay between them and their dreams.


“We will need to work on a way to say that they are full of bullshit without saying rude words. Sometimes they even make me wanna go up there and just completely destroy them.” 
Max snorted once again. “Yes, because a girl, excuse me, a woman who is just a bit taller than 150cm can actually scare this stupid people.” 
I rolled my eyes. “Max, stop pretending like my height takes away the actual strength I have.” 
“True, you’ve been working out with me for a few months now and now you can just about open the jars of pickles.” Max kept his eyes on his phone, scrolling.


“Could I ask what you’re looking at so curiously?” Most of the time I knew what he was up to, but lately he’s been a bit more secretive about his phone. 
“Just things. Nothing about racing or that could affect my reputation, Miss Fixing The Max Verstappen.” His eyes were glued to that screen so I got nearer and tried to have a quick look but he locked the screen immediately. 
“Are you seeing someone?” I asked, actually needing to know that for my job. 
“Of course not, God. I just messaged Charles for the first time ever.” Max said so proudly. “I’ll hang out with him when we are both in Monaco. Let these media dickheads eat their words.” 
“I like that. A friendly dinner, you guys having fun will shut up all these ugly rumours.” He was actually thinking about this more than I anticipated.


“You’re joining us.” Max said calmly, but the one thing he forgot was the fact that I freak out the second Charles enters the room. 
If I had a few minutes that I wish I could forget, they would probably be the ones that I met Charles for the first time. I watched F1 a bit for Max, but never really watched it. We became closer and I started watching it every now and then, but it was just the race, occasionally watching the interviews with Max. I saw Charles on TV a few times but never actually paid attention but him entering a room and seeing him, you actually understand why the media portraits him as this perfect little boy. He literally is that in terms of looks. He is not little, he is a lot taller than me, but his looks just say “soft”. Is he soft? No. I have seen some of the fights between him and Max and heard many stories. They are as aggressive as each other.


“No fucking way.” I said, shutting Max down. 
“Still not over your crush?” Max snorted, but this time it actually turned into a laugh. 
“Shut up, Max. It’s not a crush.” It was a little crush.
“He still remembers you not being able to talk but he believed that you are a big fan so no big deal. Just get used to it. There is gonna be a lot of good publicity between him and I.” Max actually put his phone on the sofa and looked at me. 
“Okay, you actually do have a good point. I just cannot find a way to excuse my behaviour, or probably said, the lack of words I was suffering, when we first met.” I rolled my eyes, remembering every detail of that day. Since then I avoided him like he was a bad disease. 
“He honestly told me once that I should get new people in PR because they are all Ferrari fans. He knows you’re a good friend of mine, too and he also knows that you’re coming out with us. We did wonder if it would look like an attempt to make things look better, but the entire internet knows you’re a good friend of mine. It just seems logical for you to hang out with me if you’re stuck in Monaco because of me. We thought everything through.”


“Does he remember me?” Max nodded. “Does he.....know my name?” Max snorted but still nodded. “Okay. That could mean 2 things—“ 
“Don’t you dare overthink this. He knows your name because you’re my friend and you’re in my team. That’s it. Miss Celine, please can you chill for a few minutes? Charles is a human being.” 
“No way. Is he?” I said sarcastically. 
“Yes, he does not bite, but he sometimes pushes people off the track. Actually, he only does that with me.” 
Max continued to make jokes related to Charles and I ended up agreeing to going with them and also admitting that I am still completely embarrassed about that reaction I had when I met him for the first time.

Two weeks later

It was getting closer to the end of the summer break. Max has gone quite low profile for the last few days which was good but also bad. That also meant the engagement he got from his followers went down but the dinner with Charles was tonight and that would probably attract some attention. My plans were to look as casual as possible but they chose a fancy restaurant that has a dress code so I had to go shopping to get a dress that would match. 
The dress I picked looked perfect. It was the perfect length to make me look a bit taller. It stopped just above my knees and the fit of the dress just accentuated my curves, which I used to be insecure about but I learnt to love every aspect of my body in the recent months. The only thing I have not thought through properly was the fact that the dress had a zipper and I might’ve been stuck in my room for 30 minutes trying to get the dress on. 
“Celine, are you ready?” Max’s voice sounded annoyed but him asking me the same question 10 times in the last 15 minutes just made me mad.


“Max, I cannot get the dress on.” I said frustrated, on the verge of crying because I just couldn’t cope with this situation right now. 
Max opened the door furiously. “God damn it, what is the problem with the dress?” 
I turned to him, annoyed with the fact that he didn’t even knock on the door.
“Oh, yes, Max. Please enter. No problem. The zipper will not close. I cannot reach.” I said, trying to remain as calm as possible so we do not end up fighting. 
“Let me help then. You should’ve asked me instead of making me wait this long. “ He rolled his eyes and turned me around. 
He pushed my hair off my back to the front, to make sure it doesn’t catch in the zipper and his fingers brushed against the skin of my back. I had to hold my breath to not allow it to bother me, but my skin got Goosebumps all over already. 
“You’ve got cold hands.” I lied.


“Sorry, next time I will make sure to warm them up.” He said sarcastically. But my mind just went to ‘next time’ part, which there will not no next time. 
The dress was now completely on and Max looked in the mirror in front of us, from behind me. 
“You look beautiful.” His hands on my shoulders, burning my skin. 
I was unsure what got into me to feel this way but I brushed the feeling off and turned to face him. 
“Well, I will need to arrange your shirt before you leave. You look like you forgot how to button up a shirt.” I rolled my eyes and started to button up the few buttons he left undone. 
His hands caught mine stopping them. 
“No need, I wanted this look.” 
I snorted. “Leave one or two open, not 4. You look like a drunk man after 3 nights out.” His laugh filled the room and it suddenly felt like a small room. “I know you want to impress Charles, but I don’t think he is interested in you in that way.” A little wink that I tried to pull off, just made him laugh even harder. 
The feelings that took me by surprise earlier were now a part of the past but still bothering me. I have been around Max enough to know myself and to know him, but somehow, the last few days they felt weird. 
The drive to the restaurant was quite long and we were both back in the back seat of the car Max ordered.


“Try to make conversation with Charles tonight and don’t make it awkward.” He looked at me and even though it was getting darker outside and the car was quite dark, I could see him staring at me. 
“I understood that, please stop repeating the same thing over and over again. I will not declare my undying love for him.” 
Max raised an eyebrow. “Undying love?” His voice was somehow filled with disgust but I knew it couldn’t be that.


“It’s just a way of saying it. Obviously it’s not that.” I rolled my eyes. “Stop being too serious, it doesn’t suit you.” 
The rest of the car ride was quiet with little to no chat. When we got there, the fans quickly spotted Charles and Max, which was good. 
“This way.” Max said, and grabbed me by my wrist. It felt like I was his kid or little sister. 
When we sat down, Charles eyes travel down my dress but not in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, he was always very subtle and polite. 
“You look incredible tonight, Celine.” His compliment made me blush and I knew I was as red as a Ferrari car because I could feel my cheeks burning. 
“Thank you!” It was the best I could get out of my mouth.
His smile was the sweetest thing on this planet, literally making everything better. We looked at the menu and decided to all order the same dish, not sure how that happened but apparently we all have similar taste in food and apparently we all adore Italian food.


“Max, I forgot to say that I’m glad we are doing this. It was unexpected for me to receive that text from you, but this is actually fun.” 
Seeing Max’s and Charles’s friendship bloom was actually an interesting thing and they just chatted about old races, first race together in F1, childhood memories and they just seemed to have wanted to be this close for a long time. 
“Celine.” Charles voice filled the silence at the table. “Tell us about you. Or probably just me because Max probably knows you well.” 
Max laughs. “Too well.” I looked at Max trying to seem angry but we both laughed. 
“I’m not quite sure what to say. There is nothing that interesting about me.” 
Charles continued to ask questions, from the most basic ones to the ones that I did not expect him to even go there. He asked about my parents and my family in general, curious how I made Max be so close to me.
After the conversations we all took some selfies to post on Instagram. 
“Celine, can I have your Instagram account? I will follow you so I can tag you.” Charles’s eyes were on his phone but Max looked at me. 
“It’s Celinedodd.”


Charles typed it in and followed me straight away. I looked at Max that felt completely uncomfortable with the situation.
“I’ll follow you too, that would be a good start for us to seem friends.” Max said to Charles. 
They both laughed and seconds later they both followed each other and pictures were posted.
Neither of them was doing it just to prove it to the public or the fans, they both enjoyed their night but if they could use that excuse to just have dinner so they can start being friends, can I even judge them? 
Another bottle of wine was started and the waitress poured all of us another glass.
“She will probably want a soda or some fresh juice.” Said Max as soon as the waitress got closer to pour a glass of wine for me.
“I will have another glass of wine, actually.” The waitress poured me a glass of wine and Max waited for her to leave. 
“You’ll get drunk, you can hardly handle alcohol on a good day.” Max argued and I knew he was right but the wine was good and I felt completely fine. 
“She has trustworthy company, let her drink.” Charles said taking my side. 
“She is crazy when she is drunk. She does not shut up for a second, she goes completely insane and starts dancing. It’s not about the trustworthy company, but I had to take her home and spend the night in the same house.” 
“MAX” I said, giving him an expressive look. “Stop embarrassing me. I only got drunk once.” 
“Once was enough.”


Charles laughed at us. “You’re funny, Max is like a big brother protecting his little sister.” 
“I know, right? I always tell him he treats me like a little girl that is either his sister or daughter.” I rolled my eyes and we both laughed but Max just looked annoyed, which is very unlike him. 
Nothing bothers Max generally speaking. He used to get quite annoyed with the journalists asking him all sorts of stupid questions but he even learnt to keep his calm in those situations. 
I removed myself a bit from the chat and let them take over. It was fascinating listening to the two of them. An hour later we all three got up to leave. Some fans were out of the restaurant waiting for them to take pictures and asking them if Charles is moving to Redbull. It was crazy what people’s imagination was actually like. 
Before we left, Charles shook Max’s hand and he kissed me on the cheek. 
“It was a nice night. I would like to do this again.” Charles said as he took a few steps down after kissing me.


“You should come over to my flat and we could play some PlayStation.” Max said to Charles. 
“That sounds like a good idea. Are you free tomorrow?” 
“Yes, I’ll send you my address and feel free to drop by whenever.” 
Our car pulled up and we got inside the car. I opened my emails just to see what has come through and just answering a few messages on WhatsApp from my family. 
“So, now you have flirted with the Charles Leclerc.” Max said out of nowhere in the car. 
“What?” I laughed, not actually understanding the flirting part. 
“Come on, that was flirting from both sides, I saw it.” 
“Max, I’m not sure what you saw, but you didn’t see it right.” I said, locking my phone and putting it next to me. “I was being friendly.” 
He got closer to me and kissed my cheek but making the kiss very long, almost too long. 
“We’ve been friends for a long time now and I never kissed you on the cheek before. Maybe we should start doing that?” 
He got back to his seat, near the window on the opposite side of the car. My heart was beating as fast as the second he got close enough to kiss my cheek. 
I tried to laugh normally but I felt like the air in my lungs vanished. 
“Sure, if that’s what will make you understand that nothing from my interaction with Charles was flirting.” 
I got closer to Max and wanted to play the same game, so I kissed his cheek. For the first time I got an actual reaction from him. Something other than indifference or just the joy he has after winning a race. 
He cleared his throat. “Alright then.” 
I wanted to push to see more of his reactions but I knew we were playing with fire after we both have a significant amount of alcohol.


We got in front of the building and got the lift. I searched for my keys in my bad and when we got to the door I tried to unlock it but the key got stuck. Max tried to help but for some reason it was just not working. He took the key out and got his one out of his pocket. 
“Let’s get you another key tomorrow, I don’t want you locked out of the apartment while you’re here. Or take my key for now, you leave the house more than me.” 
He grabbed my keys from me but I pulled them back. 
“It’s okay. I want my key ring.”
Max pulled them gently enough from my hand to not hurt me and looked at the key ring. It was the key ring that he gave me with the whole welcoming pack when I joined his team. 
He took the keyring and put it around the other key and gave it to me.


“If you see a place to get another copy, please make a few copies so we have some.” Max said to me and then headed to his room. 
When I got to my room, I had to sit on the bed, still slightly tipsy from the wine I had but realisation hit me. I will need Max’s help to get out of this dress. 
I went to his door and knocked. 
“Come in.” Max shouted. I entered the bedroom and he was already in his pyjamas shorts. “Are you not getting changed?” 
“Um, I have a problem.” I said but my voice betraying me. “I cannot undo the zipper.” I gave him an awkward smile. 
He snorted. “I should’ve known. Come here.” He dropped his phone on the bed and came behind me. Moving my hair once again to the side, but this time slower than when he helped me get ready, his hand slowly brushing my skin and then reaching for the zipper. 
“I think it’s stuck.” He put his hands on my waist and made me move so my back was in the light. 
He slowly pulled the zipper down, his fingers touching every single part of my skin that was revealed by the zipper being more open. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck and the combination of his skin on mine, just made me lose my mind. The red wine got to my head. Maybe Max was right about not drinking anymore. 
I hold the dress in place at the front with my hand and when the zipper was low enough, I just pulled away from his touch.


“I can do it from here.” I said and rushed to get to the door so I can go to my room. 
The moment I entered my room I took a deep breath. I must be going insane. 
I took the dress off and changed into a pyjama too and decided to go to get a glass of water to make sure I will not have a headache tomorrow. 
I poured one for Max and knocked on his door again. He shouted once again for me to come inside and I left the glass of water on his bedside table while he was playing a video game. 
“Drink the glass of water before sleep so you don’t have a headache tomorrow because we’ve got the training session in the morning.” 
Max nodded and did not even look at me. 
I went back to my room, had my glass of water but still remembered the way his skin felt on mine. Making me imagine things I should not think of when it comes to my guy best friend. 
I must’ve been single for too long and that’s the reason why, so there was no other way to fix this stupid feeling that I got with Max than to make myself feel better and get over it.


I turned off the light, took off the pyjama bottoms and my underwear and went under my blanket. 
I let my hand travel down my stomach, between my legs and the moment I reached the sensitive part I let a quiet moan come out. I haven’t done this for a long time, not being home, having to work so much did really affect this part of my life. Dating and sex. 
I increased my speed, trying to think of anything else but all I could picture was Max kissing me, touching me, claiming me. 
I wanted to moan his name but I knew it was wrong so I just kept quiet until the door of my bedroom was suddenly open. 
It was too late to pretend I was asleep and it was too late to make it look like anything else. 
“Oh fuck, sorry. I should’ve knocked.” Max went out of the room immediately and shut the door. 
Well, fuck. Another embarrassing thing to think of at night.


I quickly put my clothes on and went to see where he was. I didn’t even get the chance to wash my hands. 
“Max?” I said looking for him in the living room. 
“Yes.” Max said from the kitchen. He was pacing around. 
“Sorry, it was…” I tried to put more words together but my embarrassment took over but then I remembered he did not knock. “This is the reason I want you to knock. I need my privacy. I am an adult and you know, people have needs.” 
I still wanted to have the ability to vanish but trying to put it more on him than on me will take a bit of the pressure. 
“Sorry, I forgot. I didn’t see anything anyway.” He said quickly and obviously he didn’t. I was under the blanket. 
“But the actual fact that you know what I’m doing bothers me.” I said trying to seem more angry than embarrassed. 
“It’s no big deal.” He kept a calm voice. 
“It is for me. I don’t want you to know if I am doing that or not.”


“As long as you’re not thinking of me while doing it, it doesn’t really bother me.” He said jokingly but the thought I had a bit earlier came back to me. “Wait, you didn’t, did you?” 
I turned around so he couldn’t see my face. He knew when I was lying. 
“Of course not, Max.” I said, but still not facing him. “It was probably Charles.” 
Max snapped and turned me to face him. 
“Really? Was it Charles.” 
His eyes fixated on me, not even blinking. 
“Tell me, was it Charles?” 
I shook my head, not being able to form a proper sentence. 
“Was it me?” 
I didn’t answer. 
“Celine, was it me? Was it me the person you thought of while you…” he didn’t finish the sentence but we both knew what he wanted to say.


I slowly nodded. A quick smirk formed on his face and the cockiness that everyone talks about was now 100% present on his face. 
“Interesting. Was I good at what I was doing? You weren’t very vocal so it sounds like I was disappointing.” 
I pushed him away. “Max, you’re an idiot sometimes.” I tried to go to my room but he pulled me back. 
“Not so fast. You made me curious and friends share things like this.” The confidence he got from me telling him it was him I thought of was bigger than this planet. 
“What do you want me to tell you? It is the alcohol. Let me go to sleep.” I tried to escape from his hold but his hand tightened around my wrist. He shook his head and I knew I was stuck there. 
“You were shit and you also interrupted me in real life so it was shit.” I said quickly. “Happy now?” 
He snorted. “Happy, because I can prove you otherwise.” 
I snorted myself, “In your dreams.” 
“Apparently, already in yours.” His smirk made a comeback again. “You need to blow some steam off, I need it too, so it’s a win-win situation.” 
“And an end to a good friendship and a good work experience.” I added. 
“We are adults, we can separate sex and other things. I can prove that my skills are not disappointing at all.” 
Max rarely winks but the wink he gave me made me weak.


“So?” Max said waiting for an answer. 
I nodded, knowing I might regret it tomorrow but for now, it is what it is. 
His response was quick, pushing my back into the worktop and kissing me, pulling me up by my waist and placing me on top of the worktop of the kitchen. We are lucky we always keep them clean and empty. He opened my legs and got between them while kissing me. My imagination was indeed flawed. His kisses were something that I could have never imagined. 
He kissed with a hunger of a starved man. His hands gentle but demanding, travelling all over my body. Playing with my breast, finding my hard nipples and teasing them until a soft moan escaped my mouth. 
“You’re already more vocal and you were earlier and I haven’t even started.” 
Max cockiness was unmeasurable and I chose to not say anything but kiss him. He quickly unbutton my pyjamas top, which gave him access to my breast. He started by kissing me down my neck, and getting closer to my ear, his kisses causing my skin to be covered in goosebumps once again.

“Are my lips wet as well?”

That made me roll my eyes again.

“Don’t worry, your eyes will roll later too but for other reasons.”

He didn’t wait for my response, he just continued to kiss me until he reached my breast, one of his hands massaging one and his mouth taking care of the other. Making sure to swap. Him not wearing a t-shirt made it easy to feel him, to get closer to him. My hands exploring his back and his chest as he was discovering my body. My hands went inside the elastic band of his trousers and he took a step back.

“No, you’re being inpatient and I haven’t finished what I was doing.”

He pulled my hand away and grabbed the other one too and pulled it behind my back, holding them in place with his hand. Then grabbing my top and wrapping it around, making a tight knot without making it painful.

He then pulled the band of my own trousers down and also grabbed my underwear with them too, leaving me naked in front of him on the counter.

He stood there, looking at me, taking me in as if I was something so different from what he has seen previously.

“Are you gonna stand there all night? If yes, please untie this so I can do something myself.”

I knew that would stir things up and make him annoyed, I knew how to push his buttons and this time I’ll use it for my own benefit. The smirk on his face told me I was completely right.

He opened my legs further apart and pulled me closer to the edge of the counter. He went on one knee and then kissed slowly my inner thigh, then the other one, taking his time. His kisses alone making me crave more.

“Tell me you want this.”

“Uhum” it’s all that came out of my mouth, covered by moans.

“I will need more than that, Celine.”

My name never sounded like that when he said it. It sounded sexy, full of meaning behind it.

“I want this, I need it.” I couldn’t form better sentences so that should do it and it did.

His lips left soft kisses around my sensitive part, his tongue playing with it, making sure to take his time to increase the pace, but once he found the pace I wanted, he kept it like that, making my moans loud enough for the neighbours to know he was destroying me for any other man.

“Is it still Charles in your mind?”

He said as he stopped for a second, watching me.

I started laughing. “Now yes.” The answer made him bite my inner thigh, hard enough to hurt. “I am kidding. It’s only you in my mind right now.”

This answer made him continue. Adding one finger and curling it up to hit my spot, making my legs shake in less than a few minutes. He waited for me to come down from my high.

“I’d say I already proved my point with not being disappointed.”

“I really hope this dick attitude is backed up by a big dick, otherwise this cockiness is not okay.”

“You really like when I lose my calm.”

“I just push you to be more yourself.” I winked at him.

“Then you’ll have to find out if my dick personality is backed up by a big dick.” He pulled me up so I was standing. “What are you waiting for? Get them off.”

I knew he was referring to his shorts but I could see the outline of his cock through them and it didn’t look small, it look big enough to back up even more attitude than he already showed me. I put my hands on the band and slowly pulling down, realising quickly that he didn’t wear any underwear. I pulled them down and his cock bounced a bit once it was out of the shorts. He lifted his legs one by one so I can take the shorts off completely.

“So?” Max looked down at me. “Is it big enough for you?”

“Could be better.” I lied, I was afraid I could hardly handle it after I had no sex for over a year and even then, my experience in that department is not the best.

“Oh really?” He put a finger under my chin and made me look at him. “Say that again.”

“You really need your ego boosted often. Compliments don’t make your dick bigger, Max.”

“Celine, don’t play with the fire. Say what you said earlier again.”

“It’s big.” I said simply, no need to say anything more or less. His expression making me realise it was enough for him too.

“You’re a good girl when you want to be.” He said, slowly stroking my hair.

With him standing and with me squatting down, his dick in my face, all I could think of was sucking him off. I kept looking at it and studying it, seeing the vein that I wanted to run my tongue down on.

“I know you want it but I want to hear it.” Max said to me.

“What?” I asked, knowing that I will not get such words out of my mouth.

“Did you think I’ll ask you to do it? No, I want you to show me you want this.”

I knew he wouldn’t drop this game and the truth was, I wanted it, I want it badly.

“Max, I want to,” I paused, swallowed, trying to find the confidence to say it, his eyes encouraging me, “I really want you in my mouth.”

His smile was enough of a permission but he wouldn’t let me have control. “Then open your mouth.”

He took his dick in his hand, putting only the tip in my mouth, pulling it out slowly and putting it back in. I used my tongue, sticked it all the way out and he slapped it with his cock. Then removed his hand which allowed me to grab it with mine and take him in deeper.

He leaned against the worktop and pulling my hair into a ponytail and then showing me the pace he wanted.

He allowed me to get used to it before pushing in deeper, but once he hit the back of my throat and the gag reflex was not that bad, he continued to move as he wished. His pace being either slow but deep, or completely rough, making me gag occasionally.

When he felt satisfied, he pulled me back up and looked at me.

“I hate seeing you cry but this is the only time I actually enjoy seeing tears in your eyes.”

He used his fingers to wipe my tears off and then pushed my over the counter, parting my legs from behind, sliding his hand up and down my clit.

“Fuck, you’re so wet.” He said and now had the top of his cock at my entrance. “I’m going to grab a condom.”

“No need, I am on the pill.” I said, knowing both of us are completely clean.

He left a groan out, putting the tip back at my entrance.

“This might hurt. You felt very tight around me fingers earlier and even though you’re so wet, I think it will still be a tight one.” Max said to me.

I knew he was right. “Just get in and it will be fine.”

“Tell me if it hurts.”

The contrast between Max that wants to make sure it doesn’t hurt and the Max from 5 minutes ago was big and it made me even more confuse.

He slowly pushed in, inch by inch, until I was filled by him. We both left out something between a heavy breath and a moan.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded and he started moving, slowly at first, but then step by step he picked the pace, pulling my higher on the worktop until my feet were no longer touching the floor and he was supporting me so I wouldn’t fall. When he was going slower he would kiss down my back and behind my neck, making my even wetter, but he grabbed on my hips so hard when he was rougher, that I thought I’d have bruises for days after this.

“I want to see your face.”

He dropped me on the floor and turned me around.

“My bed.” He said, but we knew we wouldn’t made it, so he pushed me on the dining table, pushing me to lay down but pulling me close to the edge of the table.

He went back inside of me and the look on his face once he was buried inside me was something I haven’t seen on Max’s face before.

He leaned down to take one of my nipples between his teeth and pulling gently. When he stood up again, he found with one of his hands my clit and used his thumb to massage it.

I could feel myself getting there and his face told me he was not far away from it either.

“If you keep clenching like that, I’ll finish before you.”

“I am so ready.”

“Play with yourself!” He removed his hand and pulled my hand down and I quickly picked the best pace, helping him get me there.

Once my orgasm took over, I felt him finishing, feeling myself full. He pulled out slowly, making sure I was not dripping and he pulled some kitchen paper, helping me wipe down the mess. I grabbed it from his hand and he shook his head.

“Let me do it.” Max said and I did.

“I’m sorry for being like that.” Max said to me and I looked at him confused. “Rough, normally I’m worse and I tried my best to not scare you.”

I let a giggle out. “I enjoyed it, no need to apologise.” He looked at me to ensure I was not lying. “Truth is, I actually found it hot.” I looked into his eyes and I aware he knew I was not lying.

“Well, if there is a next time I’ll make it hotter.” He smiled at me. “But that discussion is for when we are completely sober and guilt free.”

“I agree,” I said. “Sounds like a good plan.”

He pulled me up so I could stand and kissed my forehead and then picked my clothes up and gave them to me.

It was an awkward scene, both of us going to our rooms after that, but I wasn’t sure what else I could expect.

[annebaneriddle]

I still try to undertand the logic going inside the brains of people who say "Well, why are you even writting the wholeass bible to badmouth 'X'?" ("X" character who is canonically a complete asshole who kills innocent people, gaslight people, plays the victim to escape the consequences of their own actions, blame others for what they did, blame-shift, victim-blame, terrorize people, yada yada).

I'm not saying you can't like said character. Far from me telling you who you should like, you and your likes are not my business and you can stan whoever you like, be them real or fictional. The thing is: other's and their dislikes is also not your business, specially if they have a completelly fair and reasonable reason to find a character disgusting.

Let's use Jiang Cheng from MDZS as an exemple: the man did suffer? Hell, yeah. He saw his whole sect being murdered, saw his parents being murdered, had to become a sect leader at a far too young age and then saw his sister being killed too. If that does not count as suffering, I don't know what does. That's totally ok if you feel for him, I do too, I think no one should suffer like that and I also think he is a pretty interesting charactet who adds to the story.

The thing is, the man also announced Wei Wuxian was now an enemy of the cultivation world when the plan was just for them to stage a fight and say the said sect brother has left the sect (that made public opinion of Wei Wucian even worse and contibuted to Jin Guangshan's and Jin Gangyao's plan of getting rid of Wei Wuxian to get tue Stygian Tiget seal to themselves), what makes clear that the thing that made him turn against WWX wasn't Jiamg Yanli's death; he lied to people saying WWX killed JY when JY willingly put herself on the way of the sword meant to pierce through WWX, when she willingly died to protect WWX; he led a siege against innocent people when he knew that they were civilians and that there was even a damn barelly 3 years old child amongst them (not taking the blame away from the other sects, because there is no way you put your sword through an old granny and doesn't notice it isn't an armed cultivator); for 13 years he continuously tortured and killed innocent people to the point of where his nephew was willing to lie to him to help one of them escape because he knew exactly the atrocities his uncle was capable of; civilians around Lotus Pier were afraid of him; his behaviour crosses the line so much that all female cultivators blacklisted him (and given it was at a time where men were excused from plently of shitty behaviour, that is quite surprising); he has the annoying mania of playing the victim, and so the list goes on.

So yeah, do you really has such a thick face to say that people who don't like him don't have the right to dislike him only because "he looked hot with doing that", "he suffered too" or whatever the hell your excuse is?

People who dislike a character have the right of disliking them and writting a wholeass bible about it just like you have the right of writting a wholeass bible worshiping the ground said character walks on. However, it's quite interesting how I seldom see antis clowining stans posts, but it's quite common to see stans complaining on anti posts. It's a two ways road, so get over yourself and stop whinning like a child that is mad because someone didn't find their toy as cool as they think it is.

Not even gonna lie, I don't mortaly hate most characters I find disgusting. What makes me hate them are their stans.

[cosmicjoke]

I see some people say that Levi stans love him for the same reason they hate Mikasa because she's a woman. I hate that they assume we love him for being "cool and gloomy" because there's nothing else to love him for.

I, for one, started to like him after the Uprising Arc, where we finally saw who he actually was beyond the cool and gloomy exterior. I love him for his kindness and empathy. His strength is a nice bonus, but it's not something I ever cared about. I also hate that they assume we all hate Mikasa. There are a few things I personally dislike about her and none of them has anything to do with her strength. I don't hate her tho.

It's shitty when people call you shallow just because they refuse to see the obvious for whatever reason. The amount of stupidity in this fandom is overwhelming.

Sorry for the rant, I just wanted to ask if you think Levi and Mikasa are really that similar beyond surface level. Mikasa joined the SC only to be with Eren. Her arc was about overcoming her obsession and becoming a true scout who values humanity above anything else. Some fans try to tie this to Levi's arc. As if he joined the scouts to be near Erwin and could never overcome his obsession, and even abandoned SC's ideals to seek revange. It's because they misunderstand his initial motivation to join the scouts, they don't understand that he always fought for the sake of humanity. Till the end.

Haters will probably say that we see him as a hero because we're blinded by our love for him, but it's literally in the manga and it's not even subtle. More like they ignore his good qualities because they're blinded by their hatred.

Again, sorry for this wall of text I'm sending you. It wasn't supposed to be this log, but I got carried away.

Hi there,

Well, it's as you say, people who accuse Levi fans of only liking him because he's "cool" or "bad-ass" are the same sorts who try to accuse AoT of being imperialist or Nazi propaganda. They literally have to ignore 99.9% of the surrounding context to come to that conclusion, in both cases. Levi is an extremely deep, complex and rich character. I feel like the fact I, and many others, are able to go on deep dive analysis' of him all the time is proof enough of that. I loved Levi right away, because I always could see there was more going on with him than just being the "stoic bad-ass". There's plenty of glimpses and even more of the complexity of his character that we get, well before Uprising. The very first appearance of Levi has him comforting a dying soldier, taking hold of his bloody hand (just moments after expressing his disgust at having titan blood on him), and telling him his sacrifice will give him the strength to keep fighting. Or after Eren joined his squad initially, and his own team were quick to react defensively against Eren's lack of control over his titan powers, and Levi defended him against them, and then later spoke to Eren privately to make sure he understood it wasn't him personally that his squad was reacting to, but just fear of the unknown. During the Female Titan arc, when he scolds Erwin for thanking him over the soldiers that sacrificed their lives to capture the female titan, or if we're going with the anime, when he gives Petra's wings patch to that grieving soldier after he'd foolishly endangered their lives, instead of scolding him like most would have. Later, he tries to comfort Eren in his own way over the guilt he feels over Levi's squad dying, by making a joke, and during the attempt to capture Annie in Trost, Levi is shown with his fists clenched in anxiety at his inability to help in the operation and, again if we're going with the anime, he expresses disgust at the failure of Erwin's plan, with so many people being killed unnecessarily. Just over and over, there are numerous examples of the goodness of Levi's heart shining through, from the very start of the story. So this idea that people have of Levi being like Mikasa in terms of having an "obsession" with Erwin and only caring about or having joined the scouts to be near and protect him is absurd. Levi never joined the scouts for that reason. They conflate his trust in Erwin with him having some sort of blind loyalty. Bullshit. He was willing to let Erwin die during the Uprising arc if it meant succeeding with their plan and rescuing Eren and Historia. Levi joined because Erwin convinced him that by lending his strength to the Survey Corps and its cause, it would allow Levi to lend that strength to all of humanity. That he could finally use his strength to help the most number of people. And he trusted in Erwin's vision as a leader, as someone who would understand and know how to use Levi's strength to that end. He relied on Erwin's abilities to use him correctly and point him in the right direction, but the thing Levi always fought for wasn't Erwin himself, it was humanity, humanities freedom, humanities dreams, and the dreams of his friends and comrades.

As to any similarities between Levi and Mikasa beyond their shared name and special physical abilities, I would say, like Isayama once described them, that they both do exhibit strong loyalty and sort of embody the role of "Knights", in the story, defenders of whoever, or whatever. For Mikasa, that's obviously Eren. She's both loyal to him and wants to defend and protect him. For Levi, he is loyal to Erwin and his vision. He trusts in that vision and in his leadership, and will follow his orders without hesitation, even when he expresses doubt or uneasiness at them, exactly because of that trust. He's loyal to Erwin as a leader. Not because he's in love with him. As for his role as Knight, however, and who he protects, it's everybody. There isn't a special, single person he's trying to protect. It's everyone. Every one of his comrades, every one of his friends. Every single person that he can. It's why he constantly gives orders like 'You have to survive', or 'You aren't allowed to die', etc... It's why he goes out of his way to help and save a bunch of strangers in Trost after they verbally abuse him. It's why in 'No Regrets" he saves one of the soldiers who had just endangered his own life on the training course, keeping him from being impaled by a blade stuck in one of the dummies. It's why he rescues Ramzi in Marley, risking their operation and his own cover in the process. There's so many examples, truly, that we'd be here all day if I listed them. Levi is just naturally inclined towards helping people, saving people, protecting people. That's just who he is. So he's like a Knight. A defender of the realm, or in his case, a defender of the people.

So, yeah, I hope that answers your question! I guess I replied with my own wall of text, haha.

[friendlyneighborhoodamara]

(Edited on July 23, 2021)

So. Luz Noceda.

Quite possibly one of the best written protagonists in a Disney animated show, and easily one of my favorite protagonists in fiction.

Admittedly, if you know me, you may not be surprised I like her this much. I love kindhearted protagonists who are extremely energetic, unorthodox, goofy and proactive, and this describes Luz in spades. Even at her lowest points, she has a never-give-up attitude that’s just so endearing to me. In fact, I’ve described her as a female shonen protagonist to many of my friends in the past, and it’s not uncommon for people to compare Luz to Mabel (while she is also a rather complicated character I adore, this comparison is faulty for reasons I’ll get into shortly.)

If this was all there was to Luz—a warmhearted, generous dork who goes to any lengths to help the people she loves—I’d be satisfied. That relatively short, shallow description describes Goku almost to a T, and I absolutely love Goku, inside and out.

However, the writing staff of The Owl House, thankfully, chose to go the extra mile with Luz and flesh her out far beyond her superficial confines.

While all are extroverted, sweet girls, Luz differs from similar characters like Mabel Pines, Anne Boonchuy and Star Butterfly due to her far lower status on the social ladder: if Camila is to be believed, Luz - prior to entering the Boiling Isles - doesn’t have a single friend. Having a protagonist who is a disliked underdog with low self-esteem is far from new, especially in kids’ media. In some cases, it almost feels like a prerequisite to have the character be the victim of petty school bullies, even when they’re a skater punk high schooler played by a 27-year-old Andrew Garfield. However, in Luz’s case, her past as a teenage outcast (and implied history of bullying), her neurodivergence, and her subsequent retreat into fantasy as an escape informs every single facet of her characterization and cannot be stripped away from her without making her far less interesting.

How so?

Well, for starters, Luz is seen as frustrating or annoying by a lot of people, even the friends she made in the demon realm. In Season 1, even after the lesson she learns in the second episode, she is obsessed with living out her fantasy of being a fantasy hero just like the Good Witch Azura. This is a direct result of her retreating into fantasy and using it as a crutch to get through life. She tries to befriend her rival Amity the same way Azura did with her rival, tries to whip Willow and Gus into an all-star sports team using nothing but her own gumption, and is quick to accept any challenge that comes her way. This, understandably, does not endear her to other people.

Furthermore, as a result of her ostracization in the human realm (the great state of Connecticut, as we learn in the latest episode!), Luz, subtly, sees herself as a burden. This is why she almost never defends herself when people attack her, fairly or not. When Amity, enraged because Lilith humiliated her in her duel with Luz, demands Luz admit to not being a real witch, she acquiesces, despite having no real reason to. Even after she’s become Amity’s friend (and, unknowingly, her crush), even after Amity risked her own job to help her … Luz assumes that Amity hates her because she got fired from the library trying to help Luz … when Amity was the one who insisted they keep looking. Likewise, when the detention kids accuse her of being stuck-up, Luz accepts the rejection without a word of complaint, even though their accusation is based on incomplete information. And probably most heartbreakingly, at the start of Season 2, Luz calls herself a burden on Eda. After bringing so much life to this crusty old witch’s life, to the point of not only saving her from execution but playing a huge role in her reconnecting with her estranged sister, because of the way she’s been treated for much of her life, Luz can only imagine that Eda dreads her presence.

In short, Luz (1) blunders through many of her social interactions, often leading to negative first impressions, (2) takes those blunders on the chin and assumes they’re her fault even when they aren’t necessarily, and both those (3) flaws flow naturally from her backstory. That’s rather solid character writing that a lot of creators for children’s shows take for granted. Luz isn’t determined to fix what’s wrong just because; she’s determined to fix what’s wrong because, often, she believes that she is responsible for whatever has gone wrong. It’s a more realistic, and rather sad, look at a hero, compared to most Disney properties.

But, in my eyes, what makes this all work like gangbusters is how the other characters treat Luz.

Yes, even her friends and family can be annoyed by some of her more eccentric behavior. They acknowledge when she screws up and hold her accountable for those screw ups. But, for the first time in her life, someone (besides Camila, the real MVP) is giving her the unconditional love she deserves. Eda’s response to Luz saying she doesn’t want to be a burden, Amity saving Luz from Odalia and defying her mother for the first time, hell, even the Golden Guard seems to legitimately bond with Luz in their one episode together.

Given Luz’s status as a neurodivergent girl, as an autistic fan of this show, I can only imagine how comforting a lesson that is for the neurodivergent kids watching this: “Even if people don’t value you, even if you legitimately make mistakes, you still deserve unconditional love. You have value, damn what other people say.” Disney may be a shitty, evil corporation, but the Owl House crew really created something special, something richer than the average Disney cartoon, and that puts a smile on my face.

In short, you’re doing great sweetie. :)

[the-music-maniac]

Okay so, this post here https://multsicorn.tumblr.com/post/649671498154557440/i-believe-were-supposed-to-think-that-evil is actually what made me think deeper about this scene, and also what made me get off my butt to write about this, so go check it out! But I wanted to voice why a couple sentences in the english subs for Episode 21 of Word of Honor irked me slightly in the scene with Du Pusa and Liu Qianqiao, this one onwards:

Now keep in mind, my mandarin is serviceable for casual conversations, but I struggle more with formal language, so feel free to correct me if I’ve gotten translations/the feel of the scene wrong. I’m gonna go through the subs that I’m annoyed with and then explain why I think they’re inaccurate and important to the scenes at the end.

But basically, some of the translations for the Youku english subs lightened Du Pusa’s language when she was talking about the dude that betrayed Qianqiao (still don’t remember his name, so I’m gonna call him cheater dude). And the thing is, I really can’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t translate it entirely? Like is there a reason?

For example, this?

The subs say “this lady’s lover” and I can sort of understand why it’s translated like that, she says “她这个“ which is “her” implying ownership (”her lover” as an example). So ”this lady’s” is correct. But that’s not all?? She says in the second half “狗男人“ which translates literally to “dog of a man”. It’s an insult, and without it, the feel of the sentence is completely different.

The english subs also don’t exactly translate this. She didn’t say “she fell for” in this sentence, instead Du Pusa exact words are, “she was tricked into hand”.

Here too, she didn’t call Qianqiao pitiful (I think, there might be cultural nuance I’m missing so let me know if this one is wrong) and the exact translation is “only a pity that she was blind”.

Finally this one, I’m pretty sure “废物“ is harsher of an insult than loser. It literally translates to “useless person” or “a waste of space”. Now I don’t know which officially ranks higher between “loser” vs “废物“ in the level of burn across languages and cultural contexts, but in my mind, 废物 is harsher.

Okay, now with the scenes and translations explained:

So. The reason why I brought all of these instances up is because I think the wording Du Pusa used to explain the story is pretty important, not for plot reasons but just because it changes the feel of the interaction. The post I linked at the very beginning pointed out that Du Pusa is meant to be a character that basically taunts the women she fights with, with her superiority in beauty, etc., but while she does that, at the same time her character doesn’t have that feel of misogyny that I think is so prominent in media when writing women characters who dislike each other.

Granted, Du Pusa also insults Qianqiao, and that didn’t show up in translation either, she calls her “小娘皮“ in place of “lady” which is not exactly a flattering thing to say. But I think the important thing is that throughout the entire telling of the story, Du Pusa recognizes that in this situation, the person that messed up, and is mostly at fault is cheater dude, and she places the blame rightfully on his shoulders despite how she dislikes Qianqiao.

Particularly in the sentences “she was tricked into hand” and “only a pity that she was blind”, instead of “she fell for” and “only pitiful”. “She fell for” puts more responsibility onto Qianqiao’s shoulders, because she’s the one who fell in love with cheater dude and his sweet talk - that’s her business. But “she was tricked into hand” places more of the emphasis on cheater dude, on the fact that he sweet talked her into believing him, that she in fact was tricked, and not because she just simply fell for him.

(Now I’m not here to discuss whether cheater dude’s feelings for Qianqiao are genuine or not, or whether he purposely tricked her - I do think that he does care about her but that’s also not enough to absolve him of the shitty things he did. So I’m not very willing to be lenient with him here)

“Only a pity that she was blind” also places less of the blame on Qianqiao then the phrase “only pitiful” because pitiful as a word implies that Beauty Ghost herself is pitiful. That she’s a pitiful person who’s too dumb to notice that she was being tricked. “Only a pity” however leaves room for her to be a victim of circumstance, and implies that the situation was “only a pity”, not her as a person.

Finally the two harsher insults, I think are important because for once, a character like Du Pusa doesn’t leave the man relatively unscathed in her process of taunting another woman, and also doesn’t hold misogynistic victim-blaming views about situations like this. She’s fully acknowledging here, even as someone who doesn’t give a shit about Qianqiao, that cheater dude is kind of a piece of shit. You see that fully in these three scenes as well:

First the rolling her eyes at cheater dude’s explanations. I think that one is pretty self-explanatory, it gives me strong “oh god don’t make me laugh” and “cut the bullshit and shut up already” vibes, which I high key love.

Second, this one where she pushes him back, feels like she’s sick of hearing cheater dude’s excuses and his attempts to sweet talk Qianqiao again, and so she decided to interject. Also has a little bit of, “okay, get away from her, I’m sick of you” vibes.

Finally, Du Pusa has an incredulous look on her face, and then gives a huff of disbelief when Qianqiao sorta defends cheater dude, saying she’s the one who had bad intentions. This one gives me a sort of “really? You’re defending him?” vibes, especially since it follows her asking if Qianqiao’s brain is broken for actually trusting him a second time after what he did.

Anyways, this turned out to be a long analysis, but I just wanted to translate/talk about my thoughts on some of the subs, and my low key appreciation for this scene. It sort of feels like Du Pusa almost backhandedly defended Beauty Ghost - although I admit that might be going too far/giving too much credit since Du Pusa isn’t exactly going easy on her either, and she might just be listing things as she sees it. Still though, what I’ve always appreciated so much about Word of Honor is that it creates so many female characters that are compelling to watch and well-rounded; who feel realistic, who are their own people and have their own stories to tell, who aren’t killed off as soon as it’s convenient or just to reinforce the heterosexuality of the male leads, who are vital to the plot, and most importantly, act in a way real women might act, and aren’t all internally misogynistic and apologetic towards guys who act shitty.

It’s really refreshing to see a “bad” character in this show, who’s mannerisms suggest she’s a character that’s a woman who taunts women, do so without piling on deep-seated misogynistic accusations or halfway pandering to the man in order to create some misplaced “jealousy”, and instead manage to taunt people/hit people where it hurts and yet still...almost purposely calls the man out on the shitty stuff he did?

Anyways, overall I think this scene was a pretty cool dynamic to think about, and I appreciate it a lot (although I appreciate the subs a bit less, for obvious reasons).

[yeahhiyellow]

19, 22 and 23? :^)

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Tbh there are a lot of things I hate, although by this point it's only very certain parts of the fandom that have these problems, since most of the shitty people have lost interest by this point. If I had to choose just one thing though, it'd be the overwhelming focus on white, male characters over female and/or characters of color. And there are a lot of areas where this shows up. One major example is that a lot of people like the idea of Connor, Hank, Gavin, and Nines (all white, male characters, mind you) staying at the DPD even after:

The DPD was the one (along with Cyberlife) responsible for the deaths, arrests, and brutal treatment of androids, the main oppressed group in the game's world

Connor and Nines are a part of that oppressed group, and at least Hank is shown in game to support them

Connor has already worked at the DPD and was routinely called an "it" (which as someone who is nonbinary and has been called "it" knows how insulting that can be and understands the need to get away from situations where that happens), was allowed to be sent to his death by, and was routinely harassed and nearly murdered, or in some playthroughs actually murdered, by workers at the DPD (*ahem Gavin ahem*)

Hank (if he is your friend) risked his career just to cause a distraction for Connor to keep him alive

Just because the android revolution was successful doesn't mean the DPD was going to follow that. I mean, the androids were heavily compared to African Americans in this game, and we all know how the current police system treats them (and if you don't, pay attention to the news, like, ever. Also read Jim Crow as that book is very informative on the oppression of blacks in the entire incarceration system as well as before and after that)

So I hope it would be pretty obvious to any sane person that suggesting these characters would join/remain in the DPD after everything is offensive on all sorts of levels.

In addition to that, you also have some people saying that they only cared about Connor's story, or that his was the only good one. The female protagonist that risks her own life several times to save that of a child (no matter if she is human or android)? Not important. The (half) black protagonist who is shot by police, has to rebuild himself, and leads his own people to freedom? Who cares? The only important story to these people is the white, male, cop android who spends most of his time hunting down the good guys. And if some people honestly prefer Connor's story because of their own reasons, that's fine. And yes, Kara and Markus's stories have lots of problems. But Connor's does too, and none of this gives people an excuse to ignore the other characters, especially since they are the minority characters. Then, there are also the people who say Connor's machine path was better than his deviant path, or that him being replaced by Nines in the end was unfair. And... what the fuck??? I mean, I get it, it's fun to play through different options, and Connor is hella badass in the machine path. But he is also hella badass in the deviant path (killing the guards in the elevator, possibly the team at the bottom if he doesn't catch the security camera, fighting Sixty, walking in front of all the androids he freed, like, come on), and he also, like, has morals and isn't oppressive??? In the machine route, he kills his own people, including those who just want to be free and might have been completely pacifist the entire way through. So I'm sorry, anyone who thinks his machine path is better is just looking for an excuse to be oppressive without openly admitting it.

Then there's the Gavin apologizers. While fanon Gavin is awesome, some people have way overstepped the line of redemption and allowing oppression. I've seen posts defending Gavin's in-game behavior, just because he refers to androids as "he" on occasion. This is despite:

Suggesting "roughing up," or being violent to Shaolin (the HK400 in "The Interrogation")

Insulting his partner, Chris, when he doesn't forcibly move Shaolin against Shaolin's will

Pointing a gun at Connor after Connor rightfully says to stop touching Shaolin for both succeeding the mission and for Shaolin's sake, and only stepping down after Hank points a gun at him and even after insults Connor

Punching Connor right in the thirium pump regulator and then pushing his head right where his LED is in the break room if Connor refuses to get him a coffee

Insulting and threatening Connor in the same scene even if Connor follows all of his demands

Insulting Hank's alcoholism in the Eden Club "it's starting to stink of booze in here"

Purposely pushing Connor to the side in the same scene

Trying to literally murder Connor and admitting he'd wanted to kill him ever since he first saw Connor, sometimes successfully

Both physically and verbally assaulting Connor

I forgive very easily and strongly believe in redemption, don't get me wrong. But trying to excuse Gavin's behaviors is so inexcusable, especially when most of his aggressions are towards androids, the oppressed minority.

Now, let's look at Ao3, shall we? Let's see how many fics posted there are with each of the "main" (including Gavin and Nines since even though they are not main characters in canon they are in fanon) characters... (also, keep in mind, I gathered this data about a month ago so it might not be completely up to date):

Connor: 16,150

Markus: 5,395

Kara: 1,504

Hank: 13,135

Nines: 9,807

Gavin: 9,939

Amanda: 1,177

Chloe: 1,521

North: 3,056

Simon: 3,192

Josh: 1,965

Alice: 1,098

Luther: 848

Rose: 193

This means that certain characters get unequal amounts of attention:

White: 59,042

Black: 9,578

Male: 60,431

Female: 8,549

White, Male: 52,223

White, Female: 7,179

Black, Male: 8,208

Black, Female: 1,370

Well, this says a lot. Now, some people reading this might realize that there are more white and male characters to begin with, so it could be fair even with their numbers being higher. So, okay, let's see the average amount of works a single character in each of the above categories would have (so divide each of the values by the number of characters in that category) (also I rounded to the tenth place aka first decimal point):

White: 6,560.2

Black: 1,915.6

Male: 7,553.9

Female: 1,424.8

White, Male: 10,444.6

White, Female: 1,794.8

Black, Male: 2,736

Black, Female: 685

If anything, these are even more telling. And if you don't believe me, look on Ao3 and calculate these yourself, because you'll get the same thing.

To be clear, I don't have anything against Connor, Hank, or any of the white and/or male characters. I even like the way that the fandom has redeemed Gavin. But the fandom has not done the same job of redeeming other characters, especially the minority ones, and pays way less attention to them, and that needs to be called out with evidence by someone.

Anyway, I spent a LONG time on that first question, so I'll try to make the next answers shorter!

22. Popular character you hate?

There aren't any popular characters that I thoroughly hate. The only characters I hate are ones that are already highly unpopular (Todd, Zlatko, Perkins). If we're talking canon characters, I do hate Gavin with a flaming passion. I mean, he is meant to represent police brutality. But fanon Gavin is cool with me, so I'm not sure exactly how much this counts.

There is one semi-popular character that I dislike though, and that is Kamski. I'm half-counting him again because within the fandom there are very mixed opinions. I personally dislike him mainly because of his treatment of one of his Chloe's: he is willing to let her get shot in the head and killed just to find a dumb answer to his Kamski test just because he feels like it. If Connor doesn't shoot Chloe, he tells Connor he's deviant, knowing full well that Amanda and Cyberlife are watching being the one to design the program, endangering Connor. While he arguably is responsible for deviancy and wants androids to succeed, that doesn't make up for those facts.

Another character that half-counts is Daniel. There are mixed opinions within the fandom on him as well, with some arguing that he is only wanting to not get replaced and protect himself. However, since his first response was to kill the dad, and then he proceeded to shoot at least 3 more cops, killing 2, and hold Emma, the young girl he had been friends with for years hostage, even though she had nothing to do with his replacement. You can't argue that he didn't want to kill Emma and only used her as protection for himself, either, as there are multiple endings where he tries and sometimes succeeds in killing Emma, even when he is also killing himself. I'm not closed to a redemption arc for him, but his in-game actions are inexcusable. He's the one deviant who truly has no valid defense for his actions.

23. Unpopular character you love?

There are a few. I absolutely adore North, Josh, Adam, and Alice, even though the fandom has conflicted opinions on them. Then again, none of these characters are really considered unpopular, just not as popular as others with a select few that don't like them. With North, I've been in this fandom since a few months after its release, when there was a lot of North hatred, and was actually in a group called the North Protection Squad lol. However, now most people like her, and she's really grown in popularity. With Josh, it's less that he's hated, and more that he's ignored. People say that Simon was the peaceful option when he was really the neutral, and recently I've seen more people against Josh's opinions on the revolution. While I don't always agree with Josh being so passive and undemanding (neither do I agree with North's violence), he's still an awesome character with some very valid points. Then, I do understand why some people dislike Adam, as at first he's against androids and almost reveals Kara and the others. However, if you meet him at the border crossing, he apologizes to Kara and changes his mind, promising to help androids. While he may start out scared and not on the right side, he does have a good heart and ends up making the right decisions in the end. With Alice, I haven't seen many people hate her, either, although I have seen some saying she's annoying and lacks a personality. I agree that she lacks a personality, although I argue that's the writers' faults rather than her character's (as are problems with other characters, I mean David Cage wrote this so what were we expecting). I also don't think she's annoying, as after all she is only 9 (in human terms), doesn't admit she's an android because she's scared Kara will reject her (and Kara actually can reject her for being an android, leaving her completely on her own in a world that wants her dead. Also, living her whole life with Todd can absolutely not help her feel more secure with who she is or make her trust Kara to still love her for it), and she is only cold and feels sick because her model of android is literally designed to replicate human sickness and discomfort (and it's clear she doesn't know how to turn them off, because even after Kara knows she's an android Kara still has to help Alice not feel cold anymore. Also, this is November in Detroit, in which the average temperature is 42°F (5.6°C). There are also scenes where it is snowing, meaning the temperature is below freezing. Still, despite the temperatures, in some scenes not having a coat, and feeling sick, she says Kara and Luther can't stop because of her, risks her life to save Kara's if you fail QTEs, and says she's "fine" even when she's cold to comfort Kara. So if you think she can be annoying, yeah, all 9-year-olds can be. But if you think she's annoying enough to actually hate her, idek what to say).

In terms of characters that are really unpopular, I actually like Leo. His actions at first are inexcusable. I mean, accusing Carl of loving an android more than hin, insulting Markus and treating him as less than human, threatening him, breaking into Carl's house and attempting to steal his paintings for drug money, and framing Markus for Carl's death leading to him getting shot and nearly killed are obviously not okay things to do. However, he is clearly on drugs, specifically red ice, the most dangerous drug in the world. Also, if you decide to push Markus leading Carl to still be alive, when you return to Carl's house, you can find a message Leo sent to Carl in which he apologizes for everything and promises it won't happen again. In the extras section, you also find out Carl missed out on Leo's whole childhood, only first meeting him once he was much older. Given that Carl spends all of his days pleasantly conversing with Markus while ignoring Leo, not calling him, only talking to Leo once he comes around himself, and doesn't even argue when Leo says Carl doesn't love him, it's almost fair that Leo thinks the way he does. Since he's also high on drugs throughout the story, at least up until Markus gets shot, we also know that the Leo we see isn't the real Leo. Later, if Carl is dead and Markus visits his grave, he encounters Leo again. This time, when Leo sees Markus he is only shocked. Now, off of red ice, not only is he going to see Carl's grave, expressing love for his father, he also doesn't try to hurt Markus, insult him, or anything mean or dehumanizing. His expression lacks any signs of aggression. It was only when he was high that he was such an asshole. Although that doesn't excuse his behavior, it does give a reason for it, and by the end I consider him redeemed.

~~~

Wow... that was a long response to a very short ask. No need to read all that (although I would highly suggest reading my first answer, at least, since that does contain some very relevant points). Although then again, if you've made it here, you've probably already read all that. In which case I would love to hear your opinions if you're willing to share (as well as anyone who sees this!) I guess I just had a lot of opinions that I needed to put out in the world lol, so thank you sm for the ask!!!!! 💛💛💛

[sour-n-salty-citrus]

Do you have any hopes for the season finale? I saw in another ask, you described the dynamic between rick and morty this season as "very weak, distant, and downright frankly boring" and I completely agree with you! I hope that, because this is most we'll see rick and morty interacting this season, it'll have at least a few moments of what makes their dynamic so interesting to watch.

(Ok i started airing my grievances with this season, which ended up being... long, so skip this paragraph (starting at / / /) to get to my thoughts on the finale)

Oh gosh I remember that ask (I think-). And yeah, maybe I'm being a bit overly critical. I'll probably look back on this season with retrospect, and a kinder, fonder view. Ik androgynousblackbox (think thats right) made a great point about it being the season FOR rickorty shippers. And sure, I agree on some bits, like Rick acting all pissy and partying the way you would if your ex got with someone new in the planetina ep. Overall though, i think my problem lies in that I was enjoying more individual moments than episodes themselves, especially the middle three. For example- Amortycan Grickfitti. Like, I really liked the idea of the Ship getting on a crazy adventure with Summer and Morty (and Chutback). I like the idea of a Beth-Jerry-Rick adventure. But put together, it's just kinda... meh? You know? I liked the first half of the Thanksgiving special... but it kinda dragged on after that. I get that they want to give other characters (particularly female ones) more attention, which is completely understandable and i encourage it(!) but I can't help but find it underwhelming. Like, Summer in the voltron ep was like- girl how are you STILL vying for Rick's attention! He's the worst! Haven't we done this already? (I will say though I ADORE how far Beth has come, props to her for continuing to seeing through her dad's BS. I was worried the character would relapse into a more typical s1/s2 Beth, and I'm glad she didn't). Some of these plots, funnily enough, seem more fitting of the comics (they actually had a voltron parody already). Fun and entertaining for two or three-something issues, not so much a 22 minute episode. i think most of my complaints come from the dynamic between our titular characters- ok, I know I'm very biased (I mean you can see it), but I came to the show primarily for their relationship. It doesn't even feel drama-fueled, just that they kinda... can't be arsed. I'm torn because on the one hand, they're unhealthily codependent and this separation is probably a good thing, but on the other... it doesn't feel natural? I'm not sure if that's the right word- it's like, season 4 had them practically joint at the hip, but all that's suddenly flung out the window. It just kinda feels like this "i got better things to do" vibe from both of them and its strange. The only time they both got a solo adventure (I'm classifying "solo" as an adventure where they spent a significantly large portion of time together, without the other family members) was in the sperm ep and Thanksgiving ep. And, well, in the Thanksgiving ep Morty felt like a side character in his own show, and the sperm ep... um. Yeah. I don't think it's AS bad as people were saying, but I was cringing the whole time (the second hand embarrassment for Morty was so strong I had to turn off the episode multiple times and return to it. It's just like- godammit MORTY). And I think there's good reason those two seemed to be the most disliked episodes overall. They're the ones RaM spend the most time together and it's... meh. Meh? Meh. I don't mean to say the season overall is bad (it has loads of good points, and its amazing for Smith family as a whole) just that if we're talking specifically about the dynamic between these two? Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a single episode from this season so far to use as an example of their relationship.

/ / /

There's one thing this season has been pretty good at, though. And it's showing us what happens when Rick is alone.

And that brings me to the finale.

"Who is Rick without Morty?"

Well... we already know the answer to that. Pathetic. Sad. Lonely.

This season has been phenomenal in humbling Rick. (And trust me I'm happy for it- every time someone beats the crap outta this shitty old man I'm like YES!!! IT'S WHAT HE DESERVES!). Ep 1 had his "nemesis" clearly besting him, ep 2 had Beth making constant digs (love her) and overall pointing out his extreme callousness and cruelty towards even himself(ves). Ep 3- when Morty shows interest in a girl and ditches him (like seriously it's not like he's moving out, chill) he immediately goes on a bender and develops a deep attachment to the first person he can (wearing yellow, funnily enough). Ep 4, he devotes himself to becoming an "honest man" for his new child, only for it to instantly be taken away from him. Ep 5 highlights how RICK is the asshole for making fun of and taking advantage of someone well-meaning and honest, if "simple", and how literally not cool that is. Ep 6 has his crazy rivalry with the president, and they both get smacked down a couple pegs for that. Ep 7 shows what happens when he allows himself to get carried away, and that he can end up driving everyone else away in the process (lucky they still wanted to save his ass when he needed them). And episode 8? Hooooo boy. Episode. 8. We see a direct parallel in Birdperson with Morty, and the whole "Rick and [insert] 100 years!" Rick has few people he cares about, arguably only one or two that he truly devotes himself to, but when he does, boy does he go HARD. We see younger Rick, optimistic, energetic, friendly and hopeful. And we see all of that crushed in minutes. Rick is desperate for a companion, someone to see the stars with. He needs someone there, someone he can trust and rely on to stay. Someone like Morty. So without Morty, who is Rick?

No one.

And the thing is, Morty doesn't need Rick anymore. Not like Rick needs him. In season 1, Morty was this bright-eyed kid who was new to the cosmos and the multiverse, who needed his grandpa there with him as they explored all these places together. But that's not him anymore. That's not them.

The promo has Morty using the portal gun to go somewhere w/o Rick's permission (i like to think it's boob world lol). It doesn't matter to me as much where he's going, as much as he's doing it alone. He doesn't just not need Rick there, he doesn't want him.

(Also correct me if im wrong but I've missed that sweet portal gun so much. I think the last ep was like- the first time this season we saw it).

Morty's response to Rick? "Replace me!". And wow. Wow. WOW. Morty doesn't give a FUCK! I think Rick thinks that because he's so smart, that he can offer so much, that Morty will come crawling back, and I don't think he will.

Hopes for the finale! Hmm. I mean, I definitely hope "evil" Morty makes a reappearance, haha. I think we all do tbh ;). I want to see some Morty development too, this season has been very Rick-centric (not that there's anything wrong with that!) so I wanna see what's in store for Our Boy. I really hope we get to see the Citadel again, and see the state it's in, but I doubt it. We know something super big is in store, it's just a question of what? Other hopes I have is some Summer + Beth action (please let them team up Im BEGGING) and Jerry too ahaha. I'd love if some other side characters made an appearance as well. Oh- I'm definitely expecting a dramatic cliffhanger at the end of the first half leading to the second half, with the kind of angsty music that leads into the credits (pls that shit is so good (OH WAIT imagine if it was like, for the damaged coda, but like- the chopin version or smth so it could be more subtle maybe bruhhhh)). Ok haha, maybe that's asking too much, the writers made it clear in the story train ep that they weren't gonna do that big dramatic showdown (... unless 👀). Oh, I'd also love some Premium Angst too, like someone getting kidnapped/nearly dying (like ACTUALLY nearly dying). These stakes better be so damn high I could spear a man on them! OH, also I remember androgynousblackbox (is that right? I hope it is) mentioned something along the lines that they could be driving Rick and Morty apart this season in order to have them come back together stronger than ever in an explosive finale, which, I'm strongly hoping for myself.

Thanks if you made it this far! If you have any thoughts on or hopes of your own for the finale please feel free to share! :D

[ikemen-bully]

What I love the most about this ship too is that while the story can sound like a "girl power all men suck women should just be gay" there's actual nuance

See this is an Isekai and it point out the treatment of male characters to the heroine. But where beware of the villainess just let the other original male lead in the dust, in my story they develop

Especially the childhood best friend who's so often fanfavorite because he "love her since so long". He learn that he isn't entitled to her but not only...

That he, and the audience of this kind of story, can't just walk over the feeling of the heroine who loved the male character EVEN if it was "just friendship"

I hate how it's the reaction to Chihaya in Chihayafuru. People totally ignore all the affection she given to Taichi just because it wasn't romantic. They talk like she just exploited him the whole time while she didn't force him to help her?

So yeah there's that. And also there's the sadistic main male lead. The epitome of "I can fix him"

Through time the heroine slowly start to really dislike him to the point that she clearly avoid him and at some point just don't want to have anything with him.

It doesn't matter that a male lead have a tragic past and "love" the heroine if he mistreat her the whole time and she's just expected to sacrifice herself for him.

Heroine in romance in general should be allowed to get mad against the leads for being shit to them, not just take it until he suddenly like her now.

It's not a story about how all men are horrible and women should just be gay. It's a story about how often the female best friend is a better support to the heroine, that the heroine is actually happy with her. And she's respected. It's a story about how you shouldn't let your feelings be an excuse to mistreat someone, that just because you're handsome you shouldn't get away with being shitty and also that not all relationship between men and women have to be a romance with power dynamic

And also it was fucking time that I write about girl's love

[highfaelucien]

I completely agree with how you feel towards azriel. Thinking about azriel’s character now vs how I used to view him during acomaf times is just... sad and so so so much more complex. Part of me still wants to love him for the character that was presented to us in acomaf and other small good moments, like his friendship with nesta. And then the other part of me is disgusted, disappointed, and honestly kind of terrified of who he may become if sjm allows him to continue acting predatorily/toxic. The whole mor/az situation really fucked me up. As someone who is also a lesbian and an abuse survivor, it broke my heart to watch the situation unfold in acowar. It still hurts seeing many readers (and sometimes even sjm) take az’s side and paint mor as some sort of liar/two faced character that is playing everyone. I kept thinking that things would be fixed in future books, but instead az has grown worse and mor was, once again, sidelined and written out as a character. And honestly... as much as I love the idea of gwyn x azriel ... I think his books would need a lot more focus on his own recovery/growth and not center on a romantic relationship. If anything, I hope it’s written as friends to lovers so az has a better way of interacting and forming relationships with women. Because right now... well, that shit is borderline predatory and isn’t coming across well. And I really really do not want that for him. Basically, azriel deserves a better arc than what has been written for him. I miss him :( he used to be a character that made me feel safe and now :/ idk anymore

I'm going to quote parts of this/chop it up and reply to them a chunk at a time. because there's a lot going on here and I want to try and reply to as much as I can because I resonate with.....all of it. Please forgive me for the length of this.

I completely agree with how you feel towards azriel. Thinking about azriel’s character now vs how I used to view him during acomaf times is just... sad and so so so much more complex.

He feels like a different character? There was always an anger simmering under the calm surface, we knew that. But it was an anger born of love, deep down, and the desire to protect his family, and his court, at the expense of himself. Az was always the first to volunteer himself for dangerous missions, to spare the others.

Now that anger is directed at his family, and at the world, for not giving him what he feels he 'deserves'. That has NEVER been Azriel. Azriel's deepest issues and insecurities have always stemmed from the feeling of being unworthy, and undeserving of anything.

She's just made him into......Every other dude in this series tbh. Snarling, and possessive, and wanting to fuck anything in a skirt that moves.

Azriel was actually somewhat of an original, complex character initially. It's unusual that we see trauma affect men in the way it did Az. Usually it makes them angry, and vengeful, and eager to prove they are the alpha etc. Seeing them withdraw, and think less of themselves/that they're unworthy is something not explored often enough. But bye bye nuance hello #Drama.

Part of me still wants to love him for the character that was presented to us in acomaf and other small good moments, like his friendship with nesta.

I feel this. I found a lot of comfort in Az's character. Particularly the way he reacted with Mor. I was a big fan of their relationship, and I wrote a few 'missing scenes' style fics in the gap between ACOMAF and ACOWAR. One of them was where Az went to her when she had pushed everyone else away, including Cassian, and comforted and calmed her.

I hate that Maas took that away from Mor. I hate that Az no longer does that for her. I hate that Az was the one to betray her along with Rhys and bring her abuser into her safe space behind her back. I hate that he is no longer a symbol of calm, stable, dependable comfort and support for Mor, but is instead a threat. I HATE it.

Every now and then Az has lovely, gentle moments - his friendship with Nesta is a good example, and something I hoped we'd see. But also quieter times with Rhys, and their similarities being explored. And I adored the flying lessons with Feyre in ACOWAR, and the training he did with Cassian and the others in ACOFS.

But then she goes and twists him and does something else that just makes me want to fucking scream. Like the High Lord scene where he 'frightened' Mor. And his entire POV chapter which is frankly fucking gross.

And then the other part of me is disgusted, disappointed, and honestly kind of terrified of who he may become if sjm allows him to continue acting predatorily/toxic.

I agree.

I don't know how she can write a series that explores the effects of emotional abuse so well with Feyre and Tamlin...And then write what she did with Az?

The possession to a traumatised, still impressionable and desperate young woman, who likely finds the same comfort and safety in him that Mor did. Before that got shot to fucking pieces.

He sounds like a whiny toddler 'Cassian has a mate, and Rhys has a mate, where is mine!?!?!?!?' I DESERVE Elain, because I'm your brother and you guys have her sisters and what the FUCK. Who let that shit get published holy mother of god.

It's just...It's so unhealthy? Like, not even talking ship wars here (which I'm aware are rampant, and which I'm trying my best to stay away from). But that just.

How can that ever be a healthy foundation for a relationship? A man who thinks that he deserves, not only to be in a relationship with her, but to be bonded to her. Not because of HER, not because of who she is, or how she makes him feel. No. Purely because her sisters are mated to his brothers?

The whole thing made me feel so uncomfortable. It's predatory and toxic, just as you said. It's not right, it's not fair. Forget alliances and Lucien, even if none of that was a factor, that sort of thinking is still not right. And it's completely unfair to Elain.

But it also just. It didn't read like Azriel. The first part, where he struggles to sleep, and pushes himself until he passes out, and the insight that his shadows are basically hovering beside him screaming SELF CARE YOU DUMB BITCH at all times was very pleasing.

And the part where he goes to Clotho and leaves an anonymous gift for Gwyn. No fanfair. No audience. No pressure on either of them to react/perform. That felt like Az, too.

But everything in the middle. Everything with Elain, was just...Gross and out of character. And this is not because I dislike E/riel as a ship. I could get on board with it, tbh, if it wasn't written the way it was.

But it's not about ships, for me. It's just. Everything felt out of character. The predatory way he was with her. The fact he lies awake and gets himself off to fantasies of her. How apparently quickly he was aroused by putting a necklace on her. Idk, maybe it's my ace ignorance, but that doesn't sound normal/healthy to me.

Nor does him having to leave a room because he can scent her mating bond with Lucien. Or not being able to control himself to sit and eat dinner with her?

This is the same dude who has, apparently, been in love with Mor for 500 solid years, and who never did a damned thing about it. Who always kept himself in check. Even while she's had other lovers. But he can't control himself through one dinner with Elain?

It just. It doesn't feel like him. It feels like...Honestly not even Cassian. It feels like Tamlin on horny, predatory steroids. And that's not something I ever wanted to see from Azriel's POVs.

She could have explored a darker side to him without making it sexual? And misogynistic. And having him treating Elain as little more than a fucking object that he feels entitled to because 'everyone else got one, where's mine?'. What the FUCK???

The more I write it the more angry I get.

Because SJM has consistently put Az in the position of saving women when they were in danger? He was the one who found Mor near death at Autumn. He was the one who rescued Gwyn from her attackers during the war. He was the one to retrieve Elain when she was taken.

She always puts him in this position and, for better or worse, presents him as a safety figure for these women. The first person who they saw come for them, and fight for them, and protect them.

And on the inside she makes him this vile, predatory monster who just thinks constantly about fucking them? Who isn't actually safe at all?? It's sad. And it's infuriating. Because this isn't about ships anymore. This is about female survivors who have an apparent safe person who's presented as almost as dangerous as the people who attacked them in the first place. And that makes me feel so sick and sad that we've gotten here.

It still hurts seeing many readers (and sometimes even sjm) take az’s side and paint mor as some sort of liar/two faced character that is playing everyone. I kept thinking that things would be fixed in future books, but instead az has grown worse and mor was, once again, sidelined and written out as a character.

This is yet another vile thing SJM has done to queer readers with this whole fiasco. Because it puts me in a position where I want to call out her shitty writing, and what she's done to Mor - sidelining her as soon as she became queer. Undermining her power and her strength. Undermining her role as the survivor to look up to. Saying her power is truth but then making her seem like a liar. Which is all shitty, shitty, shitting writing.

But I'm also a queer person. And I will always always ALWAYS want to defend a queer person's right to remain closeted. Regardless of their reasons for doing so. But in this case it's a concern for their safety/a fear of how those around them will react. And I will NEVER condemn that. I will never say Az is suffering more than Mor for her being closeted. I will never call Mor a liar/a manipulator/two-faced when all she's doing is trying to survive.

I WILL condemn SJM for making this a scenario. For putting homophobia in her world purely to cause pain for queer characters, and drama for her straight ones. And for sidelining Mor as soon as she can't write graphic scenes with her fucking men because now she's a lesbian so we best get her off the page so the guys can get their cocks out some more.

And honestly... as much as I love the idea of gwyn x azriel ... I think his books would need a lot more focus on his own recovery/growth and not center on a romantic relationship. If anything, I hope it’s written as friends to lovers so az has a better way of interacting and forming relationships with women. Because right now... well, that shit is borderline predatory and isn’t coming across well. And I really really do not want that for him.

This is going to sound sarcastic but I actually mean it fully and completely genuinely: 95% of the drama inducing problems in this series could be fixed with some fucking therapy.

But I agree with you. I think it's high time Azriel worked on his own issues. Even if they've apparently made a complete 180 from what they were in ACOMAF.

I...Like the concept of Gwyn/Azriel, but I'm not sold on the ship. Not with the way Maas has been writing Azriel lately. That kind of man shouldn't be with any woman right now. But especially not a rape survivor who sees him as one of the first men she's been able to trust in a long time.

Basically, azriel deserves a better arc than what has been written for him. I miss him :( he used to be a character that made me feel safe and now :/ idk anymore

"he used to be a character that made me feel safe" - This shit hit me like a tonne of bricks because this is EXACTLY how I feel about Az, too. You just managed to say it in a few words instead of 12 pages of rambling, like I do.

And I think this was intention. Azriel was presented as a very dependable character. He rescued Mor, and was respectful enough to keep his distance, despite his feelings, for 500 fucking years. Because he didn't think she was ready/interested.

He had a very calm, and calming air about him. Always in control of himself. Without the expected bursts of aggression and temper we'd seen from...Every other male character in this series. He was stable, and solid, and that was comforting. An anchor. And someone who would quietly, and without fuss, seek out Mor/others when they needed someone to talk to or comfort him.

That was a very soothing, reassuring presence in the book, I felt. And now she's made him seem...volatile, and unstable. With this dangerous anger that he can't control, that he uses not to protect, but to intimidate, and to fuel his entitlement and desires.

it's just sad. It's sad that she's taken this away from Mor, but also from other survivors who found comfort and safety in Az. Because I'm sure we weren't alone in that regard.

I miss him. And I mourn the character he was, and feel anger for the character he should have been. but instead he's become yet another possessive, entitled, snarling cardboard cutout dude like...everyone else.

And I ache for the Az/Mor dynamic that we had in ACOMAF. Even without it becoming romantic, there was no reason for that to be destroyed/ruined.

She could have written it that Az is the only one who knows about her sexuality, and that he pretends he's still in love with her as a shield/buffer, so no one looks too closely/to protect her and make her feel comfortable.

Instead she turned it into a soap opera style drama. And wrote it almost as though her sexuality was her cheating on him? Denying him what he deserved. And now she's just...just pussyfooting around it. And apparently he's just. Just moved on. Without them having any kind of conversation or closure at all. He just wanks off to the thought of Elain instead of Mor, now, problem solved /s

I miss what they were. I miss what he was to Mor. I miss when she had that support system, and that safety net. I miss when he protected her. And looked out for her. And understood her in a way that no one else, not even Rhys, did.

Mor deserved that. Azriel deserved that. WE deserved that. And she nuked it for some fucking twisted drama that punishes a lesbian because a man is thirsting after her. it's a fucking disgrace. I'm so fucking done with SJM, y'all. So fucking done.

[innovativestruggles]

Extra thoughts on Daisuke x Suzue (Anime and Novel)

I was prompted to write this when a friend asked me several prodding questions on Daizue’s relationship and feminism several days ago. Obviously my friend knew where to hit the right nerve LOL

So I thought about it and I’d like to share my thoughts. I don’t know whether my DaiSuzu followers are still hanging around, but if you see this, then this is for you. This post is very opinionated of course so you may not agree with what I have to say. 

I took the initiative to go back and watch some of the FKBU episodes, and then top it off with the novel. As I mentioned in numerous older posts, the novel is the original and was written sometime in the 1970s. If you can read Japanese, I strongly recommend you grab a copy and read it for yourself. It goes into a lot more depth with regards to Daizue’s relationship and there is a lot more development between the two.

Novel and anime are different yet there are similarities. What I am going to write here is purely about DaiSuzu and because there are only minute differences in their interactions in both novel and anime, I will combine the two elements together. But before I do that, I want to talk a little about Suzue.

Suzue

I absolutely love Suzue’s character - in almost every single aspect. She is strong, clever, independent and defies all odds. Her personality and interests are definitely more pronounced in the anime in terms of strength and defying the odds. She does the hard yard - a mechanic, an engineer, a creator, a pilot, a spy, an intelligence operator - she is a one stop shop and she is not just a pretty face. Then we have her novel counterpart, who shares similar traits that concerns intelligence and independence. She does intelligence and spy work for Daisuke as well, and the only thing that was absent would be her ‘mechanics and gadget development role.’ Given that the book was written in the 70s by a misogynistic piece of shit, I am surprised the author gave Suzue that level of prominence. 

When I saw the promotional materials and then the second episode of FKBU, I was so excited! Finally, a strong female character who has all the ‘male dominated’ traits! I was looking forward to what the anime had to offer her, considering the creators were talking about giving Suzue an ‘important’ role in the anime.  And throughout the series, her character in that sense did not disappointment. She did a lot of work for Daisuke and she was the backbone of everything. She even had to rescue him at times. What an incredible woman.

In comparison, novel Suzue, although a prominent, intelligent character, still had some level of submissiveness to her that screamed ‘I need a man to save me and do things for me’ kind of way. Unsurprising of course being written by an old fashioned man in the 70s. So the anime in a sense was a breath of fresh air.

Then we see the lack of screen time. Although Suzue was just a supporting character, she was quite prominent in the novel. The anime went through all this trouble to create such an incredibly strong female character, but gave her such little screen time. Disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m just frustrated that it is always the bloody male characters that gets a lot of screen time. I don’t give two fucks about your need for a fanservice or to appease fujos, we need more female characters who are strong, clever, independent, does not need a man to save her, is not overly sexualised and gets plenty of screen time. If it’s not one, it’s another. Can’t they just bloody do it all together? Also, have three main characters, Daisuke, Suzue and Haru ffs.

Feminism & Anime

If you trawl through my blog, there are a lot of posts about women, feminism, misogyny, toxic fandoms and a lot of het ships. Although I do absolutely love my M/M and F/F ships, there is a reason for my interest in anime het ships. I am a social worker who specialises in working with victim/survivors of family/domestic violence and sexual assault (DVSA), and complex trauma. Considering the majority of perpetrators are men, and the majority of victim/survivors are women, it is important to emphasise the need for a healthy and respectful relationship. I enjoy bringing my feminist perspective to film and fiction because they are an extension of society. Film and fiction (including anime and manga) are based on societal perceptions, and characters are still, unfortunately, heavily gendered. 

The anime fandom consists of real people and if you look all over social media, people talk about the characters all the time and their thoughts on them. It comes from somewhere. So when I watch anime, and when I see a male and female character get together in a manner that is healthy and respectful, they get a standing ovation from me. In particular, is when a male character treats his female partner in a way that empowers her or if he abstains from using his male entitlement to demean her. Because in society, there is still a large proportion of men who continues to abuse women in every way possible. If fans are constantly viewing content (yes, even ‘cartoons’) where women are objectified and disrespected comparatively to men, that rigid stereotype is reinforced and ingrained. 

I just want to add a note here that the LGBTQIA+ community do experience DVSA as well and this post does not disregard or invalidate them in any way. The focus of this discussion however, pertains to men, who make up the majority of perpetrators and, women, who are the majority of victim/survivors.

Daisuke and Suzue

I answered an ask sometime ago about why I ship DaiSuzu and although that has not changed, I have given a lot more thought to the reasoning behind it. The one thing I dislike about Suzue is her obsession with Daisuke, both in the novel and anime. It does take away her cool, independent like character, and submit her to the idea that she is nothing without first appeasing a man (Daisuke in this case). I don’t want to put too much dislike into her character in the anime, because we never got to see what her history was like with Daisuke. In the novel, I do see elements as to why she can be a bit obsessive, and that was most likely to do with her being ‘adopted’ and given a second chance. It was her way of showing appreciation. Yet she does have romantic feelings for Daisuke, so in essence, her character was emphasised as a typical lovestruck woman 😒

Again, she was incredibly loyal and forgiving towards Daisuke in the anime, despite his shitty attitude towards her at times. You’re probably wondering, after all that I wrote about feminism, why I would still ship DaiSuzu? In the anime, that comes down to Daisuke’s trauma. It added an extra layer of complexity. Daisuke’s standoffish, cold behaviour towards Suzue was not out of a sense of male entitlement and disrespect towards Suzue being a woman, rather, it was a manifestation of his trauma. Of course, it does not excuse his behaviour, but this is the reason why I really enjoyed watching their relationship. There was a lot of mutual trust going on (which I wrote about), covert appreciation of Suzue’s skills and abilities and Daisuke’s own way of making amends with her. 

In the novel, however, Daisuke does not have a history of any traumatic experiences. His personality was a lot more animated and though he does exhibit some weird behaviour towards Suzue, he does not do it out of male privilege or misogyny. He was just dense (and an idiot).  

Regardless, DaiSuzu’s relationship isn’t just as simple as black and white. There are elements of feminism that intertwines the anime and what I love a lot about Daisuke was that he never put Suzue down, felt intimidated, or tried to make her feel inadequate for being more clever and more intelligent than him. He relied on her knowledge, her skills and her expertise to guide him through his missions, because not only did he trust her with his life, he believed in her skills. He quietly allowed her to do her job without questioning her abilities or intervening.

I won’t discuss how shit the anime was and how much they shat on Suzue’s character by making her Daisuke’s relative, but like I said, I was pretty impressed with the way they turned Suzue into a strong character, and Daisuke’s perception of Suzue as a woman.

And yes, Daisuke doesn’t deserve Queen Suzue. And if you were again to ask me about Daisuke’s true feelings for Suzue? I am pretty damn certain that he loves her to death - in both novel AND anime.

[lassieposting]

Hi i havent read the books post-resurrection so im kinda lost on why you dont like phase 2 val? She was easily one of my favourite characters ever, she was flawed (and the books took time to acknowledge them) and relatable and still really admirable (intelligent, brave, loyal) and i really liked her and really appreciated that she wasn’t perfect unlike every other young adult heroines. What went wrong😢😢😢😢

Okay I'm gonna put this under a cut because I very strongly dislike phase 2 val and I know it bugs people who don't feel the same, so. Dead dove dont eat

Okay so first off, phase 1 val and phase 2 val are completely different people. literally. phase 1 val was based on an ex-friend of lardo's who used to apparently be involved pretty heavily in like, editing the books and "she'd react like this" or "val wouldn't say that", and that val she was one of my favourite fictional characters from when book one came out to the release of resurrection. phase 2 val is based on his whiny little girlfriend who likes to start shit with 14yos on twitter, and you can absolutely tell she is no longer the same person. so the long story short of "what went wrong" is "the original irl val's friendship with dirty laundry ended for whatever reason and he decided to retcon her entire personality to suit his gf"

Phase 2 Val, in my opinion:

Weak, like won't even fight back when she gets jumped bc boo fucking hoo she's so awful, bitch get up already, nobody signed up for ur pity party

Whiny. So fucking whiny. All the time. And she's the POV character so it's inescapable.

"Pacifist" but in a really pathetic virtue-signalling kind of way like "Oh, I've done such terrible thiiiiiiiiiiings I'm so awfulllllllllllll look how good I'm trying to be nowwwwwwww pay attention to meeeeeeee" kind of way, it was both boring and a massive eye roll. It's a book about magic and asskicking. Kick some ass. We're here for escapism not "realistic" whining. Yes, irl she'd be a mess. As an author it's his job to strike a balance between the "realism" he wants to portray and making his readers so depressed and done with his heroine that they quit reading, and in my case, he absolutely failed.

Everything must be about her at all times. Skug is having personal problems? Fuck him, they're about her now. Everything is about how it affects her, and her feelings, and be damned to the person actually having the problem. Fucks phase 2 val cain gives about anyone except herself: 0

Bitter and jaded. Which yeah I get why but it's like jesus christ what do we get out of reading about this? It's not even good bitter and jaded where it makes you empathise or admire her strength in adversity or whatever, she's just become a really nasty person with no redeeming features that I could see. Which? Landy outright said she's based on his gf? If your boyfriend is gonna drag ur entire personality through the dirt like that and write "you" as just a collection of incredibly negative traits...yikes.

Really ungrateful about the awesome life she leads? Which bugs me bc I fucking hate mundanity and knowing that all there is to life is fucking working and bad mental health. I would kill to live her life. All she does is moan about it. Like? Quit then. Fuck off back to being a mortal if it's that bad and live the shitty life you wanted to get away from in the first place. That way we'd get no more books, and quite honestly, thank fuck for that. But anyway, she needs to pick one, stick with it, and stop complaining about whatever she chose.

The girl wallows in self pity. And if someone else isn't indulging her enough, she'll wallow harder and louder and more obviously. Yawn.

Her POV is now so depressing to read that Resurrection literally tanked my mental health. I'm not kidding. I fell off the self-harm wagon, the suicidal thoughts came back, reading her dissociating would make me dissociate, I just did not cope whatsoever. Being in her head was just like being in my head during my worst points, and I hate myself, so naturally, I hate her too. Like I get why some people like phase two val. I get that her depression is "realistic" and that trauma does just make some people completely dislikeable and self-pitying, and if people want to read about that, then...sure. you do you, my dudes. But I live that reality, I am that person whose trauma made her a dysfunctional, isolated bitch, and I hate, passionately, having it infest the media I consume to escape.

Essentially if I wanted to engage with a bitter, spiteful, depressed piece of shit in her 20s who pushes everyone away and sucks at everything, I'd live my gd life. Yall see me tryna engage with my real life? Hell nah I'm on tumblr dot com burying my head up the ass of whatever fandom will force my brain to produce some s e r o t o n i n and that is what I need this series for

Also? The dynamic she had with skug in phase one? "Until the end"? "You save me, I save you, that's how we work"? Forget that, it doesn't exist anymore. I stopped reading after Midnight, because she was written like he was a coworker she could barely tolerate. They went from "Lardo confirms on twitter that they talked on the phone a bunch while she was in america and he'd always ask her to come home" to "she comes home and proceeds to blank him for five months while she sits in her fuckin multimillionaire's mansion feeling sorry for herself". Their friendship completely disintegrated, they were totally separated for most of the book, she's written as not giving a single shit about him. She treated him like dirt, and their dynamic basically felt like it was becoming "Local Man With History Of Gravitating Towards Abusive Women Makes Same Terrible Choices For Fifth Time" and? that was the point of no return to me. he supports her unconditionally, no matter what he's going through at the time, he's walked on broken bones to try and get to her when she was in danger, she can tell him anything and he'd never use it against her. I did not, for one second in phase two, believe she felt the same about him. tbh it felt like she could - and wanted to - drop him at the first opportunity and not even feel bad about it, and that's not the dynamic that made me so emotionally attached to phase one. i signed up for "until the end", not whatever bullshit phase two has going on.

Apparently she's "less depressed" now and their relationship is "better" in the books published since midnight, which! might well be true. but I haven't read them and don't intend to, and she's gone from one of my favourite fictional characters ever (which! was impressive! because i almost never bond with the female lead - i normally get attached exclusively to the character i crush on, which would be skug here. val was the first female lead i actually cared about since xena! so im deeply salty about losing her!) to a character i? honestly prefer to pretend doesn't exist. i live in war era dead men/generals crackship land because that way, i don't have to acknowledge her or the fuckin character assassination phase 2 pulled on her.

so yeah, no hate towards phase one val at all. phase one val was awesome and flawed and gave me something to aspire to despite my shitty mental health and trauma, and if she'd kept her original personality she might still have been those things. but the original "real life" val is no longer involved (and doesn't talk to landy at all anymore, apparently), and the val based on landy's insufferable gf? i cannot get behind her at all ever, four for skug and none for phase two val cain bye

(tldr; you're not missing anything by quitting after spx)