#and who has never had a nuanced thought in her life and actively does not want to

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.22 thoughts

[Dess' Contract's Got Some Mighty Fine Print]

(Topics: speculation - worldbuilding/narrative progression, character analysis - Desscaras/Ichi, thematic analysis - Family)

Before I get into the extremely enticing character implications of this chapter, I have a quick worldbuilding question:

Where...did the spell for this contract come from?

We know that magical items exist such as the leg-booster boots, but it hasn't really been delved into yet how such things are made. Do they have a pre-existing Magik's spell applied to them, or is there a unique method of creating a spell from scratch and embuing it into an item?

If it's the latter then creating a magic contract should be easy enough, you just draft up paper that enforces the stipulations of the words written on it, easy peasy. If it's the former, though, what Magik has that ability? Can any given contract be created, or is it specific to the Mentor-Pupil Blood Contract?

It doesn't really matter, and I only just thought of this question while writing this review rather than agonizing over it since reading the chapter, but it's still the kind of minor inconsistency that just barely holds this series back from being everything I know it can be

As for what it is, though, this chapter's glimpse into the ongoing character study of Desscaras and her relationship with Ichi only further solidifies this as my current favorite in Jump's roster

The Mother Who Stepped Up

There is an incredible amount of nuance to Desscaras' motivations for making such a dangerous contract with Ichi

First and foremost, as she tells Ichi, it's her way of taking responsibility for his life being uprooted and threatened. If she had been able to find a way to circumvent Uroro's trial, if she'd actually kept Ichi a secret from Mantinel, if she'd taken any other path, Ichi might not be set to die, and she can't pretend that isn't the case

Normally, Desscaras comes off as laidback and irresponsible, but I think that's more about things like navigating bureaucratic red tape than it is about peoples' wellbeing. When push comes to shove, Desscaras does actively fulfill her duties without complaint, it's just that to her, her duties are about fighting monsters and protecting people, not answering work e-mails or filing reports

By putting Ichi in this situation, she has endangered him, going directly against her own principals. This contract is a way of making amends for that, a statement that she isn't trifling with his life and takes his safety extremely seriously. If he should die, then she will repay his loss in kind

This leads into the reason she gave to Monegold and Shirabedonna: that she doesn't want to have peace that requires someone else's sacrifice, least of all a child's

The One Who Walks Deeper into Omelas

This is Desscaras' direct answer to and rejection of the Omelas Child conundrum: if she can't stop the child's suffering, she won't just walk away either - she'll help support the peace. This way the child doesn't suffer alone, and has some kind of happiness to show for it, while also allowing her to take an active role in protecting everyone else

After all, it's not that Desscaras is choosing the child over everyone else. Everyone deserves peace and happiness, it's just that with the knowledge that the child is the only one who doesn't get it, she'd never be able to appreciate her own again. By voluntarily choosing to bear some of the world's weight, Desscaras can feel like she's earned whatever peace she manages to take from it, secure in the knowledge that she did what no one else would: gave some peace, no matter how small, to the suffering child

This also serves to act as an indictment of Monegold's leadership, as while she definitely objected to Jikishirone's prophecy, she still kind of just resigned herself to it. She heard the prophecy, got angry, and...didn't do anything else. She may have been trying to think of a way, but as I said last week, it's just generally accepted that Jiki's words will come to pass unless she gives an alternate path - since the only alternate was the destruction of the world, Monegold likely wouldn't have made a real effort to avert the fate ascribed to Ichi

Now, though, Monegold's greatest asset has just said two devastating things to her face: 1) "if he dies, I die;" and 2) "good luck sleeping at night." Desscaras' actions have put into perspective for Monegold what a post-Ichi world will look like for her, which hopefully will give her the kick in the pants she needs to actually do something about it

At the very least, it ensures that Monegold won't get in the way of Desscaras doing something about it

Blood of the Covenant

For all of the practical and philosophical reasons Desscaras has, there's really only one that truly matters, one statement that Desscaras wants to make above all others: that she cares about Ichi

She wants Ichi to stay in her life, to take care of himself, to live

And if he won't do any of those things for his own sake, then by god, he'll do it for hers

"If you die, then I die" is an excellent inversion of Ichi's Death for Death; whereas it usually means "a kill for a kill," it now means "you are no longer playing with your life alone." If Ichi is reckless and charges in without a second thought on the basis that his life is going to end sooner or later anyway, then he now runs the risk of getting Desscaras killed along with him, which by his own philosophy would make him a murderer

This pulls double duty both by incentivizing him to stay safe and by showing him that someone wants him to stay safe

When his parents left him in the woods with a knife, they wordlessly said to him "we want you to die, but we're too cowardly to kill you ourselves. Starve, get killed by a beast, or kill yourself, we don't care, just do it away from us"

Desscaras' contract, meanwhile, says just the opposite. "I want you to live, and I'll fight to make sure you do. Live how you like, go where you like, do what you like, but whatever you do, just promise to come back to me"

I don't know if Desscaras knows Ichi's past; they've certainly had the opportunity to discuss it off-screen, but it's never been stated that they've opened up to each other about that sort of thing. My instinct is that she has no idea what this means to him, only that it means everything to her

Ichi, meanwhile, certainly has no idea about Libro, and likely can't comprehend why Desscaras would want someone like him as family. But what it means to her isn't his concern right now, because it means everything to him

They have no idea what the other has lost, only what they themselves have, and what this contract represents to each of them is the chance to get it back. Ichi doesn't know why Desscaras wants to give it to him, and Desscaras doesn't know why Ichi accepted, but both of them now have someone who has implicitly told them that they are willing to fill the hole in their lives, and that's all that matters

This is also why the little matter of Ichi being unwittingly enslaved is so easy to sweep under the rug

Siblings, Siblings

Naturally, once Ichi learns that the contract has forcibly made him subservient to Desscaras, he becomes indignant and demands that it be undone. He was tricked, after all, and he doesn't want to follow unreasonable orders

However, once Desscaras is out of the room, Ichi doesn't ruminate on his indentured servitude, that's the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, it is Desscaras' original words that resound in his heart: "a home is a place you can come back to, no matter where in the world you are." Even if she threw in a major downside right at the end, Desscaras' true message has been received loud and clear

It also remains to be seen just how far Desscaras is going to go with her ability to lobby commands at Ichi. Honestly, her commands so far have been pretty standard fair for a mentor - "cook for me, clean for me, learn the more menial aspects of our trade." I don't see her extorting favors out of him or anything, just little things to make her own life less stressful or to teach him a good work ethic

Plus there's the fact that her gloating was sandwiched between her initial pitch and her justification to Monegold. While the reveal of the slavery clause may seem to invalidate the sentiment of what she told Ichi directly, her confrontation with Monegold and soulful assertion that she sees Ichi as family confirms that nothing she said was a lie

What this tells me is that she never intended to pull a fast one on Ichi, nor was she being opportunistic to use her newfound power as a bonus to all of her previous motivations. No, I think she was just...embarrassed

As I said last week, Desscaras isn't one to be vulnerable. She's the Strongest Witch, and that comes with the expectation that she has no weakness

Like I said, Ichi doesn't know about Libro. He doesn't know that he's filling a void for Desscaras the way she is for him, and she doesn't want him to know

She doesn't want him to know how much she cares, she just wants him to feel cared for. So to hide the truth, she turns around and laughs in his face. She presents it as transactional, the void in Ichi's life being filled in exchange for free labor, when in reality the emotional aspect is completely mutual

And I think on some level, Ichi already has that figured out. Like I said, he moves on from it pretty fast and is able to smile warmly at the thought of having a home despite Desscaras' nasty attitude. Whether Ichi has any direct experience with family relationships in the first place, I think Ichi understands already that this sort of teasing, capricious behavior is just how Desscaras is and was all part of what he was signing up anyway

He understands that being family means seeing more of each other, for better and worse. Everything he knows Desscaras to be, lazy and selfish, won't cease to be true just because they share blood now, and if anything will be amplified. But he'll also see the Desscaras who was honest with him, who offered to provide for him, who wants to be with him. I think Ichi has known Desscaras long enough already that he recognizes when she's being genuine and when she's being defensive, so he knows that when she calls him her "dog," it's to guard her heart rather than to put him down

With this in mind, I think it's quite likely that "Family" is going to become one of the running major themes across the story, and that the relationship between Ichi and Desscaras alone won't be the only angle we approach it from

The Desscaras Bunch

Though it's been a hot minute since she had any real dialogue, Kumugi is still a member of Team Desscaras, and one who will certainly be used to further the Family theme. Her backstory has already been established to center around her family's dismissal of her abilities, making her a perfect parallel to Ichi: where Ichi's family abandoned him physically, Kumugi's abandoned her emotionally

Ichi's acknowledgment of Kumugi already shows how he can fill her void, and Desscaras' forceful interjection into conversation with Kumugi shows how Kumugi can fill their voids in turn. Both of them have an established dynamic with her that is set to be explored as the story goes on, and the interplay between their dynamics when together and alone offers even more opportunities for depth and growth

Even Uroro is likely to be a part of this family. Right now he's antagonistic with Ichi and Desscaras, but he did once ask Kumugi to be friends. Sure, he definitely had some ulterior motive, but it shows that he has the capacity to interact with members of the group outside of just Ichi, and therefore won't be confined to only one or two dynamics

And of course, Nishi has no plans to stop with only four members of the group. As Jiki's newest prophecy foretells, they're about to add a fourth "stalwart companion" to the team

I'm not going to go too far into speculating on this character since we know so little, but we do know two things: 1) that they violently hunt Magiks, and 2) they're apparently a man

The Arc Where a Man--

Viz always cuts out the editors' notes, but as you may have seen other folks mention already, in the original Japanese, he's referred to as "'a man' who tramples on Magiks." The quotes are suspicious, but they could just be there to highlight his gender rather than call it into question

While it is possible that he's actually a woman, for the moment I'm going to operate under the assumption that he's a man solely because I think it presents a more interesting angle to explore the world from

Case in point: I do not think that this person is a Male Witch like Ichi. Rather, I think that he wants to be, and is hunting Magiks to see if he can find a spell that he can actually use

Remember, in ch.1, it was stated that there were a handful of prerequisites that Ichi had to meet to use Magic:

Facing a Magik that allowed a man to pass its trial

A body and mind well-trained enough to handle its usage

The capacity to acquire a Magik at all

The first criteria is actually pretty easy - most Magiks' trials don't actually disqualify men in the first place! It's just that no man would ever try because it's "widely believed" that men can't use Magic. So all that's really needed is for a man to make an attempt rather than for the Magik to allow it

The second is also a no-brainer - look at this guy's bod! He's not excessively jacked or anything, but he's definitely drawn to look like a trained fighter, and even if we ignore his design, he's standing in the viscera of a giant frog! He ripped that thing apart with his bare hands! He's clearly at least comparable to Ichi in physical strength if not more, and what a "trained mind" means is still unclear even for Ichi, so we won't worry about it

All that's left then is to actually acquire a Magik, and the only way to know if you can is to try. So, by shaking down Magiks and asking for their trials, this guy increases his odds of finding a Magik that he's capable of acquiring simply through quantity

However, I don't think it's a matter of compatibility. If it were as simple as the Witch and Magik being a match, Togeice probably wouldn't have been able to acquire Macilvaine who clashed with her persona and aesthetic. No, I think it's a lot more fundamental than that:

I think that men might literally lack a Magic Circle

The way it's portrayed, it seems like a...cavity within the soul, a hollowed-out portion of the self meant for housing Magiks. For whatever reason, whether it's biological or spiritual, most men simply don't have Magic Circles, while women inherently do. Or, perhaps, men simply have too small of Magic Circles to be able to fit Magiks in the first place

Maybe that's why Ichi was able to do it: because he was either born with or otherwise created a Magic Circle inside of himself. Maybe he accidentally stumbled across the method to do so. Maybe countless men have and have simply never tried to use it because they had no idea they had! Maybe Minakata somehow implanted one into him, who knows?

I don't expect to get the answers to this one anytime soon, but if this new recruit is a man, I think he'll be an important piece in the puzzle for us to understand this element of the worldbuilding. I think he'll also provide a unique fighting style among the cast, being solely physical as opposed to Desscaras' mostly magical and Ichi's mixed styles, plus parallels to everyone else's narratives. The one I'd be most excited to see is comparing his attempts to overcome a perceived limitation to Kumugi's resignation to being incapable, but I'm not going to hold my breath just in case

Buuut if they are a woman, I'm certainly not going to complain, especially with those cute freckles!

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[tuttle-did-it]

I’m rewatching DS9 with the Delta Flyers rewatch, and I think Keiko/Miles had an amazing relationship. I love that there are times when they can't stand to be away from each other, and that there are times when they aren't even sure if they want to be in the same room with each other. I love them. I don't think they're as stereotypical as you might be remembering-- there were some subtleties and nuances beyond the stereotypes of being in a cis-het relationship— or any relationship for that matter.

The only episode I have really actively disliked with Keiko and Miles was the TNG episode where Keiko is turned into an 12 year old. The actress they had for young Keiko was not very good, and Colm seemed to be questioning his life choices as he's having to argue with a 12 year old girl playing his wife. It was an uncomfortable plot line (I get that’s the point, but maybe a little too uncomfortable). I thought her character was written terribly, the episode was absurd, and would have MUCH preferred they had used that time with Rosalind to write a much better story for her.

I have always loved Rosalind. She is an amazing actor, she is absolutely gorgeous, she has wonderful chemistry with Colm, and she just seems like a really fabulous person. Armin can't say enough praise when he talks about her as a guest star. I have NEVER understood why people say there was a problem with Keiko because I've never known anyone who said that. Everyone I've known feels the same way about her. I'm going to guess that it was primarily men who were offended at seeing a blond woman who wasn't a 28 year old with big tits bouncing around.

Chakotay…. you know what? I will be honest. I never liked his character, even before I found out Beltran was a pile of shit. to my knowledge, Beltran has never claimed to be Native American. As I understand it, he does have some ancestry for Native America but does not identify that way, I think he's primarily known as a Mexican American actor. In fact, I remember articles complaining when Voyager first came out from Native Americans and First Nations people pointing out that there were a lot of Native actors who would have been perfect for the role, there were a lot of Native consultants who would have helped them not write shit (they hired a hack -- apparently knowing he was a hack???-- white dude who was an ʇɹǝdxǝ on Native cultures. Who knew nothing about Native cultures and made out all the fuck up. (Fact check me on all of this, friend it's very late/early and I have had a pain flare-up for 4 weeks that is dulling my bloody brain).

Even without knowing Beltran was a piece of shit, I have never liked his character. I also never liked Reg Barclay, and I liked the character of Torres but didn't always love Roxanne's performance of her. hmmm what do they all have in common…. ahem. Could it be a red hat with 4 letters words on it? Why yes. Yes it could. (More on Torres later)

I love Prodigy. I do. I think it's a brilliant show and I think they actually do some very clever stuff with anti-nostalgia when the rest of the entire fucking franchise is nothing but nostalgia (Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, Picard in particular). I strongly wish they had not brought Beltran back in, and kept with the anti-nostalgia stuff they were playing with. The kids' storylines were all fantastic. In my opinion, it was the best New Trek show out there. The writers clearly knew and understood the two different people Janeway could be, they gave story arcs to every character, they managed to make the Borg scary again (well done there). It was just a good show. But it was harmed with the Chakotay sideplots that never needed to happen.

The writers were clearly Chakotay/Janeway shippers, which… no. I would have loved if the story was… anyone else. I mean, maybe not Kim, but yeah, pretty much anyone else. I think the show would have been far stronger if they had kept with the anti-nostalgia here, and they did not need a forced relationship that never should have happened. I’d have much preferred if Janeway had a completely asexual reason for going back to the Delta quadrant— preferably one that involved something she fucked up 30 years ago.

Torres…. you know, I am going to disagree with you a bit here. Am I angry that they made the Latina woman angry and out of control? Yes. Does it drive me absolutely insane that Torres-- the only main character woman of colour on Trek since Uhura-- is constantly being told to control herself? Abso-fucking-lutely. (and don't think I'm not still raging that they were STILL FUCKING DOING THIS 30 FUCKING YEARS LATER WITH RAFFI BECAUSE FUCK YOU STAR TREK)

However. I would argue that Torres might be one of the women on Trek who has had the MOST character development.

Everyone credits Janeway as the first woman captain as a main character. YAY! great. Women in stem. We love it. So why aren't we acknowledging the first woman engineer? These two women run the fucking ship. They are allowed to be leaders, and for the most part, the men who work for them adapt to this pretty quickly and don’t really cause problems because ewww my boss is a woman! Ugh! No, just she is my boss, she knows what the fuck she’s doing, I will do my job.

I also kind of loved when Janeway is like, how long will this take? and Torres says x hours. Janeway says fine, I want this done in (less than) x hours. Torres fights back saying No, I said it takes x time. I don’t exaggerate. I said what I said. I just liked their relationship— she was allowed to push back, and Janeway seemed to value that in her (most of the time. Not at first. But eventually).

I think they were best with Torres when she was dealing with her struggles of identity. I have never liked the Klingons, I will be honest. I hate Klingons. I hate Worf. I don’t like the Klingon culture, and I think most of the time they’re just an excuse to show how “civilised” the Federation and Starfleet are. It bothers me how the original series mainly used them in Blackface, and I’ve noticed an annoying trend in science fiction to often put the person of colour in alien makeup, often monstrous or villainous. It can feel quite racist to me, as the original series mail had Klingons basically in Blackface, and are often in sci-fi to show monstrous characters to show how evolved and superior the white characters are.

I generally am very very bored of Klingons. Torres may be the only one I’ve ever liked. No… wait. Oh! Suzi Plakson.. Key… K’Elar? Something like that. K’Ehleyr. (Thanks internet). She was amazing, and very much like Torres in that she was half human, half Klingon, and kinda hated Klingons. Loved that. She was sort of the template for Torres, now that I think about that. She was an excellent character. They shouldn’t have killed her off.

Anyway. Torres. I kind of loved that Torres was a Klingon who Didn't Get Why Anyone Would Want to Be A Klingon. She hated every element of being a Klingon. Some of it was just ‘I don’t get these idiots, all they do is fight and yell and I just want to sit and read a book in the bath, go away.’

Some of her rejection was down to previous traumas as a kid, which I liked that they went into. That people have rejected her because of the way she looks. And she can’t just make it go away. And self-loathing- how how hard she pushed that Klingon identity away, even though visually, that's the first thing anyone would notice about her. And the first thing she sees in the mirror.

Hating and loving her mother enough to be willing to go to "hell" to save her. To go through all the Klingon crap that she hated for someone she loved because deep down, some part of her did still value that Klingon crap because she valued her mother.

She also had an excellent storyline about the trauma of being part of two very different cultures-- but also, her terror at passing this trauma as generational trauma onto her child. To the point she's willing to try to change her child's DNA so she can ~pass~ for the preferred culture. Whatever my feelings on Roxanne, that episode was absolutely incredible-- and from what Robbie says, Roxanne came to the writers with her script covered in notes for them from her own experiences. It was one of VOY’s stronger episodes.

They allowed two women (Janeway and Torres) to have quite severe depression and mental health issues, which frankly I think was a rather brave of them considering this is 1998 Star Trek— and that these women were the ones in charge, but no one used that as an excuse to replace them with men. Janeway’s depression was a self-loathing and guilt, sitting in her quarters and refusing to come out. (And occasionally trying to blow up the ship…….). Torres’ depression also turns inward, but to the point where she is engaging in self-harm— and could have very well killed herself multiple times. And I believe it was made quite clear that Torres’ depression regarding her heritage certainly went back to childhood, as did Janeway’s depression issues. Were these issues resolved too quickly? Yes. But I think it was a HUGE thing that they allowed the two most powerful women on the ship just fucking Not Be Okay.

Also, whilst I don’t love cis-het relationships in general, I didn’t hate Torres and Paris. I appreciated that they took the time for them to both grow up a little bit before bringing them together. I appreciated that they did become friends before it turned into something more. Not my favourite paring by a mile, but I think they did some nuanced stuff with them— the episodes where he’s asleep in front of the tv was maybe too silly, but as a couple they were inoffensive most of the time.

I thought it was an interesting choice to make Paris more interested in honouring her Klingon heritage in multiple episodes, and having her pushing back— no, I don’t care about this shit, leave me alone!

In Lineage (possibly Torres’ strongest episodes), when she is trying to change her child’s DNA, I liked the way Paris pushed back and had to really fight to get it into her head that he was not like her father, and that he loved the part of herself that she hated so much. These multiple episodes regarding her mixed heritage— and trying to learn how to love what she saw in the mirror even though it was a representation of everything she rejected— that mattered. That spoke to a lot of marginalised people who are two things, and thus feel like nothing. Who wish they could pass for this but they can’t because of that. That episode mattered.

Women on Trek were not treated well by the writers. Full stop. Torres was not treated well. Listen, I love Gates— Gates was the only reason I ever even stayed with TNG. She was the only one who seemed to have a personality on the show, to me. The only one I vaguely cared about— and on paper, she was nothing. But Gates managed to infuse her with much more.

And then Michelle Forbes came along and — oooh, yes, I’ll stay for her, too. This one is interesting! I like her. But I think Gates would have killed for her character to have that much development. I believe Denise and Michelle Forbes would have stayed if their character had half as much development as Torres.

Nichelle desperately wanted to leave— and stayed because Martin Luther King begged her to.

Terry did get quite a few cool episodes, but only one or two delved into her deep traumas, things that broke her. Because Jadzia had 7 lifetimes— she’s worked a lot of her shit out by now. We had a few. Maybe if Terry had been given just a few more episodes of substance, she wouldn’t have burnt out as easily. (And maybe if Rick Berman hadn’t treated her like shit, too). But I'm a big defender of Jadzia because as a trans kid, she was the first positive version of queerness I saw. She was allowed to be both a woman and a man, and her sexuality was obviously open. That meant a lot to me as a kid.

And I do feel that Nana was burnt out by S7 as well. They stopped giving her interesting stories, put her in heels and said hey go stand there and snog Odo. That was an irritation for me.

And Marina? Christ. Troi didn’t have a personality —aside from hating her mother, liking chocolate and saying ‘captain he’s very angry’ when there’s an alien SCREAMING on the view screen. Marina would probably have biten off her own arm if she could do anything more than sit there saying ‘and how does that make you feel?’ Troi didn’t become remotely interesting until like S6 or something.

And I adore Jeri, but the Borg Barbie thing really did get old for me. If they had just let her fucking wear clothes instead of looking like it was painted on, that would have gone a long way. But even she had more story than many of the other women in Trek. And don’t get me started on how much I was screaming on Picard when Seven spends the entire last year sitting in silence whilst the white men talk about how hard their lives are, and putting up with another stupid white man constantly dead-naming her. And she’s apparently not allowed to be with her lover because Raffi needs a man has to “teach” her how to control her emotions. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. No— we’re not getting into that. We are not getting into that cos this is already WAYYYY too long and it is 0320 and I should have been in bed at least an hour ago. We are not getting int— christ I hate Picard. FUCK YOU STAR TREK.

Ahem. Sorry. So. I think we can all agree that women on Trek, there was a very low bar for character development. And by bar, I mean a toothpick on the ground. But a few of the women did manage to shove that toothpick a little higher. Women in Trek have not been treated well. But I admire every one of the women in these shows for doing the most they could with what little they had.

But when I really sit back and think about character development for women in Trek, I’d say that Torres is certainly one of the ones who was allowed to do a lot more than most. I think she was allowed to be a lot more complex than people realise. Torres, Kira, Jadzia and Seven were probably the women who were allowed to have the must substantial stories— even more so than Janeway, sometimes.

Pretty sure nearly all of the women in the entire Trek franchise would beg for as much development as Torres got. Was it enough? No. Was it more than most of the women in the franchise got? yeah.

Miss Piggy has better storylines than so many of the women in these shows. (well. Torres, Kira, Jadzia and Seven did okay. But all of the women deserved better)

(and to be fair-- even with now cheated these women all were for incredible storylines, they still matter to a lot of people. Nana recently published a book on Trek women and how fans have spoken to her about how much they mattered and how they changed the lives of fans everywhere. And I think that's incredible. That these actors could bring so much more than what was on the page to still reach people -- despite how 2-D they were written.)

Does anyone remember that episode of Star Trek: Voyager where Tom Paris commits a traffic violation in alien space and he has to go to alien remedial driving school? I have no idea which episode it was, but it's such a great concept. There are so many episodes about high-stakes encounters with crazy alien legal systems where death is on the line, but I wanna see more alien planets with very mundane legal systems. I wanna see an episode where there's a big dramatic trial, and our heroes lose, but then find out that they have misunderstood what was going on and will simply have to do community service for a week or something.

[here-there-were-dragons]

i have to wonder what super hardcore militant vegans think should be done about obligate carnivore animals, because in all my painfully-rapidly-approaching-30-years i've literally never actually seen anyone give a clear consistent much less halfway feasible answer on that

[starlight-bread-blog]

Do you think there's a more complex and nuanced outcome as a result of Katara marrying Zuko rather than it just being Katara becoming a fire lady? Especially since, technically, she's the daughter of a chief and that considers her to be a tribal princess like Yue.

That is a good question. I suppose I don't think there's a situation where Katara marries Zuko and doesn't become fire lady. Since the definition of the word is, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Fire Lord's wife. But if you mean whether she'll live in a palace, I believe that she will.

According to this article she also lived Far From Home (lol) with A\ang, and in their family picture none of them wear clothes for the SWT's cold weather. Which does make sense with how fine she was with leaving to find Aang and how she spent the entire series away from home and the show rarely treated it as an issue to be dealt with. Additionally, now that the war is over she can pay regular visits to her home.

But that doesn't mean that the chief's daughter becoming fire lady isn't complex and nuanced. First thihgs first, I want to go through what being the fire lady & daughter of the chief would mean.

The fire lady doesn't seem to have duties, since we never see Ursa do anything for the Fire Nation. But it at least has to grant you respect and THE connection to the Fire Lord. Katara isn't Ursa, and is passionate & active in nature. The role comes with a certain power that can assist with one's political pursuits greatly.

As for her being a tribal princess, as opposed to the Fire Lady, Yue explicitly that she has duties.

Yue: You don't understand. I have duties to my father, to my tribe.

But Yue was probably the heir to the throne. She had no siblings as far as we know, and she says "my tribe". I don't know whether the north would accept a female chief, given how sexist it was. But some evidence there is to support that she was the heir is this line from her fiance:

"Perks". If she was going to marry him for him to become the chief despite having no other connections to the bloodline, he wouldn't casually call becoming a chief a "perk". Furthermore, when Sokka tries to hit on her, he remarks of their simularities as they're both a prince and a princess. And Sokka is ann heir, he's the future chief.

It's likely that they were arranged for other political reasons and Yue was going to become queen. Whether she was going to be respected/accepted is up in the air.

But we do know of another heirs that might help us get a fuller picture: Eska and Desna. They had a duty to their father as a prince and a princess. It was their wish to help their father whom they believed was a great man. Which isn't typical for an heir. This is why we can look at their case to see what Katara's life as the daughter of the chief would look like. In their case, they helpped the NWT in whatever they thought was right. And it's likely that so would Katara.

What does that leave us with? A role that grants her political power in the Fire Nation with no duties, and a person with a duty to the Southern Water Tribe.

The Positive

To me this paints a clear picture: Katara would use said political power to push the Fire Nation to rehabilitate the Southern Water Tribe from their atrocities.

I'm not the first person to show these before vs. After pics, but it's very important to remember the sheer extent of the Fire Nation's harm to Katata's home.

Before:

After:

And until the show ended, Katara was still the last waterbender of the south. Don't get me wrong, it IS Zuko's job to rehabilitate the SWT. But she'd want this.

Katara always want to help those around her by any means necessery. If it's getting captured in a Fire Nation prison or blowing up a factory, she will find the power to help others. So the power to fix the wrongs inflicted on her own culture and home being given to her, just for loving who she wants to love, is incredibly rewarding and narrativly satisfying.

The Negatives

1. All of what I've just described is good in theory, but in practice she's likely to face immense backlash. The people of the Fire Nation have been indoctrinated into believing the war was good and were fed Fire Nation propaganda since their school days (The Headband) and continued well into adulthood (Ember Island Players).

Suddenly the new fire lord comes along and decides that the war they've been fighting fir a 100 years is bad actually. And NOW he's dating a waterbender and the daughter of the chief, no less. + Suddenly the girl is starting to have demands. She'll be one of the most cobtroversial figures of that era, and that's no easy task.

2. It opens the door for one bad situation that no one could be blamed for. What if Zuko's heir would be a waterbender? That cannot be. Will the role of the heir go to whoever's a firebender/none bender regardless of order? What would it make their kids feel? Will Zuko be okay with how it'd make his kids feel? It raises so many questions, so many complexities and there seem to be no winners.

But looking at these negatives from a perspective of literary merit, as A:TLA is a fictional work, are these really negatives? I'd say no. There is no real suffering at stake here, only captivating conflicts to be explored. In real life, these nasty situations have to be dealt with. They're raw, they're complicated, and in literature, that's good. Conflicts are the oxygen of a story. Especially ones with no easy answers.

In conclusion, Katara marrying Zuko would make her the fire lady. This would lead to complex and nuanced situations, both good and bad, making for excellent conflicts/character progressions.

I don't know if this is the answer you wanted, but these are my thoughts. Thank you for the ask and have a nice day! 💕

[bibibbon]

I find Child Toya's thoughts of responsibility to be interesting.

Regarding his violent outburst, he views both him and Endeavor as responsible. Him for taking action and Endeavor for having them as successors.

Then, you have Rei's situation. Despite knowing about her parents selling her off, Toya still blames her for his suffering / birth, while the Himura don't receive as much scorn (likely due to not being present in his life).

So, child Toya thinks being a victim doesn't excuse one's actions OR inactions causing suffering. While the former is a complex debate, the latter is victim blaming. It's interest to see how child Toya can widen his scope and narrow it down to blindly degree.

I find it more interesting that when we see Touya's beliefs he is 13.

Touya is a 13 year old child with many concerning beliefs like sexist beliefs that he has which cause him to be distant and look down on fuyumi.

Like I said and I will say this again Touya's sexist beliefs most definitely came from enji and what enji would probably tell him. It's why he looks down on fuyumi and doesn't include her in conversations about them being their fathers creations because enji wanted a boy to be his masterpiece. Also children aren't born with thoughts like this sexism is learnt and in this case touya probably held on to this belief because of how much he cared and wanted his father's approval and love.

I think there is even a bit of victim blaming beliefs that he holds towards himself and others. Touya believes that everyone involved in the situation holds accountability heck even the victim holds a bit of accountability for what happend and its interesting to see where this belief that he has comes from.

Touya blames enji for creating him and discarding him as a failed creation. Touya also doesn't view his mother as completely innocent and blames her for being in the situation she is in? Or does he blame her for the lack of agency she has within the relationship? Yes, rei also did bad things like neglecting her kids but unlike enji she continually expressed regret and suffered consequences. So what does touya really blame rei for? Is this blame tied around a sexist belief? Does he blame rei for being a women in this situation or is this something else entirely?

I think it's interesting that touya is stated to blame rei in chapter 301 because we don't know what he blames her for specifically. Maybe touya blames her for everything and maybe it's just something small like her trying poorly to help him? We don't know but we can speculate.

Touya when waking up ends up blaming himself for being rude to everyone and his mother. He also kind of blames himself for not being good enough. Then again this self blame quickly grows into hatred for enji.

I think that child touya's beliefs where mainly influenced by enji. I doubt sexist beliefs and even victim blaming beliefs can thrive within the school touya went to and its even mentioned that touya was never active in school he always kept to himself and didn't have any friends meaning that the only active interactions and conversations he had were with his family which isn't a good look.

Children maybe naive but that naivety is hard to keep and shelter the moment it breaks the moment we see just how observant and cunning children can be. Heck there are various psychological studies that show children can easily pick up on little signs especially if they concern love within their home lives so touya who found out at the age of 8 about his existence in the world and purpose must of went through a rollercoaster of emotions after seeing enji replace him to find a masterpiece and he must of blamed of himself which is where we can assume that's where his victim blaming beliefs came from.

I do believe that overtime his victim blaming beliefs do become more nuanced and develop to the previous idea that being a victim doesn't excuse one's actions/inactions but i also think that even with that development there is a clear victim blaming sentiment to that belief he holds.

[imagitory]

Review: Inside Out 2 (SPOILERS)

Hey all! So earlier today my mum and I went to go see the sequel to one of my absolute favorite Pixar films, Inside Out! For a spoiler-free opinion, I'll just say that we both enjoyed it -- my mum enjoyed it more than I did, perhaps partially because she didn't remember the original as well as I did going in, but even if I didn't personally like this sequel as much as the first one, it's still a worthy continuation with very good humor and some great heart.

That being said, I think it's high time for some more spoilerific analysis. So if you're as anxious to get started as I am, read on!

The Good!

+Honestly, this film went to places that an Inside Out sequel was almost meant to go, just based on the ending of the last film. That puberty joke coming back and messing things up for Riley? Yeah, that checks out. Riley struggling with her emotions through her teen years? Sure! Makes for great drama! The emotions have to come to grips with the fact that change is inevitable? A worthwhile and appropriate lesson. This film's trajectory was a good pay-off for the set-up from the last film, so it never felt like this film's story was jarring or came out of left-field. It even makes sense for Riley to be so afraid of not having any friends and being alone in high school, considering that just two years prior (as seen in the first movie), she had to deal with such a traumatic move that resulted in her entire life in Minnesota being uprooted.

+The conflict between Riley's old and new emotions really does embody a lot of insecurities that teenagers go through! The thought of discarding our more immature, childish selves in favor of looking and acting more "adult" -- the disillusionment and diminishing of self-esteem -- the embarrassment, guilt and shame attached to your mistakes -- the intense desire to be accepted and praised -- the envy and longing to be more like "cool" older students -- the crippling self-doubt and anxiety -- the distant, sarcastic, sometimes even rude or angry shell you might form around yourself to try to hide your insecurities...I truly do think a lot of people will identify with Riley's struggles. My mum actually identified with Riley more than I did in this film, and this is when the first Inside Out became one of my top favorites in large part because how much I'd identified with Riley's struggle with depression! (I think this might be because my mum was both very sporty and a huge people-pleaser while growing up, while I -- oddly enough -- was kind of immune to peer pressure and was much more interested in being accepted for who I was, rather than in actively changing myself to try to "earn" acceptance from others.) I did, however, really feel Riley's perfectionistic tendencies, as well as her anxiety. Which leads us nicely into...

+The anxiety attack sequence. That scene, quite honestly, was a highlight of the entire film. It was a perfect concept that was both written and animated so evocatively, and Joy managing to break through enough to Anxiety to slow the panicked internal frenzy that made it so that Riley's emotions (and therefore Riley herself) couldn't see a thing was so well done.

+On that note, the concept of the threads of Riley's beliefs was great from beginning to end. I love that at the start of the film, Riley has a great sense of self-worth and a strong faith in the thought that she's a good person: something that, quite honestly, we all think until we're ideally forced to confront a more nuanced view of ourselves and the world around us. I like that when Anxiety started taking over (and planted only her memories in that underwater garden space), there's a shift in Riley that makes it so that she can only be happy if A, B, and C -- this idea that happiness is somehow both transactional and something one can only find in the outside world. It feels true to the emotion of Anxiety, and -- honestly -- to many real-life people. Self-love is hard to cultivate when one sees their flaws and shortcomings clearly, and finding happiness in one's own company as oneself can be even harder. The threads were well set-up by us seeing Joy and Sadness reaffirming their friendship from the last film by bringing their joint memory down to the garden, and the evolution of the garden and in Riley coming to grips with both the good and bad aspects of herself was fantastic. The part where all of the emotions embrace Riley's new sense of self, regardless of her flaws and shortcomings, was actually the most resonant moment of the film for me personally. I didn't cry, but it did make my own Joy and Sadness metaphorically hug each other.

+I'm really glad that Anger, Disgust, and Fear got to go on the psychological journey with Joy this time. I have some critiques on how it was done, and we'll get to that, but I am still glad that they got some more focus and time to shine, after Joy and Sadness got so much time to bond in the last movie. Fear pulling out that parachute was both funny and completely in-character, and I liked Anger "sticking it to the man" by swiping that pipe to shoot himself and the others up into the air and onto the top of the walls. It also was so very, very fitting for Joy and the others to trust Sadness to go back to Headquarters -- she would be the best equipped to help since she knows the manuals best, and she's also the emotion who'd be best able to get Riley help from outside should she need it, as proved from the last film. It really showcases how much stronger the core emotions' bond has become in the almost two years since the events from the first movie, especially the one between Joy and Sadness.

+There was some really, really good humor in this movie. The highlights for me were largely in the Deep Dark Secrets Vault -- I died laughing at Lance Slashblade multiple times. (Am I the only one who thought that that hooded Secret was totes Riley's gender identity? Because I'm sorry, I still love the headcanon that Riley is non-binary. For the record, yes, after further research into a post-credits scene I didn't stick around for, I found out I was wrong, but SHHH, I'm ignoring it because it's stupid.) The scene where Joy blew up at Anger, Fear, and Disgust was also both really funny and relatable for me -- I've been in that exact position before, and you're right, Joy: it is exhausting!!

The Ehhh...

+I know I'll probably be in the minority on this, but none of the new emotions grabbed me the way the originals did. They all had funny moments, sure, but Anxiety pissed me off way more than earned sympathy from me, at least until the end. I think it was the whole "we love Riley, really! All we want to do is change her into a completely different person" thing. It's really not that I think the new emotions don't care about Riley -- it's clear they do, and obviously they all learned their lesson -- but I guess I personally just don't ascribe to the idea that love is somehow conditional. If you love someone, you should love them as they are: there shouldn't be this expectation that the person you love (even platonically, as in this case) should change themselves for your sake. I know Anxiety in some ways could parallel Joy in the first movie, but in the first film, Joy sees the depth of her mistake through her adventures with Sadness and the growth she undergoes through it. She then more than proves how much she's willing to make things right in how hard she fights to get Sadness back to Riley's Headquarters. Anxiety -- just due to the characterization established for her -- doesn't really get the chance to redeem herself through passionate, proactive action in that same way. Instead she falls apart, Joy has to come to her rescue, and then all of the emotions come together to symbolically embrace Riley and calm her down. As for the others, as I said, they all had funny moments, but I didn't really latch onto any of them the way I did for Joy, Sadness, and Disgust in the first movie. Again, I want to emphasize that I don't think any of these new emotions are bad, by a long shot -- I just personally didn't like or resonate with them as much as the original five.

+The pacing in this film wasn't always that great. The journey Joy took with Fear, Disgust, and Anger seemed a lot less focused than Joy's with Sadness, largely because Joy didn't really get as much chance to bond with all three of the others the way she did with Sadness. In the original film, all of the obstacles and side adventures Sadness, Joy, and Bing Bong had to undergo on their way back to Headquarters had emotional relevance. They weren't just there for the sake of jokes: they also strengthened the bond between the characters and laid the groundwork for plot points later. Take the trip through Imagination Land in the first film, for example -- sure, the Riley's Imaginary Boyfriend machine was funny, but it was also reused later where Joy made a whole bunch of copies and then used them to both reach Sadness and launch herself and Sadness at Headquarters. But the trip to Imagination Land here was really more a tangent accenting Anxiety's unraveling and a meta reference to the state of modern animation studios, rather than something that lay the groundwork for a more emotional, clever payoff later-on. (It also seemed like it wasted time Joy and the others really needed to get back to Headquarters, as well as revealed to Anxiety that they'd escaped when it would've been more prudent for them to keep their heads down.) The "Sarchasm" was absolutely hilarious as a concept -- I laughed so bloody hard when it cropped up...but imagine how much better it would've been if Disgust had gotten the chance to show how to defeat it by simply not responding verbally to it? Perhaps Disgust's interest in make-up could've given her the ability to show off the power of a silent, condescending "Eyebrow Arch" in defanging sarcasm, which could've materialized as a bridge over the chasm or something. That could've put more ammunition behind the idea that Anxiety is wrong that Riley's old emotions are no longer necessary, rather than just an obstacle being thrown into the characters' way on a whim of the filmmakers to pad the run-time.

+This does actually lead to that one big critique I have about the focus on Anger, Fear, and Disgust -- where was my favorite green girl's chance to shine during this journey through the mind, huh?! Anger figuratively went "f*** it" and got the group up to the top of the wall. Fear saved himself and the others from the fall with his parachute. Joy's relentless optimism carried them all down their path. Where was Disgust using her individuality and named trait to help Riley? Disgust in particular is supposed to be there to "keep Riley from getting poisoned physically or socially" -- she has all the motive in the WORLD to be irritated at Anxiety and the other new emotions, considering she's responsible for Riley ditching her two best friends and poisoning her entire moral character. I do really wish Anger had been more righteously angry about this too, but at least he got some chance to take charge and get the spotlight by himself -- Disgust, in comparison to the other two emotions accompanying Joy, just got less focus.

+I guess this leads into really my only true hang-up with the film -- not that it was bad, but just that it didn't surprise me that much. Just like in the last film, Joy is trying to push away those things that aren't so pleasant supposedly for Riley's benefit. Just like in the last film, Joy has to come to grips with an emotion changing Riley in a way she doesn't like. Just like in the last one, Joy breaks down and exposes the vulnerable emotions she's been trying to hide -- in fact, this time, she does it twice, considering she loses it with Anger, Fear, and Disgust (in a very funny scene, but still) mid-way through and then has that more hopeless bit in the third act. Imagine how much stronger this film could've been if after Joy's first breakdown, she really does give up, or even if it had played into that terrible idea Joy has that "when you grow up, you feel less joy" and that (as a result) Joy is getting weaker or even is starting to disappear...and so, in response, Anger has to take charge of the mission, because he -- as the emotion who cares deeply about "what's fair" -- is furious about how Anxiety treated them and is trying to change Riley. Then we follow Anger as the emotion with a character arc. He's got that fire needed to defend who Riley is and prove that she is that good person she believed she was, but because he's Anger, he has difficulty moderating himself or staying focused. It's Disgust that has to help rein him in and show the power of silence in defeating the Sarchasm. It's Fear who has to save them from the Brainstorm. In this scenario, it'd be Anger rashly confronting Anxiety in that pillow fort in Imagination Land...and it would've been Anger who would've suffered burn-out, after all of his determined rage seemingly leads them out into the middle of nowhere with no way back to Headquarters. He would've cried tears of frustration and despair, feeling like a failure just as Riley did at the beginning of the film, and this would've been where Joy came to the realization that shoving down those negative memories doesn't diminish their impact. Then they would've ridden that avalanche back, and Anger -- seeing the state Anxiety was in -- would've realized that rage was not the way to help and insisted Joy help her, while he and the others try to fix Riley's Sense of Self. Helping Anxiety would've then also helped Joy too, and she would've rematerialized in full, just as bright as before: because Joy doesn't have to just be emblematic of childhood, but also in seeing the light after losing one's way. Sure, this trajectory would've in its own way mirrored aspects from the first film -- but at least we wouldn't have had Joy having to break down three times in two movies, and perhaps we could've given Joy and Anger's friendship the chance to shine the way Joy and Sadness's has.

+As the tiniest of nitpicks as well, I didn't think the score was that memorable, aside from the reuse of the original Bundle of Joy theme written for the first film.

I know my second more negative section has a lot of stuff written in it, but please, don't take this to mean I disliked the film! Truly, overall, I think it's quite good. I just didn't identify with Riley's struggles as much in this film as its predecessor, and I didn't think the script was quite as tightly written with set-ups and pay-offs either. Inside Out 2 is still a very enjoyable film, and I think just about any fan of Inside Out will have a fun time like my mum and I did! Even despite my minor critiques, my memory of this film is largely yellow.

Overall Grade: B+

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

Yaaaayyy I love your answer. Do you think Bruce sees cas as better than him, as in he has a flaw he should be working toward correcting, or himself as better than her, and her needing to learn more about the world/not be naive when it comes to how Cas’s “nobody dies” code is more absolute than his in that it extends to people given the death penalty?

And yeah, I really like taking the situation at it is (no nuance and he doesn’t get to pick himself) but the only way I can imagine it is some kind of horrible set up with a mind reader reading Bruce’s thoughts and using those to come to a decision, or Bruce is on some kind of drug. I don’t think it could ever be him actively, with a clear head, saying a name out loud. Just does not compute for me. Thinking about the aftermath is it’s own horrible thing

So glad you asked about Batman no kill rule because I think there are a lot of misunderstandings in the fandom space about it!!

Quick Disclaimer, I will be talking pretty much exclusively abt preboot, and drawing heavily from Bruce and Cass’s relationship in Batgirl (2000)

For one, Batman is against the death penalty. Probably.

One of the first comics I read that got me really interested in Batman as a character and his fucked up psyche was Detective #630 “And The Executioner wore Stiletto Heels”.

Hugely recommend reading this to get a grasp on how Batman doesn’t actually have a “No Kill” rule, he has a “No Death” rule. Obviously this is backed up by more than just this comic, (I take his resuscitation of the joker in last laugh as another solid example of this), but I find Det #630 super interesting because it does in fact examine Bruce Wayne’s thoughts on the death penalty, which he is against, enough so that it’s implied he allows the escape of an assassin who otherwise would have been put to death.

That said, I don’t think Cass is more extreme than him with her “nobody dies” thought process.

To get into how I think Batman sees Cass I’m going to ramble a bit on how I think their relationship works.

The reason Batman clicks with Cass so much is their analogous backstories.

When Bruce was 9, his parents died in front of him, and he feels guilty about it, even though there was obviously nothing a 9 year old child could have done differently to save his parents. No one else expects him to have saved them, but himself. He feels like he failed them, and that feeling of powerlessness and guilt drives him to save lives, to prevent more tragedy.

When Cass was 9, she killed a man. She instantly also experiences this guilt reaction, and again, it’s unreasonable to blame Cassandra for her “failure” at this age. Who could expect the 9 year old to understand what murder was when she was never taught? She was raised by an abusive father and her only form of communication was violence. She had no way of knowing what she was doing, but she still managed to grasp afterwards how wrong it was and despite having no frame of reference for where she was headed or what was out there in the world, runs away from the only family she’s ever known. As I mentioned, that original guilt and helplessness haunts her, much like it does Batman.

(Cass’s resolute belief that everyone deserves to live stems from her own overwhelming guilt for the life she took at age 9. Her resolute belief that everyone deserves a chance to be good and change comes from her desperation to believe that this applies to herself as well, that she has changed and is now good.)

They have super similar, but also simultaneously directly contrasting backstories. 9 year old Bruce Wayne is a victim who watches a murder helplessly, while 9 year old Cassandra Cain commits a murder.

And when it comes to how Bruce sees Cass, I think it’s this similarity in driving original motivation which he approves of. He’s smugly happy with how similar Cass is to him even (some would say especially) with his self sacrificial tendencies that they share.

He sees them as totally the same, she is a reflection of him, the Batman part of him specifically.

When he disapproves of Cass, it’s almost always because she is proving him wrong by acting like an independent and separate person (which she is).

When she has a social life and briefly dates Superboy, for instance.

Or when she stops following orders exactly and checking in, for example.

Or, most notably, when he finds out she killed a man when she was 9.

The first two examples hinder his whole “cassandra is exactly the same as me” mindset. He doesn’t like confronting the fact that Cass is able to have a social life and healthy relationships while he has to believe that he cannot and does not need them. Likewise, he doesn’t like when she doesn’t listen to him because if they were the same she would understand and obey him.

But that final distinction, the murderer Cass commits as a child, is this huge final wedging point for Bruce.

He has built so much of his identity around this Batman does not kill rule, this huge statement about who he is and what he stands for.

Cassandra cain can, in no way, be the same as him if she killed a man.

It breaks his premise.

Which is why, when he finds out she killed someone, he immediately and fervently denies it, even in the face of video evidence.

All this to say, Batman seems to see Cass generally as “as morally good” as him so long as she is acting in a way he can see in himself, and seems to disapprove of her when their differences are pointed out to him.

So I don’t think he thinks she is “too extreme” with her “no kill/no death” stance, I think his main approval/disapproval is around her similarity to or difference to him.

Sorry if this is really rambly, hope this answers your question!!

[vigilskeep]

do you have a preference for bethany as a grey warden or circle mage? or does it depend on your hawke?

all bethanys are good bethanys but i’ve come to the conclusion that circle mage bethany will always be first in my heart and i’d LOVE to discuss why

act 1 bethany feels powerless and lonely. she hasn’t had a fellow mage at her side since her father died. she’s caught between guilt at what her family has had to sacrifice for her sake, and resentment that it’s a sacrifice she never even asked them to make. she didn’t choose to be an apostate like her father did. nobody ever gave her the option if she wanted to spend a lifetime on the run, endangering everyone who loves her, rather than accept the world she lives in. she’s a twenty year old who just lost her home and half her family; is it really any wonder that she’s as drawn to the relative stability of a life in the circle as she is afraid of it? a life where she wouldn’t be marked out and isolated, but among people like her, who understand more than even the most well-meaning non mage sibling ever could? why does being born a mage make it her job to fight this, instead of take the life she’s given?

a bethany who goes to the wardens is pushed there by her desperate sibling; a bethany who goes to the circle personally agrees to come willingly, despite hawke’s protests. it’s a minimal but very defining change in agency. her experience in the circle, too, is what she makes of it. we see little of the life she builds there, but she is clearly able to excel and be recognised for her own merits; even if it weren’t mentioned in her dialogue how impressed they are with her training, and in her letters how she has taken on the role of helping with the young initiates who also in game clearly look up to her, we constantly see her at the first enchanter’s right hand. bethany’s circle mage dialogue in the dlcs—some of the best dialogue in the game, imo—makes it clear that not fighting the circle is a choice she’s made. she tells anders, “i’m not leashed”, “i can pretend to be miserable if you want, but i’m not”. she tells aveline, “life is what i need it to be.” if hawke offers to help her escape, she says the circle is comfortable... for now. she’s smart, she’s capable of defying and deceiving the templars when required, and she’s making her own decision to do her best within the circle and see what comes of it. maybe it’s not healthy for her to give in to her imprisonment. in protective older sibling mode, i hate to see her talk like that about the mistreatment and danger she faces, as if it’s acceptable. but what both hawke and bethany can get from the circle mage route is that her life outside the circle can’t really be freedom either until it’s her choice

in the circle mage route, bethany can’t be badgered into learning her own self-worth by well-meaning lecturers. she has to learn from her own experiences, and choose the mages’ fight on her own terms. thematically, i think it’s one of the most compelling thoughts on the topic of the circle that da2 has to offer: someone with an open mind experiencing it, being grateful in some aspects for what it offers, exploring that it may not be as bad as some apostates fear and it may be possible to salvage a life from it, but still absolutely ultimately learning from it that mages deserve more. she says so outright: that her time in the circle is what she needed to “see the need to free my fellow mages”. not just learning the value of the life she once had and her own freedom, but taking up an active purpose that also brings into play the community she gained from the circle. it’s a brilliant, nuanced arc for her and it makes me so so proud. it also makes you see the chantry explosion with a distinct perspective and in, i think, its best light: as a call to action that sharpens the battle lines into focus, and acts as the final catalyst to let mages see what’s necessary past their fear. for me it’s hard to imagine what i couldn’t justify, watching my little sister finally believe her freedom is worth fighting for

narratively, it’s my favourite route for hawke’s overall story as well. bethany going to the circle defines the stakes of da2, with meredith’s sword permanently at your little sister’s throat, creating a desperate tone no other type of playthrough can offer. the warden route on the other hand distances her from the story, making her cameos feel sudden and stilted. the conclusion of da2 is very much about circle mage bethany, both her life and her way of life on the line, hawke finally able to defend or take up arms against the last of their family. by contrast, when grey warden bethany shows up to take whatever side hawke does, it gives the impression to me that she’s only talking like she’s completed a character arc during the last straw because, well, the writers know this is where the game ends. we don’t see or earn her progress. the circle mage bethany route also feels like hawke’s choices are really challenged, rather than hawke making an executive decision to “save” bethany in yet another way she didn’t ask for, and then basically waiting until she comes around to it and apologises for being mad

that being said, i adore bethany getting to fully express her bitterness and anger as a warden, and i think her hatred of that path makes her one of the most interesting warden characters in the entire series. it also involves her unlearning her repression of her negative feelings, a repression which absolutely continues to be at play in the way she defends her life in the circle and downplays its horrors for the sake of those that love her. the warden route definitely has its merits. also her warden staff does fire damage which is LITERALLY her thing why tf does her circle mage staff do nature damage i hate it here genuinely

[onglai]

On Ali and self-worth

Ali is a character that I never thought I'd relate so much with. On first viewing all those years ago when the show came out, Ejen Ali was nothing more than a superhero cartoon show. While this wouldn't be the first time we've gotten a nuanced and complex characters in Malaysian animation history (Keluang Man, Anak-anak Sidek, Bola Kampung), Ejen Ali surprised me a lot when I went to rewatch it last year.

If you ask 16 year old me what kind of person Ali is, I'd describe him as a kindhearted and heroic kid who'll help anyone in need.

If you ask the current me, those are all still true... but in addition to that what I also see is a troubled kid who needs hugs. Lots of them.

This is going to be long.

Season 1

On the first few episodes, the show establishes Ali as a problem child. Right from the start, he is shown to be disorganized, lazy, and every undesirable quality you could imagine. His dad is distant, his mom is dead, and the only thing holding this miserable gremlin together is his sweet, sweet best and only friend Viktor.

And then comes this magical device that turns his life upside down and he lives happily ever after... not.

You know the phrase money doesn't corrupt but only amplifies what's already in someone's heart? Well, IRIS is the money in this case, and it amplifies Ali's inner insecurity. The first thing this little gremlin does after obtaining IRIS is to use it to get good marks and impress his classmates and teacher.

Being an emotionally neglected child he naturally craves attention, and nothing satisfies him more than when people give him exactly that no matter how. This ultimately reaches its climax when Ali uses his newfound fame during S1E10: Sensasi to farm his fans' adoration. He learns his lesson at the end of the episode, but this won't be the last time he goes out of his way to seek for others' approval.

This is why Rizwan is such an important figure in Ali's life. Regardless of the man's opinion towards him, Ali sees him as someone worth idolizing. The best agent in MATA, Charismatic to boot, the man is everything Ali wishes to be. And good for him, Rizwan is the perfect teacher.

Guy teaches Ali disciplines, doesn't put up with his childish sense of entitlement, and very much treats Ali like he'd do anyone. For the first time in Ali's life, someone actually sees him as his own person and doesn't demean nor overhype him.

Season 2

In this season, Ali meets the junior agents for the first time, and upon learning that they idolized him, he grows a bigger head. He starts pushing Alicia away, the only person who's looking out for his safety (her wanting to meet her dad's expectation is a discussion for another day).

Now, all this time Ali has actually been praised as an agent. He had his bad moments, but for the most part he believes himself to have contributed a lot to the agency, which isn't inaccurate. But this belief is what resulted in him doubling down in his insecurity when the mentors pointed out his flaws during his training with the other agents. He's already a nobody at school, and now comes another realization that he might also be a nobody compared to the other agents if not for IRIS.

This is where things take turn for the worse.

Again, Ali seeks to prove himself by disobeying the mentors and drags his new friends along as well. This turns out to be a bad idea when Ali watches Rizwan betray the agency and in his anguish starts attacking everyone after activating Override Mode. He later tries to deflect the blame towards IRIS which only makes the other agents hate him more.

Coupled with Rizwan's desertion and that he already burned his bridge with Alicia, he didn't have anyone to turn to anymore. In his pursuit for approval, he loses everything. This is the lowest point in his life.

Thankfully, Zain gets through to him and makes him see his worth beyond his skills, that he's helped a lot more people than anyone else has. This is a bandaid to the larger issue at hand, but it rekindles his spirit enough he can stand on two feet again.

On the flip side however, Alicia later choosing to stand by his side is likely the first time he receives (a form of) affection despite not doing anything to earn it. This is something that he'll finally learn later on during the movie.

Regardless, with Alicia's help, Ali began to take accountability for his actions and reformed his friendships with the other agents.

Movie

This movie is what happens when all of Ali issues accumulate to the point of no return.

This movie starts off with Ali realizing that he's no longer worth anything as an agent. Or rather, he's no longer the main character in the grand scheme of things. Feeling himself having been replaced by more experienced agents, this is where Ali adopts a new crutch to lean on... his mom's legacy.

On top of IRIS, a crutch that he's been holding onto to prove his worth, Ali is also burdened with Zain's expectation of him from the previous season. His excuse is that he wants to help people, which may be true to some extent, but it's obvious from the get-go that it's only one manifestation of his insecurity and self-worth issue. After all, if his MATA agent shtick doesn't have a point anymore, why not quit and start over.

Niki, whether she realizes it or not, capitalizes on this and convinces Ali to join her side. It doesn't help that the people from the slum see and appreciate what he's doing for them, which further incentivises him into staying. His growing resentment towards MATA and the likes of Dato' Othman pushes him further towards deserting the agency altogether. Alicia being his friend warned him of MATA's suspicion of him, but it's too late by then.

We've established before that for Ali, love and adoration always has to be earned before. In an ironic fashion, he runs away from Alicia, the one person who's stood by his side in his lowest point, to seek protection from someone he sees as a mother figure... who just so happens to only see him as a useful tool so long as he contributes to the slum. There is also a reverse-elitist undertone with how Niki treats him which is... yikes.

Niki betrays him and this slaps Ali hard in a lot of ways.

I wouldn't say Alicia's pep talk when they're trying to escape later is any better, cause god, ugh. Both of you need therapists. But for what it's worth, she teaches him one very valuable lesson; that he isn't alone. He has her, he has Bakar, he has so many people who care for him despite him being blind towards them.

Remember when Alicia stood by him in season 2? Well, she does it again and shows Ali that yes, love and loyalty doesn't need to be constantly earned. This is the turning point to Ali's worldview where he stops equating his worth to his usefulness.

At the end of the movie, Ali willingly gives up IRIS to make up for his mistake. But at the same time, we can see that he is much more confident in himself. He still has a need to prove himself, but starting from here, he does it in a much healthier way, as we can see in the following season.

Season 3

This is when Ali starts having a purpose. All this time, he's letting everyone else decide his worth, but after the events of the movie, he begins looking inward for acceptance of all that he is.

He knows he's weak, he knows he still has a lot to improve, so he focuses on that with his mother as his goal post.

Throughout the season, we can see Ali stumbling and standing up again. When he's caught in a hitch, he looks for help from others. This isn't something the old whiny Ali would've done. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, he picks himself up and strives to be a better version of himself.

From his new maturity, he also manages to resist peer pressure and doesn't antagonize the international agents like his friends do. It's no surprise that he ends up connecting with Sam the most, a direct reflection of his past insecurities. Of course he'd relate to a kindred spirit and help the guy climb out of the hell he's been through himself all his life.

When Ali loses IRIS to Alicia in the end, it is the best outcome anyone could've hoped for. Not because Alicia deserves it which she does, but because it symbolizes the end of Ali's dependency on cool shiny gadgets to make himself look like a somebody. Because he is already a somebody.

Conclusion

Ali's character growth throughout the series is simply phenomenal.

You know the Ali in season 1 and season 3 are the same characters but if you put them side by side you'll see that they're anything but. They're too different.

Ali's journey as a character may have been riddled with hiccups, but it's those exact hiccups that make us appreciate the person he's become.

Is he perfect? No. He's still flawed as any 12 year old is. He'll learn in time and that's okay.

[dayurno]

do you have any thoughts about the way thea was handled? ever since nora has been more active on twt (and mentioned the hate thea gets) people have been sort of insistent about Always Having Liked Her Actually and it irks me a lot, because imo people SHOULD be upset at the fact that kevin (who has been abused all his life and has trauma regarding the nest) has a gf who's from that same environment but 1. doesn't seem all that concerned about getting better / helping kevin get better 2. shouts at him in the only scene they're in together 3. isn't even described as a particularly good presence in the extra content explaining their past 4. this is just a horrible cherry on top but she's 5 years older and they met when he was 14 :/// like if anything i think this has a lot to do with nora not having been kind to kevin (which she also recently admitted to) like damn can he get one thing in life that's just good for him. one safe haven. jesus

short answer: i think thea as a character has been done the worst by nora sakavic, and the lack of care she was shown is in line with how all for the game treats its other characters of color.

long answer: most of my thoughts about how thea was handled are less about thea the character itself and more about her throwaway appearance and the overall lack of interest the author had when writing her. thea's a widely hated character for many reasons, not all of them valid, and a big one is that she was shoved into the narrative at one of the very last few chapters and paired up with one of the most important characters with very little thought or effort. we don't get even a hint of her existance before her appearance, and her one scene does not gather her sympathy because what we know of her is that she's an unrepentant raven (arguably the series' most evident villains) and what we see of her is a moment of great anger, that, even if ignorant, mimics the hostility most of the other ravens had towards kevin/the foxes during the trilogy

this is all to say: i don't like the way thea was written, and i think, especially, that it was a bad optic to write a black woman whose only scene is her being hostile towards her love interest. i need you to know that i'm not saying thea was not right to be angry, or that thea should've flown in and nursed kevin's mental health as soon as she could — both because it's out of character and because it's ridiculous —, but i am saying that she was not afforded almost anything as a character, in both terms of humanity and screentime. this is nothing new with how aftg treats its characters of color, and it is very telling that the characters who get the most flack (namely nicky and thea and riko) are the core of the non-white cast. thea and riko are not afforded complexity; nicky is a constantly flamboyant brown man whose only purpose is to wrangle his cousins and deliver friendship-related one liners to neil. this is why nora sakavic's refusal to comment on them grates on me, and why the new wave of adoration for the series with no nuance suffocates all of the real criticism done by fans of color in the last ten years.

and here's a personal answer: thea's future breaks my heart just as much as kevin's does, because she is also a victim of cultist mentality, and she never breaks out of it. i have no doubts in my heart that the nest was cruel to her, and her unflinching loyalty to the ravens until the end saddens me because it is a terrible existence when all is said and done. thea will not play exy forever, and by the time she has to retire, she will be just as miserable as kevin was. i don't know if she'll ever acknowledge how awful the ravens were either to her or to kevin — i don't know if she'll *want* to, because it is hard to do all that work, and it will leave her deeply scarred to realize most of it was not necessary to her sucess —, but i hope she does, and i hope that on that day, she will be able to decide for herself where to go from there.

[davidlikebowie-noturaccountant]

that reblog on tbe tlp and dps post i made had me pondering over it for 10 minutes and im about to explode PLEASE SHARE MORE OF YOUR THOUGHTS BECAUSE THEY ARE SO TRUE AAAA

oh my GOD happily i love yapping about this??????

okay first my credentials: i have watched dead poets society 200+ times (i stopped counting, but i have it completely memorised beat for beat), i’ve read the novelisation, i’ve watched the little prince 50+ times and it’s one of my comfort movies, watched it on the plane like two days ago, and i own eight copies of the book in five different languages <3 so

more thoughts below the cut

NOW

i will say there are more obvious parallels to draw between dps and the tlp movie BUT the book has the same innate messaging in a way that is very very special to me. gonna start off with the more obvious things and then get more niche and specific and i will TRY TO MAKE SENSE.

so movie-wise, the aviator serves as the keating figure without a doubt (i would argue this is true in the book as well, but as the book lacks the mother/daughter-little prince all grown up/weird silly second dimension plot line, this parallel is more nuanced and i need to explain it more deeply) and the little girl is neil (though. in the book. undoubtedly the little prince) and her mom is mr perry etc. TODD IS THE FOX IN BOTH THE MOVIE AND THE BOOK AND I WILL ELABORATE but for convenience sake im splitting this up into movie thoughts and book thoughts so they dont get muddled

movie:

one of my favourite things about the little prince movie even though it adds like a whole plot that is not in the children’s book is that it conveys the message of the book VERY well, and a message with THAT MUCH NUANCE is really hard to put through, especially in an animated children’s movie. that being said, i feel like a lot of people don’t really THINK about it, just in the sense of knowing there’s a vague message but not really dissecting it, especially not in the same way that people dissect dead poets society. which i think is really interesting because their messages are fundamentally REALLY similar, with the little prince talking a lot about keeping your mind from getting closed with age and never forgetting wonder and creativity and interest. letting yourself be propelled by knowledge but not in a way that prioritises practicality over pure joy, and then dead poets society specifically preaching (though i’m loathe to use that word) to OPEN your mind THROUGH wonder and creativity and interest, to actively prioritise the joy over practicality at any moment you CAN.

(emphasis on when you CAN, though, because as keating says, there’s a time to be cautious and a time to be daring. sucking the marrow out of life does not mean choking on the bone. which, incidentally, is very similar to something that the aviator mentions in the book, i’ll come back to that)

as such, both movies center a child who is bearing the burden of these undue expectations that for most of their lives up until the point in the movie, they’ve happily pushed themselves to meet in order to keep the peace in their lives. they were perfectly happy (to an extent) being the child they were being asked to be. that is, until someone ACTIVELY shows them there’s more to it than that.

in fact, while one of these is an animated face in which there is not a clear view of much but the eyes and the other is an actual person, these are screen grabs of both movies in the first moments in which they are exposed to that which is going to show them there’s more than that, and i’d be inclined to argue they’re very similar. mild shock overtaken by awe, fixed stare on what they’re consuming (as far as the first page of the little prince vs keating quoting whitman)

this is when they’re starting to realise that they are more than a machine to please the adults in their lives (who are also written very similarly, with, of course, one notable exception: the mother is the one who ultimately realises she was not being fair to her kid, whereas mr perry doubles down and… well. you know.)

this awe-riddled inspiration, the epiphany of the Creative World being real and something they’re allowed to explore and enjoy is facilitated by both the one who did the introduction (the aviator/keating) and support and camaraderie with someone else (the fox/the poets) (yes i know the fox does not technically talk, however, it is clearly a sentient creature in the movie that provides comfort and companionship to the little girl and therefore i will in fact argue that it counts)

NOW i know i said todd is the fox in both iterations but in the movie i dont think the fox is limited to parallels SOLELY with todd, for instance, it very much encourages the little girl to continue with the story, with the aviator, and while it is occasionally like, covering its eyes out of fright, it’s largely serving to push her out of her comfort zone. as such. the fox is both todd and charlie. (the other poets as well but less so in the sense that i can NAME them and draw specific parallels, so mostly todd and charlie)

it is absolutely no secret to us that charlie and todd are the ones closest to neil in the movie, and that charlie and neil’s closeness definitely pre-dates neil and todd’s, and charlie takes neil’s idea of doing the dead poets society and RUNS with it, (lovingly) bullies everyone into coming, gets it to happen and sort of yells over any doubt that neil could have had that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. todd is supportive but wary, and while the fox in the movie is not in the same capacity as todd in this sense i think there are certainly scenes where we see it just sort of become overwhelmed with what’s going on (like the first time they mess with the plane)

i could go into depth about the whole grown up world thing but that would make this much much longer

the rest of my thoughts are very much related to both the book and the movie and thus i will continue but centre them on the book

book:

i mentioned the messages of the little prince compared to dead poets society above and i just think that’s such a big thing for me because they really do mirror each other and showcase similar thoughts, this idea of the aviator sort of being forced to pursue “practical” things (i think specifically the book cites arithmetic and geography? i can’t remember right this second but i know arithmetic is one of them) and how even though he WAS forced to sort of let go of his personality that was creative, he never really did. he just was careful with who he let see it. which is very keating coded tbh like let’s be real if nolan knew what he was like he NEVER would have gotten that job. but i think specifically because he knew this already and was sort of reminded of it by the little prince LEARNING it it’s very much neil and mr keating. this is why i really think todd is the fox, you have the whole conversation in the book about taming (which i know is kind of in the movie but the book centres it in a way that is slightly different)

to tame people is to change. i will be unique in all the world. to me you will be unique in all the world. you are responsible forever for what you have tamed. when you leave i will cry. etc etc etc

todd and neil tame EACH OTHER. obviously todd is not neil’s first friend, but they have a relationship clearly different from neil’s with the other poets (romantic headcanon or not) because they really have TAMED each other.

also. i think mr perry views neil as his rose. that’s a whole other dissertation.

but. i think the reality is that the movies/book both centre creativity and seeking to understand pure thought in a way that is like two sides of the same coin, but there’s such little overlap that maybe it doesn’t feel obvious?

at the end of the day, there’s really no convincing me that

“what is essential is invisible to the eye, it is only with the heart that one can see rightly”

is not in fact another iteration of

“we don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute…. medicine law business engineering…. poetry beauty romance love, these are what we stay alive for”

because they’re so similar at their hearts.

tldr: the little prince and dead poets society actually carry similar characterisation and messages and i think that speaks a lot about both pieces of media, especially considering that one is literally meant to be for children. it’s almost like tlp is a precursor to dps. a warning to which dps is the result of ignoring. if that makes sense. i’m not sure any of this made sense but THANK YOU FOR ASKING

[chibivesicle]

Asks that I will never really answer. My apologies; life gets busy and I get distracted.

I'm dropping these here today, so I can clear out some of the asks from my inbox. Apologies for some of these going back to when Trigun Stampede was still airing. >_< If I don't have a clear and concise answer, I'll let things sit in the inbox but they occasionally do fall off my radar.

Uuummm sorry Anon, I meant to give this more of a response but as I got angrier at Stampede, I just couldn't bring myself to give you a well thought out reply. My overall vibes for the Christian themes that were missing in Stampede had to do how they kept a lot of the surface content, images/style/design from the original but with the sci-fi emphasis removed the weird esoteric Christian stuff and made it look that way. Vash was more willing to engage with others in the original manga/'98 anime based on what Rem taught him. Yet, we never get why he does what he does in Stampede. By changing Wolfwood from being a traveling preacher where Vash lambasts him with 'thou shall not kill' the nuance of his character's moral conflict is lost. He's a trained killer for a quasi-religious organization that might be using a Zia in a really not cool way. We also do not see him act in a self-sacrificing way, which he does from the get go in the original. The angelic body horror was gone, replaced by a sci-fi reading of plants and the concept of plant worship was missing in there as well. There is a lot of internal dialogue that many of the characters pose through the anime and manga and its just gone from Stampede and it revolves around forgiveness, violence, and justice.

For me, the complete re-interpretation of the world and loss of the moral conflict that all characters show hurt the Christian (and Buddhist) themes that underpinned the original. It really came down to how the characters acted and talked. There is no point to a gunslinger who is almost completely passive when one who is active but uses a non-lethal method based on principle. There is a chapter where Vash gets taunted by some enemy for how bad his target practice is until they determine he was that accurate at shooting someone but not killing them. The best way to summarize is that they took some of the aesthetics of the original and didn't follow through on how the characters acted. There is so much contemplation in the original and that is missing in the remake.

Let's just make this a list: 1.) Leo would actually have a real girlfriend. I already have issues with White, I think adding her in as a quasi-girlfriend was a disservice to Leo's character. 2.) Zapp would be white. Less of a manwhore perhaps? 3.) Chain would be cute as opposed to cold and distant. No drinking assholes under the table and vomiting in her bathroom later. See Meryl Stryfe.

4.) K.K. would have boobs, and somehow be more sexy than an awkward and doting mother. See Rem and Luida. 5.) Steven's scar would be smaller or missing to make him a real lady killer. Either they'd lean way too far into Steven's shady side or they'd clean it up completely. Like he'd wink at women as opposed to sleeping with them to get intel. Be Klaus #1 fan! But like all the time, making himself to work too much. His hangry side would either be missing or played up for laughs. 6.) Zed would be dropped because he's the non-human team member. What's the point of having him? 7.) Luciana Estevez would only appear in her super sexy doctor form not her silly clone or normal form.

8.) They would try to create lore and filler to explain things that you have to assume are just how things work. Or they would info dump as opposed to leaving it up to you to worry about things and figure it out from the context. 9.) The entire cast gets aged down, because having a bunch of 30+ cast members who don't have all their shit together is too embarrassing aka very realistic. e.g. K.K. has a house husband (not a good mother like Rem and Luida in Stampede), Steven will die single and alone, Daniel will die single and alone, Patrick carries a torch for Guinness but is single, Abrams is a walking disaster.

10.) Character designs which are super unique and fun, especially in the manga all get 'isekai treatment' were they look homogeneous. The whole point of the diversity of the cast is lost. Women are short and cute, men are tall and slender or tall and buff. No other options.

11.) They attempt to rationalize the 13 Kings and give deep meaning behind their behaviors. Which maybe we will get that someday, but part of the fun is how fucking chaotic they are.

12.) Hellsalem's Lot is an empty city. Somehow, the city lacks people on the streets and we don't get the rooftop betting scene between the giant stomping creature and super-sized Riel. Sex, drugs, gambling are minimized in their version.

13.) The entire Prosfair story line is cut because it is so fucking bizarre and awesome; they wouldn't understand the point of the entire game.

14.) The OST is bad.

[complexhaystack]

Late to the party, but been binge watching The Handmaid's Tale! It is such a well written drama with so many layers and nuances. I've only just started S3, and haven't read the book... But I have some thoughts, particularly about Luke.

I've seen some reddit posts describing Luke as passive. I believe his role goes beyond that - his behaviours are a milder version of the extreme male chauvinism we see in Gilead.

Luke ends up staying with three women (at least up till where I watched :p) in Canada. While this on the surface seems to show his patience and kindness, his role in the house becomes a milder parallel to the Commanders in Gilead in several ways:

- In a scene where the four eat around a table, the three women have to watch Luke's mood for some time - as Luke presses Emily because he is inconvenienced by her presence. Heck about Emily's trauma, or that she risked her life to bring his wife's child over. A man is inconvenienced and something must be done. Thankfully Moira is assertive enough, but she also has to rein Luke in rather than Luke having sufficient EQ to rein himself in, while the other two women are uncomfortable. This echoes how the women in Gilead homes constantly have to watch for the man's cue and mood, and adapt their behaviours around him.

- The fact that Luke presses Emily for answers before she's ready to speak - also shows that he does not understand the gravity of the trauma that the three women before him have faced. He wants answers and he expects her to answer. Sounds familiar? (Yes sir)

- The above also indicates that under stress, he externalises how he feels as someone else's responsibility (usually a woman in the scenes he's in). This is done more subtly than the Gilead villainous men, because Luke is generally shown as kind. He is irritated at Emily because he's reminded of June. He says his wife is trying to eff up his life when he's the one who cheated. Once again, these are much milder, but also echoes of how the men in THT have low emotional immaturity and generally blame others for their situations or feelings. (The exception is Nick, but that's a whole other discussion on how he attunes to June's needs and allows her alot of space to be vulnerable.)

- Luke's passivity is reflected in many areas of his life in Canada and pre-Gilead. He laughs off the increasing restrictions placed on women (like signing off forms for June, or saying dismissively he'll take care of her). In Canada, I presume he works, but so does say, Moira - yet the caregiving of baby Nichole is left primarily to her (that is, his passivity is also in falling to stereotyped gender roles). Moira takes up a job at another refugee posting, actively helping people from Gilead where possible. She also sits and flips through thick binders for a long time to find out whether her gf was alive. In contrast, Luke appears quite content to let news come to him most of the time (even getting his mail Moira had to get it for him). June also once said that he never learnt how to use the dishwasher properly. This sense of passivity and honestly, entitlement - while the women around him are either proactive or helping Luke do things reminds us also of how Commanders in Gilead basically don't do much themselves, their households are primarily kept up by a legion of women in different roles. (Of course, what they do is to inflate their self importance by "working" to control these women.)

- It might be a minor point, but I also find it interesting that in his interaction with Waterford when Luke tried to hit him, his main concern was "you rape my wife!". While this is a legitimate concern, this also partially can be seen as a very subtle and normalised way of Luke positioning June as his woman, and something of his has been violated. He doesn't go up to Waterford to ask how or where June is, or that she's being held captive by him, or demand that she be let go. This point is again a very subtle one - Luke's focus appears to be on (1) June being violated by this man, and (2) an empty threat that he'll fight Waterford. Both in a sense a matter of potential male pride, which we also see echoed in Gilead's awful harsh consequences for adultery by a woman (because the man is cuckolded).

In other words, Luke got out of Gilead early, but his own almost invisible chauvinism (because of how normalised it is) makes males like him in the story complicit in some ways of how Gilead came to be.

I don't take issue with Luke not trying extreme ways to get back to Gilead to save Hannah and June, he might not have the guts to become a hero - and that's okay, most normal people don't. But his role in the story reminds us of how smaller echoes of extreme chauvinism can play out. I think if he did not manage to escape Gilead, perhaps he might have found he could adapt quite well to its regime.

Perhaps there'll be further development of his character, but at this point in time while watching, he sure is in the unlikeable bucket.

[wetcatspellcaster]

The first thing I'll say after reading the chapter is - CAT!!!!

Also, my cat came up to me while I was reading, and fell asleep on me, so double cats!

Poor Rosalie, still being haunted, but now actively trying to ghosthunt, when the ghost suddenly does not want to be seen anymore 😔 hug for both of them!

Shadowheart's words made me hurt, because damn. She is so right, they all still did choose to do bad things, because they thought they were right, but also - hug for her too, she deserves it for acknowledging her faults and trying to be better. Love Shadowheart and how wise she is here ❤️

And knowing that Astarion wanted to Ascend in order to be able to protect Rose too, in some way, breaks my heart for him, because he probably understands how stupid it was, and how much pain he brought Rose with that decision, but also how he was hurt in the process too... Oh, it is such a deep can of worms to unearth, I love it 💔

Also, Astarion in a jumper! WITH THE CAT! So far away from scary Ascended, it melts my heart. And him being embarrassed over bargaining in on Rose taking a bath, so worried and willing to face her in case she got hurt again... Aww, is the only thing I can say.

Not me waiting for the epilogue chapter to be Rose and Astarion on a double date with the Dekarios family. And I'm never letting my cat be alone in proximity to Gale. Nope. Also, I'm trying to imagine Astarion's shock when the whole clan of Gale's children starts climbing all over him. That will be hilarious.

Poor Rosalie with her email. I know the struggle. She is still better than me at handling it 😔

This chapter was so sweet, even if it brought something to think over, and that forever quest for acceptance of your past mistakes in order to move on, that fear of facing it, because it will be hard and painful... Yes. I can imagine the road to happiness will be long and thorny for both of them.

And now, I leave you, dear author, with the best of wishes for good luck in your work, many scritches for your cats, and big thank you for this delight of a chapter.

Now I'll go look for the banana muffins recipe, since Gale and Timothy refused to share that, and make me some. Thank you ❤️

hey anon, thank you so much for such a lovely message and comprehensive chapter review. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I had a lot of visions for what this aftercare portion of the fic looks like, to be honest, but mostly it's just Astarion trying to rebuild his personality from the ground up and then trying to do it as quickly as possible so he can land himself a baddie lmfao. I don't know how well I'll pull it off, bc there's a lot of big things to unpack there that also, I don't think, make for a particularly interesting reading experience, so a lot of it happens off-screen. But for right now, I'm just grappling with an Astarion who feels bit weird about flirting, meanwhile Rosalie is like "he's not flirting with me? :( maybe he doesn't... like me :("

*screams internally in author*

so I added cats misbehaving to give myself some more familiar ground to tread!

I also just feel like Shadowheart's story is the neatest by the end of the game (her just T-posing in the background of the post Netherbrain trauma congaline on the docks, lmfao) but that there are things about her story, at least in my playthrough, that would actually equip her for understanding Astarion more than Rose does. I wanted to give a little space for the acknowledgement that most of the companions have experienced more emotional and moral nuance than my Tav has in her entire life :')))

Thank you for your lovely words! x

[preraphaeliteknight]

I've spent a few days thinking about what to do moving forward. It's not the breakup of a celebrity couple that's affected me the most, it's the feeling of losing my safe space in the Tumblr Swiftie fandom. Every time I've logged onto this app in the last few days I've flinched and quickly exited the dash to get away from yet another take mocking and ridiculing Joe. Or minimizing his very valid fears. "Unbothered 3.0". Rewriting history to make the last 6 years seem insignificant. Comparing him to CH as if petty jealousy is the issue here and not years of harassment. Celebrating the return of Taylor Swift, The Brand, no matter what that means for her future happiness. And circulating pressers that make it sound like Joe was a therapy dog who's no longer needed. All of which is making me feel physically ill. For both of them. And even when this stuff isn't coming from the people I follow (who for the most part have nuanced and fair takes), it's coming from their anons. And no matter what I do I can't get away from the outright cruelty and shocking lack of empathy for the person Taylor has credited with saving her life. Even though swifties know better than anyone what Joe has had to put up with for over half a decade. Given that treatment, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that this is how he's being discarded. But fuck it hurts. So where does this leave me? This blog was never supposed to be an update account or an ask blog. I just wanted a space to fangirl over my favorite actor. But in the last few months this has become a space for Joe fans to be excited for his upcoming projects and clown over castings (remember a few weeks ago when we were giddily figuring out his next movie because of insta follows? yeah, take me back to that please). And I know some of you rely on this blog as a space to both appreciate Joe and vent your frustrations with his unfair treatment. I have 70+ asks in my inbox right now, the vast majority of which are well written, thoughtful takes on what's been happening. And I agree with pretty much all of it. Thank you for taking the time to send me your thoughts. But the truth is, I simply don't have the emotional capacity to reply to them right now. I can't do it. I can't talk and think and dwell on this. To quote a song that's too painful to listen to right now: "I'm just too soft for all of it." So I feel like I have two options if I ever want to be able to be active on Tumblr again: 1. Unfollow all swifties. Because just seeing pictures of Taylor (especially from the pap walk) makes me feel ill. And it's affecting my opinion of her even though I'm mad at her fans, and not her. And I don't want that to happen or the music to be tarnished. But I also don't want to break mutuals and hurt someone's feelings. And I want to know what's going on with Taylor. I'm a huge fan of her too, and I want to be excited for tour and the re-recordings. So that's why I'm going with option 2: Take a proper break. A real one, this time. Hopefully this all won't feel so hard with some time and distance. I don't know if it will solve anything, because swifties will get back to talking about Joe in the future (whenever she makes art about this) and then I'll probably have to flinch every time I open this app again. Because he will have been reduced to yet another ex swifties can make fun of. So maybe I have to go with both options in the end. If I do, I hope any mutuals out there know not to take it personally. I wish more than anything that I could return to the days of being a casual fan who wouldn't have thought twice about any of this. And maybe that's what I need to try to get back to. For my own sanity's sake. I'm sorry to any Joe fans out there who need a place to vent. I feel like I'm letting you down, but I just can't do this right now. Maybe I'll be able to in the future. Maybe I'll leave this blog and go back to my main instead where the subjects will be more varied. I don't know. I'll always be a Joe fan though, and no shitty presser or swiftie narrative is going to change that.

Please just be kind to each other, and to Taylor and Joe. Let's hope the best for both of them, and please please please don't tarnish all the good that this relationship gave them. And all the beautiful music it gave us.

All my love

[kaitandcole]

I was standing outside my high school waiting to get picked up when I opened Instagram and saw the news, I thought it was a joke. Genuinely. Cut to me looking at @harryflorals on Instagram and all of my other fan accounts I follow to see if it was true. It was. My heart immediately felt heavier than it had in years. I am still filled with grief and shock. I feel for his son, Bear, who woke up without a father. I feel for his entire family, who is feeling one of the most complex, nuanced, and heavy feelings someone can experience: grief. I can’t imagine how the other boys are feeling. Grieving someone you have lost contact with or have bad memories with is so, so so hard and I know that feeling personally. Grief is devastating, it is confusing, it is paralyzing, it is all-consuming. When you’re a kid, in your mind the people you admire or look up to are immortal. They’re on a pedestal and therefore they cannot die. Especially if they are someone who, from a young age, was commodified and molded to be an object you could sell. It is shocking to be so abruptly brought out of that fantasy. I imagined being 50, having my children or my wife say “Did you hear (insert member here) died?”. I never expected to have to deal with this kind of grief until very later in life. I never thought I would be 17, scrolling through Tumblr and Instagram, trying to make sense of one of them dying so, so, so devastatingly young.

My second-grade teacher got me into One Direction, and over that year, I became a massive fan. I brought the boys up in every conversation—anyone who knew me back then can attest to that—and made them my whole personality. Sometime during the end of the second grade, they announced that they would be going on hiatus. I remember feeling numb and in shock, I had just gotten into them. When their History music video came out, my second-grade teacher, whom I still talk to, promised to premiere it on her projector at the end of class. I remember sobbing, my best friend at the time and I were holding each other. I was mourning, and grieving, and processing. That was a big thing for an 8-year-old to go through. What other loss does she know?

While having a family member be sick at home and eventually passing in the sixth grade, I regressed to my 8 year old self. I made One Direction my entire personality again. I lost friends because they “just didn’t understand it” (aka: they were sick of hearing me only talk about them). I would listen to One Direction all day at school, and read fanfiction on the school bus and before I fell asleep. I would watch any media I could get my hands on that involved them. They were my support, and my rock to fall back on during that hardship. After this family member passed away in March of 2020, just a week before lockdown happened, One Direction became even more of a support. I felt isolated and lonely but the online community and the fandom helped me feel like I had a place, and I know I’ll always be thankful for that of course. As I healed and found other coping mechanisms, I still kept them incredibly dear to my heart, leaning on them whenever I needed to.

Once the news broke about Liam's passing and everything that followed, it felt like everyone was coming together to mourn. People who have been active consistently for years, people who have been a bit more inactive (like me), and even people who got a platform from this community (Sarah Baska, Brittany Broski, etc). The community is the strongest it has been in awhile right now. We are all going through something so linear, and so complicated. We didn’t know him, but he was a part of all of our childhoods. I still have all of my old merch I’ve collected over the years. I look to my right and I see the throw pillow and body pillow that are tucked underneath my bed. I see my One Direction stuffed bear and my poster and the old, untouched electric toothbrush I thrifted when I was 12. I may not as big of a fan actively as I once was, but this grief still runs deep. He was infinitely too young and it hurts to think that he felt that way to do something like that.

To everyone who is also feeling this grief, I see you. You are not being dramatic. Your grief and mourning are completely valid.