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unknown7s · 1 month ago

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Can I just say that I really fucking HATE how the majority of the Arcane fandom praising Season 2 is deeply in the mindset of Piltover in reality? Like, it's not even funny, and I don't know where to begin.

I'll just start with Silco because he's this huge metaphorical character who is clearly written as the embodiment of a long list of sociopolitical agendas in the real world. And before I start, pardon my English, since it's not my first language.

I know y'all in the Anglo-American sphere tend to focus more on classism, inequality and police brutality theme. But the way I see it, THAT and every single dialogue plus the specific word choice of Silco & Sevika literally SCREAMS of postcolonial discourse (I guess F. Fanon is most well-known to y'all) and even some part of M. Foucault's philosophy, etc. I'm writing "etc." because the list will go on forever if I describe all these creepy historical parallels between the depiction of Zaun's internal conflict and what real countries that have been (or still are) colonies went through, and what real colonizer propaganda looked like during that time—like how those characters who fight for the nation's independence are the big bad villain and psychotic monsters who need "redemption arc" therapy, while those who cooperate with the oppressors are the good-hearted familial heroes of this story.

So upon reflection, if this fandom were to be a collective intelligence, we should have asked ourselves, "Is this show truly not problematic for portraying such a character as villainous?" and thus, "Is this show thematically implying far-right propaganda?" even before Season 2 presented us with this insane plot that glamorized the militaristic fascist aristocrat proclaiming martial law as a 'romantic revenge arc'.

But what did the majority of the fandom do since 2022? They were so busy shitting on this dead villain, claiming he has done so much wrong that he doesn't even deserve to be praised as a character. So instead of trying to understand where this character's point of view is coming from, they blindly hate him to the point where they are now fabricating a list of crimes that he didn't even commit, editing false information on the fandom wiki profile.

What's more frustrating to me is that I thought the problem was media illiteracy all along, but oh no, I was being way more optimistic than the reality. Now that I’ve read all these interviews from the showrunner and main writer—Linke and Overton—I get the sense of why Season 2 turned out like that. The more they babble on about this show, the clearer it becomes that they don't even acknowledge how messed up their political views are, which are so far-right. Taking the seemingly-centrist line doesn't make you fair, you're just passively siding with the oppressors. And lesbian sex scene doesn't make this show "progressive", in fact, hiding oppressor fantasy behind a rainbow flag makes it even more treacherous.

So yeah, I think critical voices should be much louder than this, but watching the majority of this fandom neglacting problems only to praise the show? I think my hope for humanity kind of get lost more and more as time passes, lol.

#arcane #arcane season 2 #arcane critical #arcane criticism #arcane writing #arcane thematic problem #silco #vander #jinx #vi #sevika #ekko #caitlyn

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cherrybomb107 · 2 months ago

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: forgiveness, or the way it’s often presented, is harmful. That’s one more gripe I have with season two. The way it frames “forgiveness”(the idea that you are obligated to forgive someone lest you be “just as bad as they are” is problematic.)

Because for one, having Jinx apologize for killing Caitlyn’s mom and vow to stop the “cycle of violence” doesn’t make any sense. One, that’s just not something Jinx would ever say. Two, the idea that Jinx killing some Councilors is anywhere near the same thing as Caitlyn becoming a dictator is laughable at best, and insulting to my intelligence at worst. Three, Caitlyn never apologizes or faces any meaningful consequences for her actions! Losing an eye was nothing! She should’ve lost a hand at least and we should’ve seen her reflect on her actions and pledge to do better for Zaun!!! Not just fuck off and ride off into the sunset after everything she did! And lastly, the “cycle of violence” literally isn’t a cycle, it’s just one city oppressing the other for centuries and the other city deciding to fight back! This “cycle” doesn’t begin and end with Jinx and her attack on the Council, so framing it like Jinx is the one who has to take sole responsibility for fixing everything is nonsense.

“But Arcane was never about heroes and villains, everything is morally gray!” You sound dumb. This is obviously a story with overt themes of oppression and revolution. I’m not here to critique morality, I’m here to critique its framing. Why are certain characters “justified” in their heinous actions but others don’t get that luxury? That’s what I’m talking about. Moving on, the problem with “forgiveness” implies that it’s necessary, and the way people conflate forgiveness with letting someone have access to you after everything they did is the problem. You don’t have to forgive someone if you don’t want to. That doesn’t make you “bitter” nor does it mean you’re “holding a grudge”. There is a difference between forgiving someone and just removing yourself from the situation and becoming detached, imo. That’s what should’ve been done with Caitlyn and Jinx. No one in Zaun should’ve been shown dying for their oppressors because “teamwork” nor should Sevika have been shoved on the Council to push this idea of “unity”. Why would Sevika, a Zaunite who has never had and never will have any love for Piltover, be forced to cozy up with the Council? Why is the onus on her, as an oppressed person, to make nice with her oppressors? Why does the institution of Piltover, and people like Caitlyn who uphold that institution and wreak havoc on the underclass of Zaun, never have to answer for their crimes?

Answer: Because they(the writers) want to convince us that Jinx and Caitlyn, and by extension, Piltover and Zaun are “just as bad” as each other, and that both sides need to work together to heal. Only problem with that is, the Piltover/Zaun conflict was not presented that way in season one. I’m sure the writers want us to think it’s one city vs another, when that’s not the case at all. In reality, it’s one city OVER the other, and now they’re trying to convince us “both sides are bad”. While it’s true that there ARE problems on both sides, the problems in Zaun literally wouldn’t be problems if Piltover wasn’t an oppressive institution. Why were the chem barons able to amass power? Because the systems Piltover set up left Zaun behind and allowed power hungry people like Finn, Margo, Chross, and Smeech seize their opportunities for control. Why is there so much crime in Zaun? Again, because of Piltover. The class disparity that Piltover set up means the economic divide between the two cities is a chasm that grows wider and wider every day. People are forced to steal to eat. They join gangs out of necessity, not because they have to. Why did Jinx kill all those enforcers?

That shouldn’t be the question. The real question is: Why does “Jinx”(as in, the persona Powder adopted to feel strong) even exist? Answer, once again, because of Piltover! Jinx is an oppressed person with severe mental health and self esteem issues that have been exacerbated as a result of the crooked system of Piltover. She saw her parents get killed by enforcers(militarized police force that carries out the will of the powers that be and is responsible for harassing, brutalizing, and over policing Zaun) right in front of her before she was even in the double digits. She was then adopted by Vander, but she had to struggle her whole life. Zaun doesn’t even have air to BREATHE unless Piltover decides they deserve it. And thanks to Caitlyn, we get to see how even THAT gets weaponized when Zaun steps out of line. So if they don’t have access to clean air, it’s safe to say that they also don’t have access to the same quality food, water, shelter, clothing, economic, educational, or medical services that Piltovans do, just by virtue of living in Zaun. So you take a severely mentally ill little girl, systematically oppress her, and then clutch your pearls when she becomes violent and lashes out? Label her a “psycho” and a “monster” for killing cops, gang members, and politicians while Caitlyn gets a happily ever after after everything she did? I thought “both sides” were “just as bad”. So why is Jinx the only one who meaningfully suffers? Why does Zaun as a whole always have to pay the price?

Lack of commitment. “Terrorist” is a loaded word that’s been weaponized against marginalized people for ages now. It’s another one to add to the list: angry, crazy, mad, belligerent, monster, savage, animal, etc. All these dehumanizing words are leveled at folks who get tired of taking shit lying down. I’ve never thought that Jinx was a “monster” for killing cops, Councilors, or politicians. Never will. But the show clearly WANTS me to, as well as simultaneously wanting to see Caitlyn’s actions a certain way. I’ve already made a post about why comparing or trying to equalize Caitlyn’s actions and Jinx’s actions is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest imo. Think of it like a bully vs bullied type of thing. There’s this kid and his asshole friends who gets to bully you for weeks, months, or even years and face no repercussions. Then, one day you get fed up, and start fighting back. Whether that be with words, feet, fists, or what have you. If you go down, you go down swinging. When the dust settles, BOTH of y’all are getting disciplined(detention, suspended, expelled, not allowed to go on trips, etc) for “fighting”. And there’s a very good chance one of you will be punished much more harshly than the other. Even though you started fighting back. BACK being the operative word. Every single time this kid pushed, hit, kicked, punched, started rumors about, and isolated you, nothing was done. The one time you start fighting BACK, both of y’all get in trouble because the school has a “zero tolerance policy”.

But you know that’s not true. It can’t be. You’ve been telling the teachers, guidance counselors, and vice principal about what’s been going on. But nothing was done about it. Or if it was, you were the one who was told to move seats. Or switch to a different classroom. Or just ignore them. Or “maybe they’re lashing out cause they have problems going on at home.” It was nothing but excuses when you were getting pushed around. Now when you fight back it’s a problem. Now take that metaphor and apply it to Caitlyn and Jinx. Caitlyn is like that fat rich asshole with parents on the PTA who make hefty donations to the school. Jinx is like the scrawny little nobody who has no one to stick up for them. Piltover is the school system. Caitlyn’s privilege isolated her from any meaningful consequences, while Jinx’s lack of privilege guaranteed she’d face hefty consequences, much more than Caitlyn ever would.

Jinx has lost: her birth parents as a result of state sanctioned violence, her adoptive brothers, her sister, her best friend, her adoptive father, Silco, her sister again, her adoptive father again, her new friend, her sense of self, her life(possibly) and she has to deal with being an oppressed person who struggles with mental health issues on top of all that. Caitlyn has lost: her mother, and her eye. That’s it. She’s never forced to give anything up. She never had to reckon with the reality of what it means to be not just a Piltie, but a Kiramman, and a dictator on top of that. We never see her be genuinely remorseful about her horrible actions in Zaun. Nor does she try to apologize to the people in Zaun or meaningfully make amends. No, Caitlyn gets to live in that big shiny house of hers with her father and girlfriend and the months she spent co-signing martial law will never be addressed. To bring it back to the bully vs bullied comparison, this means that Jinx would have been expelled for fighting back, while Caitlyn gets ISS(in school suspension). “Both sides are bad” yeah well you clearly believe one side is worse! And it’s not the correct one!

Piltover is an oppressive, classist, ableist, and brutal institution. Caitlyn was the head of this institution for months after she experienced a fraction of what Zaunites have experienced for centuries. At the end of the day, Caitlyn’s actions were brushed aside and she got her happy ending, though it wasn’t deserved whatsoever. Meanwhile Jinx, Sevika, Ekko, Isha, countless other Zaunites, and Zaun as a whole did nothing but suffer their whole lives and now they have nothing to show for it. “Both sides are bad” but the bad that the institution is responsible for is never called out, while the bad that the oppressed people did is blown out of proportion and they are severely punished for it.

And yes, I know I’m talking about a mainstream television show with white/non black people in the writers room. I knew I was never gonna get the pro revolution story I wanted to see, and I’ve made peace with that. But, if they wanted to have a “both sides” narrative so bad, then they should’ve stuck with it. BOTH SIDES should have equally suffered and had to reckon with their wrongdoings. The responsibility for doing so shouldn’t have solely been on the shoulders of the minority group. THAT’S the crux of the issue. I was always gonna think “forgiveness” was the coward’s way out. But they never show Piltover apologizing. Only Zaun does, and that’s not right.

#arcane #arcane critical #the problem with both sides are bad #forgiveness is a scam #arcane season two ramblings #arcane season two

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problematic-yuri-poll · 8 months ago

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Problematic Yuri Tournament - Round Two

Gushing Over Magical Girls vs. Sorry but I'm Not Into Yuri

Gushing Over Magical Girls (manga by Ononaka Akihiro) [explicit]

Submitted problematic elements: PHEW BOY, what isn't problematic about it? Sexual assault, manipulation, the entire cast being underage.

Submitted content warnings: Sexual assault for sure, noncon, dubcon, ageplay, bdsm

Submitted propaganda: Its genuinely good. Its a genuinely interesting story with excellent character designs and entertaining characters and the horniness is not just a coating of titties for fanservice, but fundamental to the plot. It is about self discovery and learning to accept yourself but not letting your desires consume you. The action is tense. The relationships between characters are interesting. Each character is charming in their own way, from the flop loser MC who is playing villain because she's hard up for magical girls to the magical girl who joined the good team bc the others watched her beat a demon in the head with a brick to the supervillain college dropout who wants to rule the world. There is an overarching mystery concerning why and how these girls gained power to begin with (i do NOT trust that little shit of a mascot). The mood and tone of the story is so masterful-- you can TELL when somethings wrong. There is also some very good comedy all throughout-- it's just a super fun read! They also got their first season of an anime recently (which is somehow hornier than the manga) so.

Sorry but I'm Not Into Yuri (manga by Mochi au Lait) [explicit]

Mod submission; MC fervently denies she likes girls at all while repeatedly drugging them into falling in love with her using a love potion. Plenty of drugging and dubcon/noncon shenanigans ensue. She's totally straight though she swears.

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descendant-of-truth · 3 months ago

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If I may throw my hat into the ring here, I think the source of a lot of problems in the writing of Miraculous can be boiled down to its confusion over its target demographic.

There are two very clear audiences the show is trying to cater to:

Grade school girls around 5-10

Teens/young adults around 15-20

And this results in some. unique conflicts in the show's internal logic.

Because it's a superhero show for little kids, it's full of fun, bright colors, wacky villain-of-the-week designs, and the characters are all very straightforward with exaggerated personality traits. The cheerful, clumsy, scatterbrained girl protagonist, her utterly charming and goofy (but slightly clueless) love interest, her cool best friend, her mean bully, etc.

This extends to the romance; the show is so comedic that Marinette's nervous crush and Cat Noir's flirting are played up for laughs. Their more "problematic" behaviors read as cartoon shenanigans first and foremost, which I do think was the intention - they're both shown as being more than a little ridiculous for acting this way, so they're not exactly trying to encourage people to emulate them. They're allowed to be genuinely wholesome, too, because it's nice to give the kids something to go "aww!" at, but it's not meant to be more complicated or deep than that.

And of course, it's gotta follow a sweet and simple episodic formula! A conflict in Marinette's civilian life, an inciting incident to get a side character upset enough for Hawk Moth to turn into a villain, Ladybug and Cat Noir show up, there's fun banter, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm to figure out a wacky solution to the problem, and boom! The day is saved, Marinette and/or someone else learns a moral, and we get a cute little end screen showing all the key players of the episode.

The one aspect of the show's setup that's a little more serious is the fact that Adrien has a super controlling and distant father, but even this is something that doesn't necessarily break the kid-friendly tone for the first season or two. Superhero shows in particular like to put in some stuff that's a little more emotionally challenging for the viewers, even when they're mostly comedic, so it's not totally out of place here.

For example, while they tend to have more grounded tones overall, Spider-Man cartoons are aimed at kids and regularly keep the conflict between Harry Osborn and his father, Norman, intact; often including the plot point of Norman being the Green Goblin, a notorious villain. It's a similar deal with Adrien, and his dad secretly being Hawk Moth.

You can easily anticipate drama coming from this, but the show primes you to expect it to work out fine in the end because every other conflict so far has been wrapped up in a nice little bow once the episode's over. Though I will say, the choice to have Hawk Moth be Gabriel instead of his own, separate character is perhaps the first sign of the tone shift to come.

And, uh. it sure is a shift.

See, Miraculous does not start out with what you'd call a... plot. It vaguely alludes to there being more going on behind the scenes, but the only thing it really tries to get you invested in is the Love Square dynamic. Marinette and Adrien dancing around each other while fighting crime IS the plot, and it's clearly going to end with a cool final confrontation with Hawk Moth.

You expect it to end like... well, like the movie. Identities are revealed, Gabriel realizes the error of his ways when he finds out he's been fighting his son this whole time, and they may or may not make up but he almost definitely gets arrested. Marinette and Adrien kiss, roll credits.

This is not what happens, because the plot the writers actually had in mind is complex in a way that I would argue is meant for the same audience as YA novels. And with that plot comes a lot of darker, weightier traits to these otherwise silly characters.

Marinette isn't just scatterbrained and nervous, she has debilitating anxiety and an increasing need to be in control of everything due to the stress she's under. She has panic attacks on-screen. She's not just great at strategizing, she also knows how to manipulate people, and does so with increasing frequency - and to Cat Noir at times, no less. Her positive traits haven't gone anywhere, she's still loving and creative and sweet and doing her best to help everyone she can, she just. has all of that other stuff going on, now.

Adrien isn't just a charming, goofy, clueless love interest with a gazillion skills and a controlling father, he's like. actively being abused, and in some cases straight-up mind controlled. His tendency to heroically sacrifice himself so that Ladybug can do her Cool Protagonist Thing is gradually but unmistakably reframed as being a sign of suicidal inclinations. He has identity issues out the wazoo and he doesn't even know he's an artificially created human yet, because everyone in his life is keeping secrets from him and/or lying to his face about crucial information.

Information like, uh. how his dad died???

Yeah, so we're at a point in the story now where there was no satisfying conclusion to the Gabriel plot, no team-up, no moment where he realizes he's been fighting his son, none of that. He still has something akin to a change of heart, but he also still kind of gets what he wants - the Miraculous of the Ladybug and Black Cat, which he uses to rewrite the universe with a wish. It's just that instead of reviving his wife, he trades his life for Natalie's. Of course, he was already dying anyway, which was his own fault but he did force Cat Noir's Cataclysm onto himself, so, that's another thing poor Adrien is going to have to deal with at some point.

And because there's all these astronomically messed up things in Adrien's life, and Marinette's the one who got to learn about all of it before him, she decides that maybe it would be better if he just. didn't know about it. Which is understandable, if I was 14 and had all this information about my boyfriend's life that he didn't, I wouldn't know how to begin telling him about it, either.

But. can you see how we've maybe lost the plot, here?

Here's the thing: starting with a simple framework and gradually getting more complex and subverting the audience's expectations for how the main villain is going to be dealt with is not a bad thing. The fact that it gets darker over time is not an issue. I actually think that all these developments are, themselves, pretty cool! I'm a sucker for angst and complex character dynamics and the show is absolutely giving me those things.

The problem is that it didn't just start with a simple framework, it started with the framework for a different demographic entirely, and perhaps just as importantly, it never actually... stopped.

For as much complexity and intensity they're injecting this story with, they're still working under the logic of it being "for young kids." We still get goofy villain-of-the-week designs with equally goofy motivations, and the supporting cast is stuck remaining two-dimensional no matter their circumstances. Chloe is the most blatant example of this - she was made to be a simple bully first, so no matter what else they do with her, she has to remain straightforwardly evil.

This, I think, is the reason that Gabriel is a more nuanced and "sympathetic" antagonist than her, and why so much care goes into Adrien's character as a victim of abuse while Chloe is just a Problem Child despite suffering similar neglect; she wasn't made to be interesting, and so the show is resistant to changing that. Gabriel and Adrien, however, were already made with nuance in mind, and so they're allowed to develop as characters. And at the same time, it's a kid's show! We need to teach the kids what kind of behavior is acceptable, and Chloe's home life isn't an excuse to treat people badly, so--!

...Oh crap we're supposed to be teaching kids about acceptable behavior. Uh. Um. Quick, bring back the ice cream akuma who cares way too much about his ships so that Cat Noir can learn about consent! Uhh, but don't change his character too much afterwards, he's only marketable because of his silly flirting, and we can't lose that.

Yeah, remember when I said that the romance having problematic elements to it used to work well enough because it was clearly just exaggerated cartooniness? It wasn't free from criticism or anything, but you could see how it was intended to be endearing and silly, right? You were supposed to point and laugh at Marinette's convoluted plans to spend time with Adrien, at Cat Noir's dramatic flirting attempts that Ladybug herself fondly rolled her eyes at.

The tonal shift into deep character exploration kinda paints the previous stuff in a worse light, and to an extent, I think the writers know that. It's hard to laugh at Cat Noir being flirty all the time when he's also supposed to be taken completely seriously, and the more Ladybug rejects him, the more it turns into harassment, and it. kinda just stops being funny, even with the comedic framing.

It's also hard to laugh at Marinette's crush being so all-consuming when they try to tell us (in what I can only assume was an attempt to get people to stop complaining) that she's like this because it's fueled by an event in her past, one that made her so scared of loving the wrong person that she now needs to know Everything about them before asking them out. Her cartoon antics aren't funny under that light, it's just concerning, but they're dedicated to keeping it up anyway.

The show runs on straightforward cartoon logic where you're not supposed to think about it too hard just as much as it runs on grounded, closer-to-real-life logic where people are messy and complicated and actions have consequences. It's so divided that you can hand-pick parts of the story that are influenced by one or the other pretty easily, and depending on the episode you can find instances of both in the same 20-minute time span. Maybe even multiple times!

Neither thing they're trying to go for is bad, and neither is a better approach than the other, but forcing them into the same show makes both sides suffer.

It's not just hard to laugh at the parts I mentioned earlier, it's hard to take Gabriel seriously as a villain whenever you rewatch an episode and remember that he has a once-per-episode pun-based speech that he says so self-seriously that you can't help but laugh at. It's hard to take him seriously when you remember that he repeatedly akumatized a Literal Baby and practically threw a tantrum every time it didn't work, or when he randomly steals (and enthusiastically performs) his nephew's musical dance number, or something similar that you would only do for a cartoon villain aimed at five-year-olds.

And I can only imagine this whole show is a marketing nightmare, too. Hey, little girls, here's your cool role model! She's cute and smart and talented and powerful and can fix anything by shouting the title of the show! Hope you're having fun watching her tell her boyfriend that his newly-deceased father (who used deepfakes of him to sell merchandise that's built to enslave the population and then locked him in a solitary confinement chamber in another country) was actually a hero who sacrificed himself to stop the main villain instead of, y'know, being the main villain! Aren't you excited to watch her wrestle with the guilt of this lie for the next season or so? Doesn't it just make you want to buy her merchandise??

Like. what is even happening right now. what am I watching. how did we get here and why did we start where we did if this was what the story was going to be about

#miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml s5 spoilers #ml s5 finale #analysis #meta #Does this warrant going under the salt tag?? I don't actually post about this series much #ml salt #just in case #'Who is this show supposed to be for' is a question that haunts me constantly #You can't even say it's a family show because family shows are NOT this conflicted about themselves #It's not just 'for everyone' because it's very specifically For Little Kids and For Young Adults SEPARATELY and AT THE SAME TIME #<-Stuff I couldn't fit in the main analysis but is relevant anyway #To be clear I DO like this show quite a lot and I'm absolutely looking forward to season 6 #I just needed to get this out there because it was driving me crazy

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franzkafkagf · 8 months ago

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The fact that Aegon loving his children it’s even book canon. TGC is describing Aegon’s personality as it is hinted in the book and yet people is mad.

Tom literally acknowledges he is not a good parent but he loves his children.It makes total sense that he would have a complicated relationship with fatherhood based on how his father treated him. Or that in his mind, he wants to be better than Viserys.

Thank you anon! You're exactly right, we've always known from the book that he loved his children. Adding onto that is that we have barely seen 20 minutes of Aegon until now, if the early reviews are true we'll get 15 minutes of Aegon in the first episode ALONE. Of course we find out much more about the character, we barely know anything about him!

This made me wonder; what do we know about Aegon?

We meet Aegon for the first time in episode 3 of season 1. He is just a two year-old who plays with a wooden dragon toy and yet the older characters around him only see him as a threat, a pawn or, by his father, as a replacement— watching the episode it's clear to me that Viserys wanted Baelon, Aegon cannot be Baelon. It's pretty telling that the only positive on-screen interactions Aegon has with his father are in this episode. He is a little kid still, Viserys can project his wishes and fantasies about Baelon onto him, something he isn't able to do once his son is grown up.

I think it's pretty crucial to understand this part of Aegon's and Viserys' relationship— the perfect ideal of Baelon (he killed the only woman he ever loved for the perfect son; you cannot come back from that) stands between them, like a shadow Aegon could never escape and a standard he could never meet.

We don't really see Aegon again until episode 6— he is a teenager now and thus a completely different person. The little baby from episode 3 has been shaped by years of neglect, unfulfilled expectations, and the toxic dynamics within the family. What has he become? He is a 15 year old with problematic relationship to alcohol that is used as the punching bag of the family. He jacks off from windows (welcome back Roman Roy!), leers at maids and bullies his younger brother.

Teen Aegon is perceived as a disappointment by his grandfather, who sees him just as a weakling and a pawn to be controlled (a belief he still holds at the start of season 2 apparently). His mother projects her own ambitions, resentments and fears onto him.

These behaviors are all very troubling and someone should've done something to prevent these habits from festering within him; no one did. I honestly feel like no one really cares about him that much.

And yet, there is also so much postitive to be said about this iteration of him too, glimpses of Aegon's potential for goodness and his capacity for loyalty. You might call it naivety, but Aegon seems to believe in the good in people— he trusted Rhaenyra not to hurt him or his brothers if she was to become queen (something I agree with). He also seems to treat his nephews well enough, he doesn't seem to care about the bastard-allegations -> he also seems to be friends with bastards as an adult! Eddard Waters belongs to his entourage, this informs his character— yes he is an entitled prince, but there's also an element to him that is endearingly down-to-earth.

Another notable example is in episode 7, he decided to protect his mother after Aemond blamed him for spreading rumors about his nephews' legitimacy . He never cared about the rumors, yet he stood his ground and shielded his mother when faced with his father's wrath.

Ty Tennant does such a great job here. The scene highlights his complexity— he is not simply a drunken disappointment, a villain or a victim, but a young man trapped in a situation he doesn't seem to be able to get out of.

When we next see Aegon, he is in his early twenties, and the toll his upbringing took on him is evident. His introduction in episode 8 is a hefty one. He is shown sleeping off a hangover, his drinking habit from his youth has fully established itself in him. His mother yells at him, tries to get him to understand the consequences of his behavior— he has raped a maid, something that, disturbingly, is not new for him. This moment speaks volumes about the man the little boy from episode 3 has become: flawed, morally compromised, and numbed by his vices.

Further even, Aegon engages in activities that reflect a deep-seated cruelty and a disconnection from others— watching toddlers rip each other apart in brutal fights shows his general desensitization and apathy to everything. These behaviors are obviously unacceptable, but this is a fictional character we are talking about and you know what these behaviors tell me about him? These are just manifestation of the dehumanizing effects of his upbringing.

He is desperate to be loved but destined to be hated — Tom Glynn Carney

Because characters can be multi-faceted and complex, Aegon fights off insecurities and still yearns for love and acceptance from those around him. Him acting out like this can be read as misguided attempts to drown out the background noise, to try to assert control in a world where he feels constantly undermined and unloved. However, his actions only serve to alienate him further from the people he wants to be accepted by.

Aegon's aversion to the throne and his rejection of the responsibilities that come with it are just other manifestations of his deep-seated apathy. He despises the very idea of kingship and what it represents. He doesn't want to take up responsibility become a pawn, he yearns to run away but he himself knows that he will never be able to run.

The carriage ride to the sept and the coronation are gifts that keep on giving. It's all so horribly tragic. He never wanted this. Crowning him will kill him, he knows this is his end deep down!

He is so preoccupied with what his father wanted, Baelon is absolutely still haunting the narrative— his father's desire for him to embody virtues he never possessed or could aspire to (BAELON) are still at the forefront of his thoughts.

As he walks to receive the crown, he is literally crying, this single moment encapsulates it all so well. He is man who, despite his privileged position, is trapped by the very power and responsibility he was born into but never desired for.

But then, at the very end of episode 9, we see a shift in Aegon— something else to him that will be at the forefront of his character in season 2. He finally gets the adoration and the purpose he always sought after with the crown. The moment he realizes that the smallfolk is cheering for him is the moment the apathy that defined him up until now begins to lose its grip, replaced by newfound determination.

This change in Aegon will be furthered by the death of Jaehaerys, a source of pride and a reminder for him that he is capable to create and care for something precious and pure (thank you TGC) -> I won't go into this deeper, let's wait until the season airs.

In conclusion, a wise woman once said that apathy is death. For so much of his life Aegon embodied apathy, only for the very thing he feared most (kingship) to make him rethink everything. Aegon will be driven by his determination, but this path will lead to his destruction, consuming him until there is barely anything left of him. It will ultimately tear him apart; he is both redeemed and ruined by the weight of a crown he never wanted.

#aegon ii targaryen #tom glynn carney #hotd meta #hotd #princess i love you.#house of the dragon #ales.txt #asks #vizzy t you done fucked up #my writing #my creation #aegonposting

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flock-of-cassowaries · 1 month ago

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So I’m not endorsing Fight Club - it’s a problematic book with a deeply toxic cultural legacy - but as a queer AFAB millennial who grew up in the sunken place of really wanting to identify with images of traditional masculinity… that shit rocked my world circa 2006.

And it just occurred to me how easily you could map Fight Club’s core plot conceit* onto NBC Hannibal (especially season 1); and that got me thinking about the parallels and differences between these two works.

Spoilers for a 28-year-old movie below the cut.

*the core plot conceit of Fight Club is that the two principal characters - the charismatic and dangerous Tyler Durden, and the story’s unnamed narrator - are in fact one person. The narrator is not aware of this until the final act.

(Also - I’ve added headings, because I know this is very long and rambly, and I feel an appropriate amount of shame about that. )

[How this idea originally occurred to me]

So what originally got me thinking about this is that in NBC Hannibal, Will is always tired, while Hannibal, mysteriously, seems to have at least 40 hours available for crafts and hobbies in every day.

This maps very neatly onto the way time seems to work for Tyler Durden, vs. how it works for the insomnia-plagued narrator.

[Main thesis]

But there’s a lot more similarities than that - most notably, the overall arc of the narrator-Tyler / Will-Hannibal relationship:

1. Both Hannibal Lecter and Tyler Durden breeze into our main character’s lives, and very quickly install themselves at the very centre of it.

2. Both become an object of unacknowledged homoerotic yearning for the main character, before finally being revealed to be extremely dangerous villains who were manipulating the main character all along, and who were instrumental in blowing up the main characters’ lives.

3. Ultimately, in both works, the main character ultimately rejects their “friend” by attempting suicide in a way that will kill both of them (and, in doing so, stops the “friend” from committing further harm).

[Bonus Round]

Other parallels include:

- that Hannibal and Tyler are both exceptionally ostentatious in their mode of dress, in contrast to our comparatively mousey main characters.

- that they both serve to invite the main character to embrace violence (something the narrator in Fight Club does easily, but which Will Graham, to his credit, resists).

- Hannibal’s ritualized sadistic physical torture of Will (in Mizumono, and the again in Dolce / Digestivo) also mirrors the scene in Fight Club where Tyler burns the narrator’s hand.

- Hannibal and Tyler also both enter the main character’s lives at a time when they are struggling with insomnia based on guilt related to their jobs. (Jobs, btw, where both of them have bosses they cannot stand and do not respect.)

[Alana Bloom and Marla Singer]

I also think the Marla Singer / Alana Bloom parallel is interesting.

In both cases, these women are implied to be the only woman who might, possibly be a match for the main character - someone who could possibly understand them enough to form a possibly-healthy relationship.

Instead, however, Alana and Marla end up forming relationships with Hannibal and Tyler (respectively).

In both works, this makes the main character despair (even as it is implied that the woman would actually rather be with the main character than with Hannibal / Tyler).

[Bonus Round II - Electric Boogaloo]

Also, on a more superficial level, both Marla and Alana have stunningly pale skin and dark hair (much as both Tyler and Hannibal are sandy blondes who seem larger-than-life in comparison to our dark-haired, ruddy-complexioned protagonist).

I would also like to rapidly recognize:

- the aesthetic similarities in Randall Tier’s death and that of Jared Leto’s character in the film version of Fight Club

- the amusing parallel of both Tyler and Hannibal creatively repurposing dead human tissue, which they then gleefully give to rich people who do not know what they are consuming (Tyler, by making medical-waste human fat into bougie soap; Hannibal, by making murder victims into gourmet meals)

- the way that the “the line between us has begun to blur” theming in Season 3 of Hannibal echoes the “literally the same person” reveal in Fight Club

[Conclusion]

With all this in mind, I think it would be very possible (and potentially quite fun) to plot out a Fight Club AU of Hannibal, wherein there is no Hannibal Lecter. (Might explain why he has such a stupid fucking name. Yeah, I said it. It’s fucking dumb that his name rhymes with “cannibal”. Fight me, Thomas Harris.)

[Appendix - Contrasts]

That said, the differences are also quite notable:

1. Whereas Tyler Durden seduces the narrator in Fight Club with the promise of validation from a male social group, Hannibal Lecter’s pitch to Will is that he recognizes that Will is is unique and special, and appreciated him as such.

2. Tyler Durden is overtly political, positioning himself as outside the system, and explicitly anti-capitalist. Hannibal Lecter, on the other hand, is apolitical, and perfectly comfortable being a member of the ruling class. There is no anti-capitalist motive to his crimes against the rich.

3. In rejecting Tyler, the narrator in Fight Club (especially in the film version) symbolically reclaims his heterosexuality, and is implied to have formed a bond with Marla; whereas Will Graham (literally) embraces Hannibal even as he rejects him, and Alana has long since been clearly shown to have adopted a position of “To hell with these gay idiots”.

4. While imperfect, Will Graham is a lot more sympathetic than the narrator of Fight Club; both because of how vigorously he resists Hannibal (as alluded to above), and in terms of what we see of him before he falls under Hannibal’s spell:

— Will’s guilt stems from an action (shooting Gareth Jacob Hobbs) that most people would consider morally-correct. In Fight Club, on the other hand, the narrator’s guilt stems from condemning strangers to die in order to save his company money.

— The narrator in Fight Club is shown to have been driven by his insomnia to the point of engaging in vampiric support-group grief tourism (which - yikes). By contrast, Will is seen calling Jack Crawford out on the inherently exploitative nature of his “Evil Minds Museum”.

— Whereas the narrator in Fight Club lives a life of hollow consumerist grasping, Will is shown to live a materially-simple life, which he generously shares with a menagerie of abandoned dogs. It is easy to imagine that he would put his dogs’ needs ahead of his own, given that we see him putting time and energy into rescuing and washing Winston, even at the end of a long, exhausting workday.

[Postscript]

I literally typed this whole-ass essay out before I remembered that Edward Norton (who played the narrator in Fight Club) also once played Will Graham (in the 2002 film Red Dragon, which I have not seen, but which I remember Bryan Fuller having credited with giving him the idea to write NBC Hannibal).

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paletmblr · 7 months ago

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hoii everyone! welcome to paletmblr’s 3 year anniversary celebration!

congratulations to @helaenatargaryens for being june's featured creator!! thank you for your lovely chappell roan gifset!

it's been 3 years since I created this blog!! 3 years yalllll!! thank you to every one of our followers <3 your amazing creations and support mean the world to me <3

this month we'll be celebrating our third year together by re-visiting all of our events since 2021! you can make creations from previous event themes of your choice. the event themes will be listed below! this event will run through entirety of july. the only requirement is your creations should be pale/pastel/b&w!! hope you participate!

to participate:

⁍ make as many creations as you’d like !!

⁍ include us in your caption !!

eg: “ @paletmblr 3 year anniversary [ event theme ] ”

if you have any questions for the event, feel free to send us an ask! we are excited to see all your lovely creations!

happy giffing ♡

thank to ccnet for this idea < 3

event themes listed below! please only choose event themes from below!!

event ii: music - anything related to songs, lyrics, musicians

event iii: characters of color

event v: quotes

event vi: underrated characters

event viii: scenery

event ix: friendship - friendships you admire from film, tv, anime, lit etc

event x: seasons

event xi: space

event xiii: villains

event xiv: found family

event xvii: comfort - can include your go to comfort movies/ shows/ music/ books or characters/ people

event xviii: colour palette

event xix: magic

event xx: locations

event xxii: floral colours

event xxvi: rom-coms

event xxix: disney - can be from disney film/series only.

event xxx: period dramas

event xxxi: fav pairings - any kind of relationship you admire (platonic, love, friendship, enemies, familial, antagonist/protagonist etc). no pedophilic/ problematic/ abusive relationships will be accepted.

event xxxii: mythology -any kind of ancient mythology, adaptations count too

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suzannahnatters · 4 months ago

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Having shared my RINGS OF POWER s2 eulogy, and while assuring you all that I am also mourning the loss of one of the best things about the show, I would also like to take a moment to defend the decisions being made by the showrunners and writers here.

Before I get started, I just want to acknowledge the members of my writers' group. This post owes much to our discussions. Anyway, when it comes to Adar's death, there are three reasons why I'm not calling his death pointless, or blaming the showrunners for bad writing. The overall reason is this: Adar represents the show's efforts to treat Orcs like people. In this sense, his character was a blazing success. Look at us all, with a hopeless crush on an Orc? Success.

But let's go a bit deeper.

SIMON TOLKIEN'S EXECUTIVE MEDDLING

The fact that Simon Tolkien made an EXCELLENT call in asking the showrunners to keep Adar around for an extra season...still doesn't stop what he did from being executive meddling, or from causing tricky ramifications in the second season. Adar was a first-season antagonist, brilliantly well-written, but ultimately only intended to be a supporting character. The decision to keep him on, suddenly made him more charismatic, more mysterious, and more sympathetic. Given how he'd been set up as a warm-up baddie...season 2 suddenly turned around and made us think he was here to stay. The writers had cornered themselves: on the Tolkien Estate's behest, they had a dark horse who was about to run away with the show. I'm not going to fault them for going ahead with their original plan, because they would have had to retool subsequent seasons massively in order to fit in an Adar redemption arc, and you can't necessarily do that when the whole arc of your story is already planned.

JRR TOLKIEN'S LEGACY

All of us have written things we're not proud of. JRR Tolkien wrote a story world with something problematic hard-baked into the foundations: an entire race of beings for whom genetics determined ethics. Can you even imagine what it must have taken for him to get to the end of a long life spent in the dedicated pursuit of this story world, and to have the courage to admit that he might have been wrong? That really isn't something most authors are capable of. When Peter Jackson went to make LOTR and HOBBIT into movies, he did nothing to scrutinise this issue. His Orcs are flat: monstrous, comic, but never people.

TROP challenged that, and exercised significant skill, care, and wisdom in doing so. But they are still attempting a faithful adaptation of Tolkien's source material. We know where this story is going. Galadriel will end up in Lorien with her elf wifeguy. The Orcs will fall under Sauron's dominion and become his tools, enslaved to his will with the Ring. I did fantasise about Adar being Celeborn, and possibly some of his "children" getting to nope out of Sauron's dominion or even be turned into Elves. But we now know that was never on the table. The Orcs were always meant to fall to the Enemy. But here's the point: for the first time in the history of Tolkien works and adaptations, TROP allowed them the dignity of a fall. Going forward in the show, the Orcs won't be monstrous cannon fodder: they'll be people we knew, people we were pulling for, people whose deaths matter. They are, not a waste, but a tragedy.

TOLKIENIAN TRAGEDY

Look...there's nothing more Tolkienian than a beautiful disaster of a man who dies far too early.

And yes, I know that it's something we've seen before and wish storytellers would move away from - the Moment of Grace that never becomes anything more than a Moment. The villain who has a five minute redemption, then dies conveniently so that the heroes never have to work through the messy business of forgiveness and accountability (although I always did wonder how it would play to see a redeemed Adar, possibly Celeborn, living the rest of his life as a redeemed Uruk among people who hold an undying enmity with his children). It's happened so often that when I, Suzannah Rowntree, sit down to write a six book series where the irredeemable villain has to live and build a new and more accountable life for himself, there's startlingly little template for it, at least in Western media. We live in times that are starved for happy endings and genuine redemption arcs. I wanted so badly for Adar and his "children" to be blessed, and not cursed, by this narrative. So I get the rage. I get the grief.

But tragedy is still a valid art form. Again, all this is a function of the show successfully making the Orcs matter. And the reason the Orcs needed to matter is because they are about to be enslaved to Sauron. They were so close. They genuinely could have been good. Adar could have led them into an alliance with the Elves against their enemy - but instead, just like Celebrimbor, just like Galadriel, they are deceived by him. They turn to him out of fear that their father figure is treating them like cannon fodder, and now they have no one to advocate for them. And that's the tragedy of their situation.

We might all be a little tired of tragedy, but it's still valid, especially insofar as it never, ever forgets to treat its characters like people. Did the writers have to choose tragedy? No. Adar might have lived and undergone a redemption arc.

But the writers didn't have to give Adar a redemption arc, either. Any more than they had to so deeply humanise the Orcs and their father. It's not perfect writing, but it's not bad writing, either. Indeed, for a Tolkien adaptation trying to both honour the author's work and scrutinise his failings, in my opinion it's doing brilliantly.

And...honestly, I'm kind of happy that they left me wanting more, and better, for Adar. Because now I get to write that story myself.

#the rings of power #jrr tolkien #trop spoilers #trop #trop positivity #pro trop #the rings of power spoilers #adar #adariel #galadriel #trop season 2

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tornoleander · 1 year ago

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Jay’s been through it

CW: Sexual assault Implications brief discussion of sexual predators + lotta swearing

(Please let me know if I missed any content warnings and Check if you are ok to hear this theory before reading. This type content has potential to help or hurt you depending on who you are as is the nature of problematic themes. Safety over curiosity.)

This is cannon compliment. Uhh kids show?! Yeah I know shouldn’t really have these themes but they’re there hear me out. Spoilers for season 6/8 I guess.

I’m bothered by this scene and how It connect to certain events so I’ll cautiously share

Sons of Garmadon Episode 7:

Here is the clip

Kelo asks “Where’s the green Ninja”

WHAT THE FUCK! Dude the double take I had when first watching this.

So he looked at Kelo’s… lower half and basically said ‘Cole shut up that man’s crotch is too close’. And not in Jay joking tone, he’s like dead serious and stressed. (The scene just cuts away after)

Jay you ok? Why is it implied some guy might have tried something?! Why else would he say that?! Who the FUCK touched my boi? What even is this scene?!

The fact it’s Jay that said it out of everyone is bad because it’s been implied to him before.

So let’s talk about the darkest Ninjago theory that’s been quietly circulating for a while in fan content. For simplicity I’ll call it captains quarters theory, If you’re unfamiliar I’ll explain.

Basically some speculation happened because of a certain villain that displayed subtle ongoing predatory behavior. And a part when Jay was his prisoner that caused people to worry what happened before the scene started.

As some of you have caught on It’s the scene where Cole rescues Jay from Misfortunes Keep.

He didn’t find Jay in his cell where he should have.

Cole found him beaten as ninjago has ever depicted except when literally dying.

Alone

no explanation given.

In the corner of Captains Quarters.

Nadakhan’s room.

Dude :(

And his concern afterwards.

And thinking he didn’t deserve saving.

“Thank you for trying to save me,-

It’s Just a lot.

Doing awful things to make Jay wish it all away is terrifyingly in Nadakhan’s character. Not just the sadistic torture part.

Nadakhan has many behaviors similar to a sexual predator. I’ll go over it briefly but see my last post for a detailed analysis.

He Seeks out vulnerable people for victims. The Ninja are teens and he waits till or makes them emotionally vulnerable. The way he talks about gifting his wishes and giving his victims anything they desire can be read as grooming behavior. His secrecy in getting all the ninja alone and doesn’t even talk to his crew about his plans. Manipulative and Controlling obviously.

And the most glaring issues he’s WAY tooo fucking touchy all the time. Like watch his body language during Skybound and see how uncomfortable it is

“Too slow junkyard boy”

Not to mention how explicitly he doesn’t care about consent….

And “If you don’t come willingly Nya, I will take you regardless” followed by a forced marriage.

Side note he doesn’t refers to Jay with his name and the things he calls him…uggh “What lies is our little canary whistling now, hmm?”

So… It’s cannon compliant that something was attempted or happened to Jay. Bruh wtf.

Well if you feel like you resonate with this or it may help there a few great fanworks that explore this I can recommend if interested. Mmm comfort angst.

(Note don’t bother anyone for enjoying Nadakhan as a character. It’s fiction and it hurts no one)

#captain’s quarters theory #ninjago #ninjago jay #ninjago ninja #ninjago nadakhan #ninjago nya #ninjago thoughts #ninjago theory #ninjago angst #tw sex abuse #cw swearing #tw predator #tw implied abuse #cw sa implied #cw language #ninjago skybound #Oli speaks #Oli’s Skybound insanity #skybound slander

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fabuloustrash05 · 10 months ago

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Some of My TMNT Hot Takes (PART 2) 🔥

Warning: More Opinions

Part 1 Here

I don’t like that in Mutant Mayhem Donnie is not a “science guy” but instead is more of an anime and pop culture geek. I’m not against him being an anime fan (I love anime too) but I wish we saw more of his science and being a tech genius side instead of him just liking stereotypical “nerdy stuff”. If that makes sense.

I don’t like the Punk Frogs (any version).

The 87 crossover episodes in the 2012 series (as much as I did enjoy them & are great episodes) should not have happened. They leave no real impact or development to 2012’s overarching story and just waste time. These episodes could’ve covered more important things that 202 was desperately lacking like like character exploration and character dynamic development. It was just nostalgic fanservice. The arc in S5 specifically would’ve work better as a movie instead of a 3-4 episode arc in the (most likely non canon) final season.

Shinigami being Mikey’s second love interests ruins her character a bit (for me personally). That was a pointless decision that did NOT need to happen. She would’ve been our first recurring female character to not be a love interest, but nope!

People are allowed to like/ship Donnie x April in ROTTMNT (this is coming from someone who’s not crazy about April being shipped with the Turtles).

I ship Yuichi with 2012 Leo more than Rise Leo (still ship Rise Leoichi, but I just think 2012 Leoichi is way more interesting, plus 2012 Leo deserves a good love interest).

The humans in Mutant Mayhem look ugly af (I know that was probably an intentional design choice but still. It looks bad.)

I hate Raph x Casey (any ver). I’ve stated in part one that I don’t like Raph (any version) being in a romantic relationship with human characters and yes, that meant him with Casey. Not only that but Raph and Casey being a couple ruins their whole dynamic and iconic friendship I love so much. I’m all for friends to lovers but they are a line that should not be crossed. Not every friendship needs to turn romantic.

2012 Karai’s hair looks bad.

Fans often over exaggerate Rise Donnie’s character and badly mischaracterize him in fanfics and fan comics to the point it makes him feel like he’s an entirely different character.

Shinigami should have been revealed to be a villain.

Rise Donnie was just as mean to his brother as fans claim 2012 Raph was to his. Yes, they both do love their families and I’m NOT saying either of them are abus!ce (they’re not), but fans praising Rise Donnie for doing similar things fans criticize/hate 2012 Raph for doing just makes them hypocrites.

Venus does NOT need to be in every iteration of TMNT. It gets kind of annoying when fans keep on saying that she should be in all the other iterations when in truth her presence would not make sense based on the already established canon story. The only (recent) version of TMNT where I think her being included would’ve fit the best and deserved to make her comeback in is ROTTMNT.

The side plot of 2012 Karai being mutated and later getting brainwashed by Shredder was a waste of time and the most boring arc in the series.

2012 April, Donnie and Casey being in a poly relationship does not fix anything with their problematic dynamic and massive flaws with one another. I'm not saying you can't ship all three of them together, you do you! Idc But in reality their relationship would be a train wreck, that's why I personally don't ship 2012 Capriltello.

Renet is probably one of the most powerful allies the Turtles have in the 2012 series.

Rise Donnie would NOT hate 2012 April. He’d go crazy over her psychic powers and want to study them to help her explore them more.

From what I've seen so far, Leo x Usagi seems like the only GOOD ship in the 2003 series (this hot take might change tho).

Raph had the best character arc and development in the 2012 series and changed the most out of the four brothers. Next would be Leo. With Mikey and Donnie have little development (or none at all sadly).

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uselessheretic · 1 year ago

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i'm in a permanent state of smug right now, but i think it's funny that whenever whatever weird interpretations anti izzy people have get disproven, they never acknowledge that it happened or that they spent a large chunk of their time insulting and facilitating the harassment of fans who had the correct interpretation.

like izzy and queerness for example. last year when it was still a bit more early in the fandom, it was considered controversial to suggest that izzy could be gay. got insulted for it, called homophobic, and harassed while people gloated about how stupid it is to think that he could be queer. over time that slowly fizzled out since there was, ya know, interviews with david jenkins and cast panels that repeatedly confirmed that izzy is queer, but even a few weeks ago you could still see posts saying how problematic it is to focus on izzy instead of any of the actually canon queer couples.

a bit adjacent to this, but it's the same energy where people harassed others for more than a year for saying that yeah, sometimes ed is violent and has trouble controlling his anger. literally only a week back, you could find posts saying that people thinking that ed was going to be in a dark place and hurting others in s2 were racists misinterpreting canon. turns out! ed was in a dark place and hurting others!

we said that ed was going to continue to be violent and dark, but that it would be portrayed sympathetically as part of his storyline around growth. yall said that he would never be violent, he's going to be soft, and thinking he'd hurt the crew was problematic. and yes, trying to kill your entire crew (and successfully killing half of them!) is violence, you fucking walnuts

we said izzy would have a sympathetic character arc where he will be integrated into the found family, not killed off or treated like a villain. yall said he was going to die within the first few minutes (apparently you said it enough that the creators even made a fucking joke about it in the show lmao) and if not he will be a villain the crew hates and will never accept. kinda a far cry from the crew straight up protecting him from ed, being referred to as part of their found family ("he's a dick but he's our dick") david jenkins saying that this season is about izzy and his growth as he leaves a toxic relationship, and stede and izzy having a friendship arc where izzy's training him lmao

just months and months and months of nonstop posturing and bullshit with a self appointed moral crusade to prove how other people were doing fandom wrong and that yall had a duty to correct them

#the izcourse

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ceruleanblueshells · 2 months ago

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The thing about izuocha is, I get it. Like, have u seen ochako ? I mean she is literally the sweetest, most wholesome person ever yet her kindness doesn't imply her weakness ever. On the contrary, it's the one thing that makes her brave. Like, I love her so much, and I get why izuku would be in love with her yk ? I mean she saw the best in him when he had just gotten his quirk and was still considered weak and clumsy, she stood by him everytime he needed her. She was literally one of his best friends. I'm happy for them, for her, if he is what she wants. A girl in media who connected with the villain, had a part in saving the day and bagged the boy she had a crush on ? Hell yeah. But the thing is, I always perceived their relationship more like how both of them kind of actually looked up to each other and motivated each other, admittedly not in the very visible way that Bakugo and Izuku did, but in a more covert and subtle way, which was equally as important. I mean if Bakugo carried the all mighto card with him to battle, ochako also carried the all mighto key chain with her.

But then there's the thing about bakudeku. I get it too. I mean childhood best friends to enemies to friends to lovers ? Hell yeah. Izuku never had any antagonistic feelings towards katsuki no matter how harsh he was towards him ( which was a bit problematic ngl but my boy bakugo didn't go through the best character development throughout the seasons for nothing ) . They want to race each other, motivate each other as I mentioned above, look at each other for light during darkness, see their rawest, most vulnerable parts in each other. All they want is to be the best just so the other can yearn to achieve it too. They care about each other with a love that transcends human words and understanding. Shikaragi literally kills bakugo just so izuku loses his control. But the thing here too is, that I always perceived their relationship as something more than mere romatice. Like, a secret third thing if u will.

I think the problem with me is I just cannot look at these characters and be like oh yeah izuku and ochako are definitely gonna be a thing, or that izuku and bakugo deserve to be together as romatice partners. Because in my head, they are all so much more than that to each other. In my head, they don't need to want to kiss each other just to love each other yk? Like I just know each one of them will move mountains and die for each other ( bakugo literally did). But that doesn't imply romanticism, and I don't really know where I'm going with this but I just love them so much, and I have no problem with izuku and ochako being together in the epilogue, but if it is true and katsuki and izuku never even talked about how important they are to each other, or just like parted ways without any concrete reason, or drifted apart...I cannot, no I WILL NOT understand. It's just not possible. They are each other's sun, they need each other for sustainance. It's just so sad to me how it is being implied that they don't.

#sometimes i get crazy ok im sorry #bakudeku #izuocha #mha #bakugo katsuki #midoriya izuku #ochako uraraka

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