#as if my trope mess isn't also meaningful

[loosingmoreletters]

"Court Drama, where Wei Wuxian fakes his death just so that people end up assuming he was murdered and pin the murder on his new identity."

My first read of that sentence was that he set up the whole thing - and I was trying to figure out what the end game would be. He wants to infiltrate a prison? Trying to uncover some other plot? Then I reread it and...now I think it was unintentional? He tried to fake his death but it got all messed up and now he's on trial for his own murder?

The latter yeah. Also an entirely self-indulgent omegaverse fic though I suppose you could technically write it without.

Uuuh essentially, due to some bullshit kinda shaped like the Wen starting their campaign, we get a wangxian arranged marriage. And Wei Wuxian goes into this under the assumption that he'll have shit to do. Meanwhile, we got LWJ and a guilt complex over landing WWX in this position so he just leaves WWX on his own? Just a whole lot of miscommunication.

And when the Wen do attack, Wei Wuxian decides "okay fuck this actually" and gets out because he's got better things to do than sit around doing nothing all day. So he runs off v much with the intention of faking his death in some form, but also the Wen very much did attack and there's a whole lot of blood and strange-looking talismans so the assumption is that Wei Wuxian is brutally killed, which ends up escalating the war.

And WWX, never idle, decides not to fuck with that perception and hide his identity. He comes across Wen Ning and Qing, some others, and kind of decides to pull a YLLZ.

Sunshot Campaign goes down, and the other sects/kingdoms/dukedoms idk gotta figure that out, are a little sus because WWX did take in Wen, even if he was fighting on their side. And then he pulls something that reminds people of the aftermath of his 'murder' so they end up thinking that the fearsome YLLZ murdered poor Wei Wuxian.

Self-indulgency featured into it because I was fucking around with the thought of a-Yuan as a wangxian baby and WWX partially staying away bc the whole miscommunication left him with the assumption he'd gonna end up like Madam Lan and well, better to run off when nobody knows and is on his case yet about potential heirs, right?

So yeah, idk if I'll ever actually write this bc sometimes my brain shelves anything vaguely omegaverse miscommunication mpreg plot into "this is so cringe, nobody wants to read this Letters, this is daydream material only" category and I feel guilty. Anyway, the summary in my notes is something like:

When the dust settles and the Emperor declares war, the entirety of the jianghu knows this: the Yiling Laozu killed Consort Wei.

[corcnaiism]

───※ ·❆· ※─── shipping sheet received from @lunaetis 🚢 For Eden and Sunday.

do i ship our characters together?: yes ( feels like a shakespearean play but that's just my hc ehe ) | no | not yet but maybe soon

would i like to ship with you?: yes ( ��👈 ) | maybe, i'm willing to try | no

type of relationship i could see: childhood or high school sweethearts | exes ( a random thought just popped into my head about like what if in a past life, they were a thing or something without the current state of affairs like they were both normalish until tragedy struck and eden forget everything and sunday had to forget about her bc she just kinda disappear for a long while and he didn't want to hurt anymore sp POOF there goes his memories ahah just food for thought. you don't have to agree :3c ) | engaged | married | long-term relationship | crushes | unrequited love | fling | long distance | online relationship | just dating | new relationship | toxic lovers | friends with benefits ( those last two really just be on sunday's side ahah )

tropes i'd enjoy writing for them: friends to lovers | enemies to lovers | exes to lovers | fake relationship / dating | forbidden love | grumpy and sunshine | star-crossed lovers | surprise pregnancy | second chance | soulmates | amnesia / mistaken identity ( a HUGE one for me bc of what i wrote above jdsnfksjf ) | forced proximity | secret relationship | slow burn relationship

would i rather plot first or jump right in and see where it goes?: develop their relationship first ( bc i really wanna know your stance first and foremost since i have my own dumb thoughts, and i don't want it to get in the way of yours, so if you're interested no matter what type of dynamic they have, i'm more than willing to talk it out and listen :3c and also bc sunday is a pain in the booty kek ) | jump right in | something in between

what now?: let's plot something | send me shippy memes | i'll send you shippy memes | write me a random starter | i'll write you a random starter ( arms are wide open to receive anything and everything tbh )

anything else i want you to know about me / my character / my shipping habits: ( ummm well sunday is just a huge mess in regards to anything really. he isn't one to reciprocate feelings genuinely at first bc he doesn't have time to mingle with others that have nothing to do with his major plan. sure, he'll mess around here and there, but never take things too far. he's human in the way where he wants a meaningful companionship that isn't his sister, but he is stubborn af to admit it and seek it, so he is in a constant struggle with himself but at the end of the day, he'll just erase his memories so he won't have to deal with the pain like any normal person would do ahAh )

[polluxverse]

🎶✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (positivity is cool)🎶✨

Favorite songs...(I have a lot in mind, five isn't enough HELP) Probably not in order but:

• Lost me by Stray Kids - the lyrics are so genuine that I cried, if my true feelings could be put in a song, I'm certain that this is the perfect one.

• Mundo by IV of spades - First of all, it's an OPM song (Filo song). The melody itself is so gentle, but what makes it better is that the song is so romantic, I am weak in this kind of genre. (This is my song for my oc x canon character if someone cares).

• The loneliest girl by Carole and Tuesday - Listen, I really love ballads with meaningful lyrics. Second, their vocals are so heavenly. The voice actors which are also the singers did so amazing, (Y'all please watch and stream Carole and Tuesday).

• Circle of seasons by a3ders (A3) - If you play this game, you get what I mean 'cause this song made me an emotional mess, if you love found family trope. This one's for you truly. I cannot say about this song, only pure happiness and nostalgia.

• Hug me by Yang Jeongin: One word about this song is wholesome, a very sweet song that comes from a warm hearted person. This song just radiates cuteness and innocence, and the singer himself makes me really smile a lot.

[myopicry]

(love that this blog is essentially me rambling and complaining in a very first world problem way but hey, isn't that what tumblr is for?)

self-flagellating self awareness aside, I do think it's very funny that when I realized I did not want to have sex with men and was not actually very attracted to men at all, I immediately attached myself to asexuality as a label since based on my experiences (which had been exclusively with men) I felt so sexually and romantically dissatisfied and ended up pretty sex-averse because of it, and I just felt so awkward and unnatural with the whole process of dating that I decided I was definitely aromantic and asexual because I probably felt that way towards everyone! yeah that makes total sense!

because there was no way I'd ever want to date a woman, that'd be way too subversive and totally didn't match my personality at all, and since I'm uncomfortable with porn and the way sex is portrayed in most media, I probably wouldn't want to actually sleep with a woman (even if I have fantasized about it and would be happy to participate if the opportunity naturally arose in some way...) and man, wouldn't a future with a woman be so unattainable even if I wanted it, since I won't come out to my parents about anything because that notion terrified me? and hmm, I am obsessed with male attention, which probably has nothing to do with internalized misogyny and my lack of social development as a child. also, I'm definitely not a girl so I can't even be gay like that, and I'm not really interested in sex with trans women** so that's probably not very lesbian of me-

sooooo turns out repression and internalized homophobia goes a long fucking way lmao

living in a male-centered world truly messes with your brain like nothing else.* I was somehow convinced that just because I wasn't attracted to men, it meant I would never feel love ever in my life because what else is there? actually being able to truly put men out of my mind and life recently has made some things a lot easier. I used to not be able to picture a future version of myself and the life I could lead, which I once thought was wholly due to a "gender thing", but now, being able to conceptualize a life full of love and romance exclusively with women suddenly clears a lot of the mental fog up, and I find myself being able to actually want something in the future. I want to find love with a woman, I want a girlfriend, I want a wife. I want to build a life with her.

I still have a lot of growing to do as a person, obviously. turns out building a self-esteem actually takes... effort! crazy, I know. but now I can move forward with an assured mindset where I don't have to pretend like the concept of love is stupid just because I don't understand it (yeah. I did think that for a bit... along with wanting a qpr... which. well. I have a lot of thoughts about internet asexual culture that are far too jumbled at this point to be any kind of meaningful blog post so maybe some other time lol) because I finally have some kind of life full of love to look forward to.

*I'm sure the internet didn't help much with this either. my generation does love simplifying every lived experience down to aesthetics since social media has made us so damn obsessed with personal branding and the like, and the wlw/soft sapphic culture and aesthetic I saw a lot of in these internet spaces really didn't work for me as I'm not really into such feminine rituals or makeup and dress-up aesthetics. kinda bleak that for a generation and culture that promotes diversity, we love boiling things down to easy stereotypes and consumerist tropes instead of embracing real lived experiences... **aside from the obvious, in reflection I think my lack of attraction here also majorly falls on the fact that a lot of trans women adopt a hyper feminine image to pass and as described above I think my type and interests just naturally leans away from makeup products and "dolling yourself up" so it wouldn't really work out based on what patterns I notice in the presentation of trans women

[glngrbred]

LAZERHAWK IS ASS DUDE (Review from a grimdark apologist)

IK that those are some fighting words, but in a "few" sentances.

first off, this show is not worth your time. now, onto the potatos and shit

Grimdark mess that is purely self indulgent doomerism about omg wouldn't that suck, haha corporations bad, very cheap and obviouse "Twists* eyeroll level fanfic edgyness from Hawk**. representation that is, yes, better than having nothing BUT

More shows to be added later on the diagram

As the Gay representation Ven Diagram clearly shows, though Lazerhawk Allows it's characters to (occasionally) be happy, and be in Lead not Gay BFF roles, It fails to give these [characters fears, desires, relationship webs, or the necissary interests]*** to let us beleive that they are a real person. and therefor it fails at representing queer characters equally with its other characters.

However, something that is actually hillariouse, is LazerHawk forgets to do any sort of characterization to basically anyone OTHER THAN JADE! WHO THEY KILL IMIDIATELY???? even then, it still is inadequit in my opinion, as having characters merely interact for 2 seconds in a tv show is all you need for the basis of a relationship to form. Case in point, the bear, Fack and Sydney interact, once, maybe and that builds their entire relationship for the first season. you can easilly fit some type of effective relationship into your people with 2 lines of diolouge, with sara you could easily have had her not just be the skyrim NPC that gives you a quest by having her introduced earlier, having a reference to her somewhere to set up this character (Like Nimona's villains) or give her 1 meaningful relationship somewhere early. But Laserhawk instead spends 3 whole episode of filler to info dump grimdark worldbuilding instead of just making an effort in characterizing Hawk or Sara. you have another season to worldbuild, it takes 2 seconds to write characters, but all of the budget of this show was apearently spent making that gross pixelated rotoscope. So yeah, /rant over on the topic of character writing

*(sara turns evil 4 times or smthn. everyone who gets a staring roll in an episode is then set up to die, immidiately),

**(ther's a place for that type of character, but it stops working when there's nothing else in there besides exposition dumps. )

***( occaisionally not all listed are needed for beleivable likable hot gay guys.)

The show is a grimdark mess that can't help but try and make you take it seriously, so the writers rely on absurd plot twists that pile up into a mess of a narrative that fails to accurately depict a grimdark cyberpunk future.

The over reliance on character death isn't a problem at first glance, but once the cast is whittled down to 3 poorly developed and frankly 2 dimensional anti heros and villains (Ramon, Sara, Lazerhawk) The awful character writing really starts to show, and the freudian backstories become this uneccissary excuse for the writing wich frankly makes each character seem worse, and worse, and worse, until sara is UWU brainwashed villain who is a good liar (as in the show doesn't even try to depict manipulation and instead just doesn't even attempt to depict a manipulative character) Ramon is just fucking digital circus meme and crazy faild actor. 2 very easy tropes. And lazerhawk is sad boi who want vengance :(

there is no functional characterization that happens in this show, and it just makes what should be high impact deaths seem cheap, and the saving of other characters seem dull.

the fight scenes are pretty good though, and the varrying art styles are (mostly) good. The pixelated rotoscoping of the actors is frankly lazy and clearly just greenscreen through a filter. and for a show with this huge of a budget wich already attempts 3d integration it falls flat and makes episodes 4-6 (subjective) unwatchable for me.

Also just generally, I'm sick of grimdark, it's this mess of wannabe popular shows that just want to be cool to all the marvel fan general public guys who wanna get popular fast like a second GoT success story.

Review of show

writing 1/10. Poorly executed wannabe grimdark that thinks breaking tension is constituted by frog saying Juice or gay hotties kissing. insulting execution of this horrid attempt at representing genocide that makes me sick. infantalizes and removes agency from anyone who isnt a dominant culture hoe or MC. feels very, very individualist in they want everyone to feel like they're lazerhawk or they won't relate to our world. basically turning Hawk into a blank slate whose only character trate is pining after Alex.

animation 10/10. Amazing, only reason to watch this show besides the memes

visuals 5/10. Animation =/= visuals, and the actual editing, lighting "use" (they dont try, wont elaborate if you don't know what I mean), and character designs generally suck Frog and ramon good, everyone else feels like a cyberpunk trope

action 6/10. Mostly good, but after the~3rd moment where some fast MC runs around real fast it feels samey. carried by the amazing animation

Garbage show, just watch arcane again. Or like, Bee and puppycat after Ep.3

Final note YOU DONT NEED TO SEE THIS RANT

, Grimdark is a wonderful storytelling -tool- that can help explore worlds and societal structures and draw parralels to our own one. It is NOT HOWEVER A FUCKING SETTING???? LIKE NO? scifi DOOMER SHIT isn't THE POINT OF GRIMDARK IM GOING TO GO INSANE IF I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS EVER. GRIMDARK. IS. NOT. A. SETTING. ITS A TOOL THAT IS USED POORLY OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO JUSTIFY BAD WRITING, BECAUSE "oh they sad because they live in bad place and time :( they dont have other feelings or motives :( they are only worthy of our engagement if they rebel :(" LIKE NO? THATS JUST BAD WRITING NOT SOME EDGY COOL THING????

grimdark, my beloved, you graced us with the worlds of (not) bladerunner and (not) Warhammer 40k and (also not) snowpeircer, but you sure as hell enterd the zeitgeist after people missunderstood the ENTIRE POINT OF YOU AS A WRITING FEATURE AND TURNED IT INTO AN EXTENTION OF CYBERPUNK DOOMER CLUBZ.

cincerely, someone who thinks people in midevil times, probably loved eachother, an lived happy, insular lives, and that NOT EVERY FUCKING THING HAS TO BE EDGY JUST BECAUSE ITS COOL AND IN A WORLD THAT SUCKS? if we applied that logic to everyday modern day hell we should've all caught the bus a LOOOOONG time ago, but noooo we are still here, thriving. and people in grimdark worlds should to. '

if you like grimdark, props to you for suffering through the manotiny of this reverse escapism that doesnt even try to make you think anymore. Also, if you play warhammer, you probably aren't a notZ but don't come here using slurs if you are, its tumblr. not X

[teenyjellyfishy]

This is honestly really interesting to me as someone who tries really hard to look at media from a bunch of directions. Because I really get where you're coming from with this! But I also don't think ppl ARE invalid to be upset with Aerith's character changes because it's really hard to divorce the intentional misogyny from interpreting the work bc it's like. Are we giving the writers more credit where it's due? Are we digging deep into the kiddie pool out of denial and thanking the writers for the diving board? Is all the watsonian explanation in the world meaningful when the doylism is there to embitter it? Is THAT fanon?

I really like your insights on Aerith as a character during the cc period, because it feels real for her character! But... i feel like I can't blame people for being upset when so much of the meaning you can talk about isn't something CC wanted to actually engage with in its narrative. How are we meant to talk about the meaning of Aerith undergoing changes when we know that the changes weren't made for HER as a character but for the perception of her? When a writer decided Aerith couldn’t be bold and flippant, couldn’t wear pink or wear a bow or have the idea to sell flowers by herself, and so instead have Zack initiate it- because that's why it happened. Is it then... a failure to be unable to view the story in a vacuum?

This wouldn't be a conversation if Aerith had had significantly more screentime in CC, nor if we hadn't had flashes of the child Aerith of OG. Like at all. If Aerith had had conversations with Zack about the bad of Shinra and what he as a SOLDIER represents to her, if Zack had grappled with that as something closer to home now that he had Aerith, perhaps the idea that he really doesn't think abt things until they affect ppl he knows, that would have made Aerith feel... there. Like she was written, yknow. She knows how evil Shinra is, how much they fuck over the world and ppl, and she’s RIGHT. Maybe once she gets comfortable with Zack, she's willing to argue with him, be upfront and upset like she did to Cloud at certain times. If less of the defining characteristics she had were kicked off then and there (the flower selling idea and PINK from Zack felt particularly egregious), if she was ducking away from the Turks and Zack used his power as 1st to protect her. Her portrayal didn't need to be the specific way it was in order to have her grow as a person; for a character so important she shouldn't have been shunted so much.

It's defo a problem that people aren't willing to engage with female characters' own given stories though. We're so used to sexy lamp portrayals of women that it's so easy to wary. Recently i think abt Jill ff16 who i think IS a good character but suffers so deeply from being so deeply underutilized in the actual game. I think a lot abt that one "fandom be like i can't enjoy female characters they're always so badly written anyway i love this male character whose personality is 3 tropes here's my 10k character analysis fanfic" tweet bc it's so real. Women need 10k character analysis fanfic too, frankly. I also think perhaps my relationship with the word "canon" when it comes to character and narrative interpretation has been deeply soured by (ct/ca) shipper twitter, king of Just Saying Things. But when it comes to trying to talk about CC, a lot ends up feeling like Just Saying Things, and I think it might also be telling that a lot cc-era fics hardly even want to PLAY with Aerith's development and the mess going on with her life. As she's presented in the game, nothing is ABOUT her, and I don't know if I blame ppl for not wanting it.

The most canonical misogyny in the compilation i can think of is the treatment of aerith in cc and the explicitly stated by nojima aim to attribute as much of her character to Zack as possible bc they were afraid she was dislikable. What am i missing

i mean there is misogyny in canon, this is a game made in the 90s. i would be more surprised if there wasn't

the main thing is that people are so ready to take everything in bad faith that it shuts out any room for meaningful discussion. in fact aerith is a prime example

it's shitty that the devs felt aerith wouldn't be likable if she wasn't directly tied to zack as much as possible, but that doesn't automatically preclude her characterization in cc as something that should be taken into consideration, because it actually does say a lot about her and her growth

she's not some uwu delicate flower damsel just because she's afraid of soldiers and the sky. she's afraid of soldier because they literally represent shinra's willingness to use brute force and exploit things they don't understand for their own benefit. she grew up in captivity under shinra. her mom died because of shinra. obviously she wants nothing to do with them; zack is the one who shows her that there are still people who want to do good in an inherently evil institution

her statement about the sky is always the one taken the worst out of context. but like. the planet speaks to her. presumably it speaks to her more when she's surrounded by nature and shit. she barely knows what her heritage represents. she is fifteen years old and the planet is screaming at her. this is terrifying

and her character arc in og has always centered around her learning about her identity and coming to accept the unique role she has-- something that only she can do. she actively expresses her discomfort with facing it alone after she learns more about it in cosmo canyon, but she musters her courage because she cares about her friends and their future. her being afraid of the sky and what it represents as a starting point ties in perfectly with this, actually

except people are more willing to yell about how her character in cc is butchered and isn't the "real" aerith because ~misogyny~ than actually think about what her change means for her. it doesn't help that there's also a ton of people who are totally willing to lean into the mystical delicate flower plot device girl trope, and it's ubiquitous enough people start confusing fanon for canon

and so in reaction people get angry about her "canon" characterization and just copy/paste her personality from disc 1 or give her an entirely new personality and say they've "fixed" canon, with zero regard for her motivations or character growth. gee i wonder if that's misogynistic too

[abhorsenkatiel]

Clariel appreciation meta

I've been a Garth Nix fan since age 10 when I first read The Seventh Tower, and an Abhorsen fan since I first discovered what was then a trilogy as a teenager. If I had to pick what media has had the biggest impact on my life, it would definitely be these two series. I just really felt like I needed to express how much I love and appreciate Clariel now that I've finally gotten to read it (three years late, but being in graduate school is a valid excuse!)

It is an absolute masterpiece of a story written by an author who has a deep understanding and a mature perspective not only of this world he has created but also of the genera in which he works as a whole. Although it is a stand-alone story, I highly recommend reading it within the context of the rest of the series to really be able to appreciate this. The series is amazing and unique from start to finish, but by the time you get to Clariel (written about 20 years (??? That's right, isn't it? Holy fuck!) after Sabriel) you can tell that Nix has throughly explored all the tropes that YA fantasy has to offer and is just messing with them now. Seriously, I think Clariel runs up against and subsequently gives the finger to pretty much every YA fantasy plot trope there is. It makes for a story that is hard to predict despite knowing the ultimate fate of its protagonist, and one that I couldn't stop thinking about even months after I had finished it.

Despite the fact that Clariel actively and deliberately distances herself from everyone she meets, never bothering to get to know anyone on any meaningful level, we as readers are still able to experience them as interesting and fully-developed characters even through these brief glimpses.

The perspective of this story is hard to deal with because it doesn't sort things out neatly. All of the human characters are either active or complacent agents in denying our protagonist her deepest desire for their own gain, even the ones presented as being on the "good" side of the world's central conflict. To fill this void of allies we, along with Clariel, are instead made to sympathise with the perspective of creatures that were previously presented as the perfect incarnation of evil. This sympathy is understandable, but the moral conflict it creates is not resolved. These creatures are not redemed, there is no clever trick to reconcile the existance of living and Free Magic creatures, and there is no grand realization that the existance of both is necessary for some sort of universal balance or whatever. Just the knowledge that, in order to preserve our own existance, humans must torturously imprison creatures that are no less conscious or self-aware, and have just as much, or arguably even more of a right to exist in this world as we do. Like, that is super uncomfortable, and we are just left to deal with it.

This story is heartbreaking and brutally straightforward in a way that very few authors have the ability or the courage to be. Like jumping into freezing water, it is simultaneously painful and refreshing, and I just appreciate that so much.

[loan-hh]

The original point of this post is very very meaningful and I don't want to fully drive attention away from that since that's the main reason of my reblog, but I'm still going to go a bit off track here and jump on the opportunity to share an opinion I've had for a while. Also I'm in no way an expert, or even necessarily experienced to talk about this, nor do I pretend to be; this is purely my opinion and I fully accept that I might have drastically misread the meaning of this. Anyways.

Personally I'm glad that Mirabel didn't get a gift at the end. In fact, I feared the prospect that she would get one, which is part of why I was so eager to watch this movie; I wanted to know if they would mess up or not.

Obviously the main focus of the movie is generational trauma and that is Extremely Important and Relevant and we should definitely talk about it. However, I don't see how the movie can't address multiple social issues at once, so to me, it also has a strong connection to neurodivergency, regarding both disability and giftedness.

Maybe it was the fact that just from seeing the trailer I had already associated the plot to the "if everyone could suddenly fly" metaphor often used to explain the theory of disability having its roots in society rather than the individual, but to me, some of the characters in this movie and especially Mirabel are a perfect representation of the neurodivergent experience. Hell, during the first part of the film, with all the rapid-fire remarks from other characters on Mirabel's difference once it's established (Osvaldo, then the kids, then even her parents), when she doesn't even appear too upset about it, and then with Waiting on a Miracle actually exposing how isolated she feels, I thought neurodivergency, or this symbolism for it, would be the main focus on the movie. As it progressed it felt like the main focus had shifted entirely halfway through the movie, almost as if they had forgot about that perspective, but then again, I was biased from before I even watched the movie so maybe it isn't as in-the-face as it appeared to me.

Either way, I knew from before watching the movie that there is a problematic, trope? I think it's what it would be called, where disabled characters have an arc that is resolved with them getting their disability fixed. The issue with this turn of events is that it doesn't focus on the character working on their disability, or their feelings about it, or adapting to it, or the people around them changing their ways or perspective surrounding the character; instead it makes the character abled, which beats the purpose of trying to represent or understand disability in the beginning.

If Mirabel had received a gift at the end, there wouldn't have been anything about her that she, or her family, had to work on. The issue would have simply fixed itself, but that's not something that happens with disability, or neurodivergency, or anything really. Mirabel's conflict isn't solely on her not having a gift; after all, all the other people in town outside of the Madrigals don't have one, nor are they expected to. The issue relies in how the family views Mirabel because of this, how she is put aside, misunderstood, dismissed, or reduced to what she can't do. By letting her maintain her condition in the end, the movie can focus on the family finally seeing and accepting her, as well as her appreciating herself as a valuable part of it, because they all are important and loved regardless of what they are capable of. Instead of having her go through something impossible to fit a world that isn't made with people like her in mind, it's the town that has to come around to finally viewing her as a person just like everyone else.

When are we gonna talk about this specific scene in Dos Orugitas?

Abuela: "Ive never been able to come back here. This river...is where we were, given our miracle."

Mirabel: "Where...Abuelo Pedro....?:

This entire scene, Dos Orugitas, is so powerful all together, but the RIVER. The river is so important to the context of their family and the theme of generational trauma.

At this point we all know what Abuela's trauma is and how it affected everyone in the family, hence "generational trauma" part of the story.

Abuela Alma, while holding her 3 newborn babies, watched the love of her life be slaughtered right in front of her eyes in that river that night.

At the very beginning of the movie we can see that Abuelo Pedro was standing in the river when he was murdered.

Once again, like we have already seen, Abuela put her own feelings about her trauma aside, and puts on a brave face to comfort Mirabel. But like she says to Mirabel, she had never been able to come back to that river herself, she was only there for Mirabel.

Finding Mirabel sitting at the river, the same place her husband was brutally murdered, must have been very triggering and painful. She was staring at the very spot she watched her husband be murdered.

But here's what's interesting about how the scene continues.

While Dos Orugitas plays, the story of what happened to Abuelo Pedro is shown in detail (at least more detail then when Abuela tells the story at the beginning)

We see Mirabel observing the scene for herself, implying that Abuela is telling the story to Mirabel in great detail, and Mirabel is finally understanding the pain Abuela experienced in that very spot.

Abuela then apologizes saying, "I am so sorry. You never hurt our family Mirabel. We are broken, because of me"

Now, after understanding why Abuela acted the way she did towards everyone, seeing the pain she is still holding on to after all those years, Mirabel looks out and sees:

The scene from Bruno's vision.

At first she didn't know where that scene was, but it was when she looked out into the river that she saw what the vision was showing.

Now in Bruno's vision it was very unclear who Mirabel was meant to hug in order to save the miracle for a long time, and it ended up being Isabela. BUT, Bruno's vision had two different outcomes, one when Casita fell down, and one where Casita didn't. How I'm choosing to interpret this is that, in the outcome where Casita didn't fall Mirabel would have to hug Isabela, which is what the vision ended up choosing to display, but in the outcome where Casita did fall, Mirabel would have to hug someone else, which is why the vision was so confusing for Bruno.

Now Casita obviously fell, which means the only way the miracle would be saved is if Mirabel hugged someone else. And because of that scene in Bruno's vision, Mirabel realized:

It was Abuela she needed to help

This is exactly why I think its a bunch of bs when people claim that Abuela was "forgiven too easily"

Mirabel saw Abuela's silent suffering, she saw how much pain was still in her heart from what happened that night, and how much trauma Abuela experienced. She understood why Abuela acted the way she did, and instead of getting angry, Mirabel sees that she is meant to help Abuela, and in turn, help everyone else.

THIS!!! ^^^^^^^^^ THIS VERY SCENE RIGHT HERE!!! THIS IS SO INSANELY IMPORTANT!!!!

This river was the place where the most traumatic thing that ever happened to any of them occurred. The source of the family's generational trauma took place at this river. And Abuela herself admitted that ever since that night, she had never been able to go back.

Abuela had to cross the river too, to flee from the bandits (or whoever they are)

But after she saw Pedro be murdered, she never stepped foot in that river again.

BUT MIRABEL LED HER INTO THE RIVER, HOLDING HER HANDS, GUIDING HER BACK THROUGH THE RIVER LIKE PEDRO DID.

Mirabel understanding Abuela's trauma, and Abuela finally going back into the river after 50 years, you wanna know what this scene is symbolizing????

THEIR HEALING

THIS RIGHT HERE, IS THE START OF THEIR HEALING FROM THEIR TRAUMA, ESPECIALLY ABUELA

After 50 years, Abuela was not only able to go back to see the river, but go into the river. WITH THE HELP OF MIRABEL.

Together, they walk into the river, finally understanding one another, and they both decide together that their healing starts HERE. The rest of the family can't heal before Abuela can heal, and Mirabel UNDERSTANDS THIS. So what does she do????? SHE HELPS ABUELA HEAL.

This entire scene is so important in understanding the entire movie, but the DAMN RIVER IS WHAT STOOD OUT TO ME.

I didn't get why they had to walk into the river in order for this scene to continue, but then it HIT ME LIKE A BUS.

Casita being rebuilt symbolizes the family healing as a whole, but the river symbolizes Abuela's trauma. Therefore, walking into the river symbolizes addressing and HEALING from that trauma.

God this movie is so beautiful and powerful and important.

[safitheartist]

Yeah, it did come of as a bit too agresive but I do realize you didn't mean harm so I apologize if my response seemed belitteling in anyway.

We all make mistakes and misunderstandings happen, so lets move past that.

I would like to clarify something though, since I really want people to understand where I'm coming from:

When I say these kind of tropes are harmful I do infact come from a genuine place. I'm currently studying children's education, meaning I am rather passionate about children's emotional and psychological development (I am not claiming I am an expert since Child education and Child psychology are two very different things and like I said, I am a student, however I do have a bit more insight on this topic).

If I say something is harmful I don't mean it in a 'look it's harmful!!!! How dare you like that stuff!!!' manner without anything to back me up, however I do realize this is the internet and you are right about people often having this kind of utterly motives, I don't fault you for suspecting that kind of stuff. What I mean is really 'Hey, stuff like that can really mess children up and it kinda pisses me off.'

Especially if done as clumsily as DC (and Marvel too, but I don't read them that much so I don't feel as passionate about it) has done in recent years.

Comics are a medium that is regularly consumed by children and adults a like and they do have a inpact on how children understand the world around them. If a child is introduced to the themes of death being something that is avoidable their first real live encounter with it can be really confusing and hurtful. This stuff can really complicate the griving process, especially the first time around.

Like, I'm not saying you can't do this kind of stories at all, but they have to have a impact and shouldn't be resolved as quickly as has been the norm as of late.

The characters need to treat it as something genuine that actually hurts them and need to react in a manner which is relateable to the reader. If the character is actually meant to be dead or just fake dead or comes back to live later doesn't matter here.

Because it's still meaningful and treated respectfully. It's the constant feeling of the characters missing somebody and aspiring to become better people because of the memory of their fallen friend/family member that truly matters here.

And DC has done so in the past, having their characters react to the death of a loved one like it actually is the death of a loved one.

One good example for that would be how Robin's and Red Robin's writers have treated the death of several of Tim's friends. They showed a genuine period of griving which defined Tim's character into adult hood. The old comics always treated death as actual death and if people came back they recognized that it is sureal and also not always a happy occurrance.

Good examples for that would be Jason Tood coming back as the Red Hood, Steph's death being revealed to having been staged and the lasting damage that had on her relationship with Tim. Even Damian's death made it significant by portraying his PTSD in his solo title, with helish nightmares that quiet literally, showed him fearing to return to hell, motivating him to become a better person.

Compare that to now. Tim's death hardly had an actually noticable impact. Character's who died before literally joke about it in a dinner while telling their newest family member he might also die as if it isn't a big deal, the character development Damian had in his solo has been returned to zero, Bruce is marrying his girlfriend, the characters actually depicted as griving are glossed over or it's just mentioned in passing that they do to remind people that Tim is 'dead' (Heck, they included that Tim died in the introduction of Raven's mini series for literally no other reason then reminding people that it happened.) But it's never actually anything with substance.

Everything just seems really superficial and meaningless and I can't relate to it.

And it really bothers me on a personal level, which is why I made this post. It really destroys the experience for me which is a shame because I used to love these characters. If you disagree then that is fine for me, but these are my personal opinions and thoughts.

Like maybe some good writers still handle death right in the sea of DC's recent titles, but if so I haven't seen head or tail of it. So I probably don't care about said characters to begin with.

The meaningless DC comic death.

Honestly, DC’s death problem has gotten to the point where making the characters react to the death of a loved one just is plain out stupid.

Like, they are so obssesed with killing off characters and bringing them back just for a quick attention grabber that they literally stripped the concept of death away from their material.

Like, heck, people are killed and brought back to live in the span of one comic nowadays.

I mean, what’s the fucking point? “Buhu they might die, yeah right. I give them two issue-wops they are already back and none of this had any fucking point.”

It’s so infuriating. At this point people writing their characters griefing the death of a loved one seems contrived and unrealistic.

Tim Drake’s ‘death’ honestly was the last nail in that coffin in my opinion. This entire concept was handled so clumsily and had so little weight that you could have cut it completely and instead have the characters believe he is missing in action. Fucking hell that would probably have been a more interesting development since Bruce wouldn’t have a excuse to sit on his stupid ass and propose to his on off girlfriend while Tim is rotting in a prison cell somewhere.

Like honestly, this entire plot point just serverly damaged other ongoing plots and the characters involved with them. Bruce proposing to Selina seen in the context of Bruce literally having lost his son, what, two month ago just seems cold and inappropriate.

The only way they could have made that story line worse would have been having him propose during Tim’s funeral. Apparently writers have gotten so detached from the mere concept of losing a loved one that they just fucking stopped caring.

DC comics has become a universe without any significant stakes. Like I try to keep up with the events but I can’t help feeling any kind of investment I felt just fade away as death is handled less and less gracefully and nothing really has any inpact.

Like just answer me one question, one simple question:

Why should I care about a bunch of immortals who ‘risk their lives’?

Death isn’t a permanent thing in DC comics. It’s not something ground breaking and shocking anymore. It has no impact on any of the characters.

At this point death is a inconvenience at best. Seeing characters handle the after match is no longer compelling or relateable in their universe. It’s basically the equivalent of a snoty teen crying about their broken nail.

It’s annoying and only prompts me to role my eyes now.

My brother and me had a conversation yesterday. We were talking about this shit and we wondered, what would it take to make comic book writers realize the meaning of death?

It’s quiet frankly a insult to people who have dealt with death in their live. And it’s a very harmful trope that really shouldn’t be put in media commonly consumed by children.

The concept of death is a painful constant in our reality. It’s not something that should be sugar coated and doing so can actually be quiet damaging to children who are experiencing the griefing process for the first time.

I know everyone likes to pretend children never are confronted with stuff like that but the bleak reality is that they are. Constantly.

And the idea that carp like this might be their first introduction to the concept of death enrages me. Can you imagine how confusing stuff like this could be to a child when they lose somebody or are about to lose somebody when their first introduction to the concept of death was that it is something you can undo?

It’s a huge problem both DC and Marvel have and it’s something that’s only going to get worse as time goes on.

Also for clarification, I don’t mean stories who subvert the concept of death can’t work out but they still need some form of stake. Like look at stuff like Rezero and Angel Beats, both of these serieses subvert the concept of death by adding intrugide layers, Rezero with the concept of a protagonist who constantly has to suffer through his own death and the death of everyone around him, with each time leaving significant impact on his of mental state. Angel Beats on the other hand makes it clear that their characters already are dead and uses their unability to die from bodily harm as a comedic relife while still having the concept of the characters disappearing for good after they fulfilled their lingering desires, while it’s later revealed that the characters are reborn it still has an impact since it’s kept open ended on how exactly their next live pans out.

DC hardly ever utterlises a character death these days, or if they do they retcon all efforts that were made to do so not long after (looking at you Teen Titan’s Damian).

Like, I honestly don’t know why I should get invested in these stories anymore. Give me one good reason.

I’m sorry but I prefer stories that actually have stakes and heroes who actually have shit to lose.