#at face value in the context of the show? it’s so weak without knowing that BEFORE

[iinryer]

man. imagine if we knew eddie loved dancing before 806. imagine if that came up even once before the risky business scene.

[dc-comics-enjoyer]

In a context where Batman is known and seen through his public League appearances, the misogynistic, homophobic, "alpha male" guys start using his image to illustrate their discourse of going to the gym, and seeking submissive women. They admire and misinterpret his traits as endorsements of their toxic masculinity. Online, they share images of Batman with stuff like "Be the Alpha, Be the Batman". They even use the word Batmen as a synonym to Alpha Male. "Real Batmen don't show weakness".

When Bruce becomes aware of this, he hates it. He despises them for all their messed up views, knowing they completely misunderstand his principles. Batman's true strength lies in his commitment to justice, empathy, and respect for all individuals, values that are fundamentally opposed to the toxic masculinity they promote. Bruce is determined to distance his image from their rhetoric, seeing them as nothing more than sexist and homophobic idiots.

So he decides to be a tiny tiny bit more Brucie when they appear in public. Not in form, but in substance :

When he's asked a question, he tries to go "I have no clue, I'd have to ask Black Canary.", or "I'm not sure, I'd have to see what Wonder Woman thinks about that", or "This time, we really couldn't have done anything, anything at all, without Supergirl."

Also, Batman becomes more visibly affectionate with Superman. During public appearances, if he senses a camera on them, he makes sure to be seen clinging to Superman. He would rather face dating rumors every day than be associated with those idiotic discourses.

(It's also a good premise for a superbat fake-dating fic !!)

[horizon-verizon]

It sounds bad but I can understand Aemond's frustration with Helaena to an extent. Her dragon is the second oldest the Targaryens have and there's even a deleted line from Season 1 where Aemond complains that Helaena "never bothers" with her dragon. And Helaena's just so inconsistent about just how aware she is of what's going on around her, I don't think it would be unfair to think that maybe she does know what's going on, and how much danger they're in. In which case, the fact that Helaena didn't flee or protest would mean she chose that faction and is now sitting on their second best weapon that also happens to make the opposing faction see them as more of a threat and somewhat motivate them to come at them with more force.

Or maybe the writing is bad. I don't know.

Aemond's perspective on dragons and their connection to them is a very limited one. He may be seemingly clever or even wise to some ("philosophies", being able to speak high Vlayrian in contrast to Aegon's terrible use of it", his eagerness to strategize), but his idea of dragonriding is too battle-and-war-centered. He doesn't seem to value Vhagar past her experience and size and use for battle, I'm saying. Even Aegon shows his love for Sunfyre...even it's immediately before going out to try to "prove" himself to anyone. They both appear to only draw strength from their dragon "ennobling" their right to rule or be "important" within this patriarchal Targness war-making that validates them as kings or rulers.

Therefore, it's very possible (bc of bad writing we don't have context for why or why Aemond doesn't observe/put much stock or deep thought into any observations he has of his siblings in other settings to make a definitive conclusion of that based on the "text" of the show) for how Aemond does/doesn't think of why Helaena might be so "subdued" or why it appears she makes "less" use of Dreamfyre or doesn't "prepare" her for war...at least in recent time. And for Aemond, for years Alicent & perhaps Otto have imparted to him and his siblings that they all had to remove Rhaenyra from the heirship/throne, even to survive. A false notion, btw, but one nonetheless Alicent told them for years presumably since early childhood, so yeah, Aemond grew up thinking of dragons as their main line of defense and offense. thus dragon are more war machines to him.

So to both young!Aemond and now!Aemond, "bothering" with a dragon has to do with actively flying them and thinking of them as animals put to a sort of contracted "use". Perhaps just the flying of the dragons is construed by young!Aemond and now!Aemond as "preparing them & yourself" for war. I think that there appears an idea that Helaena--thru her magic in the show--is the most "in tune" with her dragon than anyone on her side of the family. So she absolutely "bothers" with Dreamfyre.

If this were a better written show, we'd see season 1!Aemond also seemingly make as if Helaena doing this is bc women are not expected to battle or that she is "weak"....which contradicts what he expects of her now in season 2/3. That'd be a great depiction of the double standards of sexism the show could have used. (That was a digression, but an important one I think.)

The other thing is that Helaena never asked to be Queen or to have her kid murdered after AEMOND chased & killed Luke and the blacks seemingly retaliated and tried to get at Aemond. (Of course, this is me just taking the show at the moment and at face value and being diegetic bc that's what you seem to ask for). She never usurped Rhaenyra and put their entire family in danger in the first place. Or "distracted" Criston Cole from his post.

That Aemond is demanding that she now go into war:

with no battle experience whatsoever, not even any military training or swordsmanship

when she can barely walk around the Keep without being too overstimulated and is pretty unequipped to also handle war even when flying above it

on a dragon who also has no battle experience whatsoever to possibly deprive her only child of a mother--a girl her father ignored and her grandmother might also ignore with her track record (yes I say this even as we saw Alicent in the leaks say she would take Helaena and Jaehaera away, Helaena: doesn't know of that; has little real reason to trust Alicent after what happened to Jaehaerys; when she made her marry Aegon; and they never were close anyway)

Now he demands that she put her life on the line for something she has no belief in and never had any room to decide on or give input on? when no one cared about her or her kids' thoughts about the whole thing? When Alicent, Aegon, this entire institution has used her body for their own ends? Aemond is entitled to her body and her dragon--the one other thing that she maybe loves above all else besides her bugs and children, a dragon that maybe keeps her settled with herself at heir cramped and oppressive home as much as other Targ women's dragons did for them & be ways/reminders of freedom and personal strength?

Nah.

Helaena does know...but why should she feel obligated to fight when she is not responsible or did really anything to make the blacks seek out their deaths? no, she didn't "choose" the greens' side even if people argue that she could have fled the Keep with her kids to Rhaenyra. She likely stayed for the same reasons as other women and girls stayed with those who mistreat them--it's pretty much all they know.

However, bad writing also has something here, as we don't know the full extent of Helaena's limits, which could have been revealed if they had taken their time and given us the greens/blacks lives in their respective homes at different times to explore these characters and their relationships...it's also possible that she can't fly Dreamfyre for long, esp with two other kids with her...Dragonstone to KL and vice versa is pretty far even for a dragonride.

EDIT *8/5/24*

I forgot how Helaena, to challenge him abt the consequences if she were to go against his will and say no again, pts out Aemond tried to Kill Aegon already when he asks her again to fly out with him. So, again, she owes him nothing when he'd so easily think of killing herAS WELL AS AND IN CONTEXT OF all the above in this post.

Also, even if we argued for her complicity in the usurpation, it doesn't mean that this would erase the compulsion to stay having no where else to expect to stay and survive on her own.

END OF EDIT

[thousandyearphantombunker]

(this is a vent and I get nasty so possibly don't read)I've got no idea as to why this has become a thing recently or how to properly articulate myself rn but here I go: When I analyze characters I don't just look at how their actions are framed, i take off the frame. I take off the edgy and dramatic lighting and the very emotionally charged/biased language, the edgy outfit they got put in and I look at what they actually did what actually happened, i look at their actions alone (well not alone I still need context) and that has me being labelled media illiterate. 'the story said they where a bad guy! Look at how they are being framed! Look at what language they used to describe them! The story is telling you they are bad' and like I know that, I know im supposed hate them but when I look at there actual actions and what they've done without the frame they aren't that evil to me, i know what im being told but i dont buy it because once you get past very loaded word choices and the unflattering picture the creator used... They aren't doing anything bad in the photo, it's just at a bad angle. when you replace the emotional language and make it more neutral language (without changing the story) and you can see plain as day that.

King magnifico wasn't a villain, he's just an asshole with emotional issues, Ironwood while a villain was being demonized for the wrong reasons, he was facing an ethical dilemma alongside team rwby no matter what the show did neither side was 'right' nobody was gonna come out of that shit smelling like roses no matter if you were pro ironwood or pro rwby (maybe the writers could've learned something from ever after high about these sorts of situations you know the show for little girls handled shit like this better) and belos and the collector feel very contradictory? Like very different people each time we got some development from them. The fans who got excited over the idea these two where more complex than story states weren't being stupid, they saw the compelling ideas and interesting contradictions and got excited, and if I like a character that's supposed to a hate sink maybe I'm not stupid maybe the show didn't do its job right, maybe I don't want the writer to hold my hand maybe I want them to explain the story better and maybe I don't wanna do wikipedia homework to understand the show.

Fellas is it a sign of media iliteracy to not take the story at face value and eat what we are being fed without looking to see the ingredients or if its properly cooked? I genuinely got convinced by the owl house fandom that I was stupid for having complaints that I was clearly incapable of the higher thinking required to understand the story and if I didn't like it I clearly wasn't analyzing things deeply enough but when I did analyze the story deeper I found even more issues, my problems originally where with the coven system, coven heads, Darius and Eberwolf turning out to be secret rebels and the fact luz and hexside broke a major law with zero repressions and that Belos's plan was weak, analyzing deeper made me realize the magic system was weak and while i had massive issues with the finale already (fuck the dream sequence light glyph nonsense, and i hated the titan reveal because of the chosen one nonsense especially the titan saying he did make philip's life harder on purpose- which made the fact that he. Still discovered the glyphs impressive) i said I could still watch the show pre finale but after looking deeper I noticed the 'us vs them' mentality was through out the show - not just the finale i didn't like that philip's complexity got erased or that Luz was a chosen one and again i fucking hated the dream sequence, the light glyph nonsense was confusing, (that also helped me realize if the magic system got developed more maybe they could've introduced a mechanic that explained that shit) i also hated that the principal at luz's school was framed so badly- I'm autistic im latina i am a lesbian- im not an ableist racist homophobe- i would've demanded Luz get in school expulsion, and if she got into another incident that she go to summer school, and do community service or i would press charges- still a pretty light punishment but God he was not a bad guy I only saw that problem in the finale when I was told I was dumb I decided to try and reanalyze the show again and came out with an even more negative opinion

Maybe instead of insulting people's intelligence and acting condescending you can just say 'well if you look at the story from my perspective' and share why you think what you think because I do see the appeal of belos's ending and death I do see the appeal of this show- or another here's another idea just agree to disagree and not act high and mighty calling everyone who disagrees a nitpicker a 'stupid Steven universe fan' or lily orchard simp but no Doug walker having a mostly positive opinion of this show while still sharing his minor critics was a sin! I can't believe this is the fandom that made it so I defend nostalgia critics opinions- i genuinely don't like that guy but some of his critique aimed at the show is valid. I feel like this post is pretty meanspirited and I'm sorry for anyone who decides to read this tagless mess but I can't stand smugness or the idea that looking a story deeper makes you stupid. Im just salty and this is a dumb vent over old shit but God I'm pissy still.

[undeadorion-archive]

I cannot believe Anne Rice started her slutty gay vampire series with the amazingly tragic and handsome figure of Louis then decided to make the rest of the series primarily about his narcissistic, petty, toxic, and abusive boyfriend instead. The guy who was so gross and controlling it took murder to get away from him (he got better, though).

The second book is written by Lestat. In direct response to Louis interview being published. It sets the tone of the most unreliable narrator known to mankind.

I'm only halfway through and I cannot take a single thing that happens at face value. So unless something later the the series not from Lestat's perspective confirms it, I'm going to assume most things are either exaggerated or utterly fabricated in the context of this fictional world.

The whole thing reads like the most over the top YA nonsense. So far there's been no strong through line of conflict or overarching plot other than flat out not believing any of it.

First there were wolves that Lestat was nearly killed by but he killed them and survived. Then he was traumatized for a bit. But then he got a boyfriend and the only conflict what that his father and brothers were awful and his mom might die. But then that was over when he ran off to live in Paris. So then the conflict was trying to survive, but that was over in just a few pages cause he got a job at a theater. Then a vampire shows up and torments him and turns him against his will. And you'd think he'd take at least some adjustment time but then it's like "oh, this is fine, actually."

But then the old vampire kills himself without teaching him anything other than "don't go in the sunlight" and that could have been some beautiful tension of fumbling through the world and trying to survive after having his life turned upside down. But no, he figures it out pretty fast and the old man vampire left him a literal mountain of treasure. So he was fine.

Then he made a faint play at "oh, I'll just feed off of bad people and criminals." But then something happened and he fed on an innocent person and had no real qualms about it and just fed on anyone.

Then his mom showed up in Paris and begged to see him because she'd die at any moment. Then he had to reveal himself to her and tell her what he was. And she was chill with it, and he turned her and she was totally cool with that too. There's a really weak conflict going on after that where he's "cut off" from her, and can't communicate with her mentally. But that's barely an issue.

Since being turned the closest thing to internal conflict he really seemed to have was some self imposed thing where he couldn't talk to his boyfriend anymore. He tried to frame it as some noble and difficult thing while it was visibly hurting the boyfriend.

Then there was the vampire cult who started chasing and harassing him. But that lasts like 2 chapters because suddenly they've kidnapped Nicki, Lestat's boyfriend. Which Lestat didn't even know was missing until they taunted him about it.

Then surprise! The cult leader is Armand, Louis big gay crush. And the cult is really weird about self imposed torment and living in the dark and doing god's bidding and some other weird nonsense. And they have a half dead Nicki in a cage on top of a huge pyre that they're threatening to light, but they only have 3 torches and Lestat easily takes them all and puts them all out. And no one lights another one for some reason?

But then with one magical speech Lestat brings the cult to an end. Hundreds of years of weird rituals and beliefs where they thought that it was a sin to live among humans. And just by saying "But I do it just fine" then all go "Yeah, let's go live like humans!" and the cult breaks up. And then Armand goes feral and just burns all but 5 members of the cult, but Lestat is told this after the fact. Because the last remaining members now totally trust him and want him to lead him. When literally just days before they were trying to murder him and now they're all "omg you're so powerful and amazing and wonderful and we love you."

Oh and after rescuing Nicki, Lestat turns him. And there's a conflict for about 2 days where Nicki won't speak and is just sort of a zombie. Then Nicki goes to the theater where they'd both worked, which shut down because Lestat gave them tons of money to move to London. And there's a whole thing where Nicki finally isn't a zombie anymore because he got his violin back. And he decides to lead the ex cult vampires and they create, get this, the vampire theater. The very one that took Louis in the first book.

And where I've left off has Armand flip flopping between being an absolute monster and being absolutely pathetic. And not at all like the one that Louis met. Like literally begging Lestat to love him, to trying to murder him by feeding on him, to nuzzling him by the fire in Lestat's secret tower.

It just reads so much like a jealous lover who got humiliatingly dumped and is trying to show that he's better than his ex. "Oh, that place he went and got tortured? Yeah, I created that! That guy he had a huge crush on? He begged me to fuck him. And I didn't even like him! And look how horrible he was anyway. And you think I'm the bad guy?"

[illuminatedjoy]

Here's the post. I'm updating it a bit since I'm sharing it again. I'm going to try to explain why some people prefer to hc Chihiro as MtF or nonbinary and I'll try to be as clear as possible. It's not exhaustive, of course some people might give different reasons. For the record, I myself read Chihiro as either "nonbinary but doesn't know what that means because of the culture they live in" or "a trans girl who is really self-loathing about it and needs all the therapy." I don't tend to like interpretations that just ignore Chihiro's characterization and past, but I think some people do ignore large chunks of it to see the character the way they want to. Which, is fine, as long as they aren't forcing that on others. People will see what they want to see, and this is a fictional character, not a real person.

-Chihiro's story is steeped in trans experiences. Being forcibly outed, finding the courage to open up to someone you think you can trust, being betrayed because of that, and even having your gender reassigned after death without your consent are all things that can happen to us. Intentional or not, Chihiro's story is basically a trans nightmare from start to finish.

-The writing around Chihiro's gender has aged incredibly poorly. If the writers knew more about trans people and how to write about them, they could have found a more compassionate way to write the character they wanted to write, even while keeping Chihiro a cis boy, if that's what they want. It would also help if Danganronpa had some canon trans-positive characters, at least one or two. That would show they understand and value us enough to be included in their story... but no, that never happened.

-The writers take for granted that trying to be a man is the best thing for Chihiro. We never actually get to see if this is true, because Chihiro's arc ends with coming out and dying. Even in other DR media, Chihiro's arc always ends with coming out. If they actually bothered writing Chihiro successfully detransitioning and being happier as a result, it would be easier for people like me to take the canon seriously. What we get instead is that Chihiro would be happier if they didn't have to hide- but that could also mean being openly trans, not detransitioning.

-Looked at symbolically, Chihiro's arc is about facing down anxiety, expressing authenticity, and trying to be the best version of yourself you can be. Especially when the whole thing is presented in the context of opening up about your gender identity, of course trans people resonate with the character.

-So far, I've mostly looked at the story structure and tropes, so it's time to talk about Chihiro's personality and life experiences. Chihiro seems to think passing themselves off as a girl is easy, and trying to be a man is hard and requires a lot of work. Chihiro's story never addresses how difficult it would have been to live as a girl in the first place. Even with their parents' support, there would be a lot of obstacles and risks to living that way for a child. If Chihiro found all of that easier and less painful than living as a boy, it really starts to look like Chihiro's 'disguise' is more authentic than the writing claims.

-Some people claim reading Chihiro as trans or NB diminishes or erases their trauma. This is cruel nonsense. Chihiro's trauma is very real for some of us, and is another reason we connect with the character. We know what it's like to be seen as weak or less than a man. Some of us internalized that for a long time. It can be hard to accept yourself as not cis, because on some level it feels like admitting you don't have what it takes to be a man. It takes a lot of emotional work to break through that.

-Likewise, some of us have experienced a strong desire to push ourselves to be more masculine. In my case, this was because I wanted to be strong enough to support the people I care about. Kind of like wanting to be stronger to protect your friends in a killing game. But, this isn't authenticity, it's striving to meet the needs of others. Again, it takes work for us to recognize that masculinity is not the only kind of strength, and may not be the kind we are suited for.

-Chihiro's 'arc' feels like self-rejection to me. I do believe self-improvement is important, but it is most successful when it comes from a place of self-acceptance. Chihiro is shamed because of their anxiety and experiences intense self-loathing as a result. You do not cope with an anxiety disorder by hating yourself for having it, but this is a natural response when you don't know better. Chihiro is inspired to be more like Mondo, that's what they want to be, not like themselves at all. But,

-Mondo is an emotional wreck, and his strength is built around a hollow core of fragility. Chihiro admires Mondo without understanding him. How would Chihiro feel if they had more time to understand him, and if they had more time to understand themselves? We don't know, but it's the question some of us like to play with.

-Addressing the anime for a moment, since you brought it up, the way the anime completely changes Chihiro's backstory and characterization drives home how sloppily this character has been handled. The anime does, in fact, straight up say that Chihiro liked being a girl, in defiance of Chihiro's characterization in the games. You really cannot blame anyone for reading Chihiro as a girl if that is their main exposure to the character. It also changes the precise context of Chihiro's trauma, by making it more about 'girliness' than about weakness, which destroys the parallel symbolism between Chihiro and Mondo. So, yeah. If the anime doesn't understand or respect Chihiro's characterization, then how can we expect fans to all see Chihiro the same way?

Reading Chihiro as NB or MtF is about wishing the character had the chance to accept themselves for being different, and work towards self-improvement from there, instead of struggling to conform with the same gender expectations that ruined their life in the first place. It's wishing they had trusted in and cultivated their own kind of strength, instead of chasing Mondo's.

Chihiro is the most relatable character I've ever encountered, including characters that are actually supposed to be transfeminine. It feels like a complete accident, since the character definitely wasn't written for people like me, but there it is. The biggest difference between Chihiro and an actual trans girl is that the trans girl knows how difficult and terrifying transitioning is, and Chihiro, or, rather, their writers, don't.

All of this said, I know what the canon is and I don't like to fight about it. For some people, it's very important that Chihiro is a boy, and that's fine. For some of us, it's very important that they aren't.

Ah wait... did the anime make it sound like Chihiro liked being a girl? Is that why people hc them as transfem when the game said that cross-dressing made them feel worse as a guy?

This is genuine btw, I'm not trying to hate on anyone's HC

[bakugoukatsuki-rising]

Bakugou Katsuki - Rising

So I told someone a while ago I’d be writing an essay on Bakugou’s lines from 284, and I’m keeping true to my word. If you’re wondering which lines, well my friend, these lines;

So this, to me, is one of the most emotionally packed pages of these recent chapters. For one, it shows us that Bakugou has always been watching Deku, the same as Deku has been watching him. Since they were kids, probably from the age of 4, Bakugou was able to tell Deku never thought of himself first, it was always what he could do to help and protect other people with no regard to his own safety or well-being. 

“He’s always been like that.” 

How would Bakugou know Deku has always been this way if he wasn’t paying attention to him? It goes beyond his bullying in Middle School, because he’s watched Deku stand up for other’s his entire life. The very first scene of the manga is Deku protecting a child from Bakugou and his group of misfits, despite being quirkless, and essentially helpless. 

Despite being scared, and knowing he didn’t have the strength to take on those boys, he still stood his ground and did what he could to protect the other kid. Bakugou witnessed that first hand, since he was the aggressor. He was the one Deku was protecting someone from.

There was no way Bakugou wouldn’t remember something like that.

We know he remembered how Deku extended his hand to him when he fell in the stream, even though Bakugou was fine and didn’t need any help. Deku still waded through that water and even risked possibly getting himself hurt, to reach out to Bakugou and make sure he was alright. 

Now, I am going to point out that the stream incident definitely happened before the scene of Deku protecting that boy since it’s evident they’re older in that scene, but it was presented first (literally the first panel of the entire manga), so it takes precedent. 

Then we have the big one, which is the Sludge Villain incident, and Deku’s biggest show of self-sacrifice probably to date within the manga, since he was quirkless and would have certainly ended up dead if All Might hadn’t managed to power up. Even with the times he’s wrecked his body using OfA, he at least had some kind of fighting chance because of the power, but with the Sludge Villain, he had nothing. He was just throwing himself out there in hopes, by some miracle, he could do something to save his friend, even if it meant losing his life in the process. 

Another instance of Bakugou witnessing firsthand the self sacrificial nature of Deku. Throughout the manga we’re given these instances, and the next big one is Bakugou’s kidnapping. Now, he didn’t see Deku’s fight with Muscular, but he did see the aftermath, he saw that ruined body running at him full force with no care to the damage done to himself, and even before that, he saw Shoji carrying him while Deku continued to plan out their plan of rescue, like his entire body wasn’t a crumpled mess. 

Time and time again, Bakugou has been witness to Deku’s behavior, to this self sacrificial nature. The scene above is the first real time we see Bakugou acknowledge it. He tells Deku to stay back, he knows if he continues trying to fight looking like that, he’s going to die. I’ve seen other translations and I believe in the anime he says something to the context of “Don’t come, Deku.” Which, either way you look at it, it gives the same impression of Bakugou trying to protect Deku in that moment. Because he knew if there was an opportunity for Deku to reach, he would have fought until there was nothing left of him. 

“And now that he can do so much more...”

This line is important because it is Bakugou acknowledging Deku’s current strength with OfA, but it is also his confession of worry because he knows who Deku is, and what this means for him. If Deku was reckless and willing to sacrifice himself when he was a 4 year old child with no quirk, well now that he has the strongest power essentially in existence, that means certain death. There is nothing stopping him from completely destroying himself, and we saw a brief example of that when Deku fought Muscular, though not even close to the level he was going at Shigaraki, and what Bakugou was actually getting to witness during this chapter and 285/286. 

I use the above image because it kind of shows how bad off Deku was, which is far worse than when he fought Muscular, let me remind you. That scene is in chapter 285, after he’s essentially destroyed both of his arms hitting Shigaraki probably upwards of 10 times with 100% OfA. 

Remember, Bakugou has been watching all of this from the ground. 

“Something doesn’t feel right, it makes me wanna keep him at arms length.” 

Well ya know, I don’t really blame you for feeling that way, Bakugou, I wouldn’t feel right if the kid I knew my entire life was willing to die at literally every turn without thinking for a split second about himself, either. It’s a little strange, but that’s what makes Deku the unstoppable force that he is, because he has the drive to save people no matter what. Now if he could master his power and depend on other’s, it would be even better, because then maybe he wouldn’t have to kill himself trying to protect people.

But seriously, that line shows Bakugou's uncertainty about getting close to Deku, because that kind of behavior is scary. It's intimidating. To just...throw your life away for the sake of someone else, that's gotta be scary to see someone do, and Bakugou has witnessed it over and over because of his closeness to Deku.

Now for the big one.

"Back then, I ignored my own weakness...so I ended up bullying him."

There's the kicker, folks. The real development we've all been waiting for.

I do want to point out that when Bakugo was 4, he didn't realize he had weaknesses like that. He was honest to God just a bratty kid that probably thought Deku was weird for caring so much about people despite, essentially, being useless to them. Because what could Deku do? Nothing. He couldn't help anyone because he was quirkless, but he still tried, and that's what affected Bakugou so strongly.

So strongly, in fact, that he never forgot it for a single second.

From 4 years old all the way up to 16 years old. 12 years. 12 years Bakugou Katsuki was witnessing Deku's self sacrificial nature. Again and again he watched as this boy who had nothing, continued to fight for something, and then he was granted power, terrifying power, and now Bakugou is left to wonder how the fuck any of this could have happened. Because if Deku had just stayed quirkless and accepted it, maybe, just maybe, he would stop that self sacrifical bullshit. Maybe he would see himself a bit more.

But then he was given OfA, and all of that hope was gone. Now he was given a power meant to take on the greatest evils and every person before Deku had died for the cause, so why would it stop with Deku, who was already ready to get himself killed to protect someone else when he was like 14 years old?

The scenes we have of Bakugou acknowledging Deku's behavior, and acknowledging his own behavior, it's such a raw scene. It takes a lot to acknowledge you've done wrong by someone else. It takes a lot of strength to sit back and recognize those ugly parts of you, and here Bakugou is, doing just that. And he isn't doing it for some self righteous get me off, either. He's doing it because he genuinely cares about Deku's well being, and he always has.

It never came out the right way, and he sees that now, but that doesn't mean the concern wasn't there. He just didn't know the right ways to express it, but as things have gotten more serious and now Deku is truly risking his life for this cause, he's come face to face with it. He can't hide from it anymore. The more OfA develops, the more Deku is going to put himself out there, and Bakugou isn't going to sit around while he kills himself when he could just learn to ask for help.

This stretches all the way into 285 and Bakugou's sacrifice, because he saw Deku about to end up seriously hurt or worse, and he knew he couldn't let that happen. Of all the years spent endlessly tearing himself apart for other people, Bakugou knew he needed to show the other in some way he didn't have to do it like that. He didn't have to fight alone.

That, and it was part of his atonement. It was a piece of his apology to Deku, to show him that he valued him, and he was willing to put his life on the line for someone, for him.

Bakugou didn't think when he rushed out to save Deku. It was instinctual, like breathing. He saw someone he cared about in danger, and his body moved on it's own. That, from the angry brat we get in chapter 1, is a beautiful showcase of perfect character development and growth. If you take into account everything I've discussed throughout this, it should be easy to realize or at least see a bit of Bakugou's perspective, and his thought process when dealing with Deku.

It never justifies any of his past behavior, but it gives us clarification, and then allows us to appreciate his thoughts and actions in 284 and 285 even more.

[elise-jupiterstyle]

this is a very cynical bomb that i’m about to drop with absolutely no context but they really did just fetishize rio to gain viewership without actually ever giving a shit about his value as a character, and i’ve gotten myself into a bit of a spiral stewing about it.

tw: my opinions again

like i didn’t want to think about my favorite show so negatively before it ended so i tried to steer clear of any posts that discussed it for the sake of my own enjoyment but after how short the finale season fell from my expectations, it’s hard not to be pissed off. because ever since they had beth shoot rio in season two i’ve been waiting for them to reconcile such a gruesome choice by developing the characters further, their relationships, their knowledge of themselves, but it just didn’t happen. beth never took accountability for the shooting, rio never took accountability for kidnapping and pressuring her, and dean never took accountability for his infidelity or faking cancer, which were the three main points of conflict that the writers should’ve focused on resolving before ever even thinking of introducing new conflicts.

i’m not saying i wanted rio to forgive beth, or that i wanted beth to forgive dean, or that i wanted any of these resolutions to happen immediately after their conflicts took place. and sure, you could say that beth’s character compartmentalizes and that beth and rio aren’t good communicators and didn’t have a strong bond of trust to begin with so it wouldn’t be in character for them to discuss what happened, but that’s where character growth is supposed to come in! you’re supposed to write characters with these flaws so that they have a better version of themselves to work towards that is slowly developed as they encounter each conflict. they’re not meant to make them into worse people until the show is entirely unbearable to watch because all of that old resentment and tension is just rotting away beneath the rug it’s been swept under.

it’s not a creative choice to have characters directly create conflict and then never address it again while they move onto the next big thing -- it’s lazy writing, and it makes it crystal clear that they were written in solely to shock the viewers and create tension between the characters, not to cultivate growth, and that is very frustrating when you have a group of characters whose inherent morality is constantly insisted upon.

what’s especially frustrating about this is that it not only means there is a lack of depth to all the characters, but there’s a lack of value to the ones that the writers did not favor. based on the season one storyline that culminated in rio shooting dean and letting beth live -- essentially getting even with her in a way that didn’t involve killing off the protagonist, even though that would’ve been the most likely course of action based on the consequences that other disposable characters suffered (i.e. eddie) -- it’s my belief that the writers didn’t expect to keep rio on the show past season one (honestly, it kind of feels like they didn’t even expect to get another season, based on how messy the storyline felt as the seasons progressed), and therefore didn’t value rio’s character the way the audience came to by season two. 

when i say the writers didn’t (and honestly, i still think they don’t -- not in the same way they value the girls, dean, stan, or even fucking boomer) value him, i mean they didn’t see him as being worth the effort of giving a character arc, a background story, personal relationships, etc. they threw in marcus at the start of season two to be like “he’s a dad! that means he has depth!” and then never really touched on it again. there was like, one other scene with marcus that i can remember, and then he, too, was sidelined until they needed to humanize rio again after he got shot. all of the other kids -- the bolands, sarah, harry, and ben -- are regularly featured because they are a driving component of the women’s motivation to survive and succeed. with rio, his kid is only used to relate him back to the women, to make him seem human for a moment, but marcus’s real value as a character lies in how he makes beth feel as she grieves rio, not how he contributes to rio’s behavior, motivation, and overall character.

and yes, i know that rio is technically a side character, that the children of the protagonists are going to have more development, but if they actually wanted to add depth to rio’s character through the facet of parenthood, they would’ve shown more than one interaction with him after he spent supposed months away from him without a word. that kid would’ve been traumatized by that, and seeing rio’s reaction to his kid mourning his disappearance would’ve provided a much more real and interesting angle than them all smiling and happy, like we’ve seen in every other scene with him and marcus. it would’ve showed that the writers care about rio’s pain, about how his absence affected those he loves, but to be blunt, they don’t. they showed beth grieving him when she shot him, but we didn’t see him recovering from that traumatic event. they didn’t even care enough about him to give him fake scars, for christ’s sake. 

everything that happened to rio throughout the show was either done to further the other women’s development or appease the viewers, and they made zero effort to hide that. they walked his characterization backwards so many times (him threatening beth’s family when it had been insinuated thus far that that was the only line he wouldn’t cross; him touching her and making suggestive advances on her in exchange for bail money when she was clearly uncomfortable; him returning all of her stuff and happily accepting her as his superior when there was no development in their relationship to suggest he’d forgiven her or would be receptive to her having power over him) and almost every single instance of them using him to promote the show exploited his outward appearance and the fact that so many viewers have fetishized him as this “exotic” bad boy without any regard for how minimizing and insulting that marketing tactic is. 

looking through their instagram, i saw no other instance of an actor’s picture being posted next to a bunch of thirsty tweets or captioned as being “another reason to watch good girls.” it’s fetishization disguised as playful, well-intentioned endorsement, but if they were really referring to rio’s character rather than his appearance as a reason to watch the show, we wouldn’t be seeing his face on nearly every episode promo and highlight with him only occupying about five minutes of screen time every 50-minute episode.

there’s not really a neat bow-tie conclusion to this, but what i’m getting at is that the writers wanted it both ways. they wanted the viewership and fan engagement that manny’s character garnered, but they didn’t value him enough to give him the screen time and characterization that he deserved. this resulted in all of the revelations that were made about his character -- his son, rhea, his dynamic with turner, his backstory, his hobby, his grandma, nick -- feeling pretty underwhelming because they were never touched on again. they were there because they had to give us something, but they weren’t important enough to the writers to be expanded upon, to be used for personal growth or connecting with the other characters. i think that’s why it felt like such a hollow victory -- we got exactly what we wanted in theory, but there the foundation of it all was too weak for it to feel truly meaningful. 

we wanted rio to be acknowledged and written as a permanent fixture on the show, but instead the rest of the characters were hell-bent on getting rid of him and his primary aspect of redemption was what he meant to beth, not what he meant to the show. even in the finale when she finally came to the realization that she won’t ever be able to give up crime, rio’s role in contributing to her self-actualization was passed over by a character who has been in seven episodes, and i think that really spoke for itself the loudest in terms of how much the writers truly valued him.

[geenawrites]

'Black Widow' and undermining Dramatic Intent (II)

[PART ONE]

The 'Civil War' Effect

4): Elements that could’ve made Black Widow Natasha's personal journey are reduced to quick conversational bites told to Natasha instead of experienced by Natasha and the audience first hand.

The film could've built the story around her family selling her off to the government (on some eugenics mess). It could've set the stage for the subplot regarding her mother’s search for her until she was murdered, and Natasha trying to learn about her past pre-assassin.

For all the moments where we simply see her on her own, a lot of that alone time isn't used to explore how she feels, what she's thinking, or a personal throughline. It's just a montage of her looking gloomy and wearing comfy sweatshirts.

The only time Natasha truly feels like she is the emotional center of the movie is the opening act of the film. There, she’s portrayed by Ever (Gabo) Anderson and not Scarlett Johansson.

And as a film touted-as a vehicle for Johansson, that is bad. But also underlines why Florence Pugh’s Yelena was considered the real protagonist of the movie.

Black Widow could've been about Natasha wanting to reclaim her past from the Red Room (her abductors) because she reunites with her sister and parents (her surrogate family), and needed to finally deal with the consequences of killing Antonia (her ghost).

Instead, Black Widow is really Yelena’s story and emotional journey. Yelena justifies the presence of Alexei and Melina more-so than anything in Natasha’s history. As centered as Natasha was in the prologue, it works more as a establishing point for Yelena versus something like Natasha’s lost family or working with Clint Barton in Budapest.

Yelena being tasked to save the Widows (by the elder Widow who created the mind control cure), killing Dreykov, and destroying the Red Room are immediate issues that directly impact her arc and development as a character. Natasha is largely along for the ride, bringing Yelena where she needs to be in each act.

Natasha isn't as centered in her own her film as she should be. Simply compare the structure of her story to the structure in the Captain America (x2), Ant Man (x2), Thor (x3), and Iron Man (x3) films, and how those narratives focus on Steve Rogers, Scott Lang, Thor Odinson, and Tony Stark. Those films are about their emotional journeys while maintaining a healthy supporting cast that don't overshadow them.

Black Widow in comparison feels more like Captain America: Civil War, which is more of an Avengers film than it is a Captain America story. The emotional center of Civil War is Tony Stark and Zemo. Steve and his cast are simply underpinning Stark and Zemo's arcs. It also tries to introduce a new character (Black Panther) with the exact same story beat (revenge) as Stark and Zemo, and a MCU-wide subplot (Sakovia Accords) that ultimately goes nowhere later on.

The consequences of Civil War "Avengering" a solo film are on display in Black Widow in a big way. It's introducing new characters, and trying to tackle a trilogy's worth of storylines (the Red Room, Budapest, the Widow family, Civil War-fallout).

She doesn't even get a decent postmortem send off. The post credits, wherein Yelena mourns Natasha, is turned into a comedic skit and a teaser for the Hawkeye series. It's not allowed to remain a moment of mourning between two sisters separated by literal death.

As an Executive Producer of the film, I know this was not lost on Johansson. She might be an awful person, but she doesn’t strike me as someone so unaware of her environment that she set the stage to be undermined by her co-star. No, I think, given the timing, Johansson knew this was always going to be about setting up her successor.

Wrong Time, Wrong Place

Choosing to set Black Widow after Civil War was just a poor choice on Marvel’s part. Natasha circa 2016 has more or less come-to-terms with her history as a state-sponsored assassin for both Russia and the United States. Her arc as seen throughout the Avengers and Captain America films has come full circle following the events of The Winter Soldier. Now all she has left going forward is the arc dealing with Thanos' genocide and resurrecting everyone.

There is nothing to mine in terms of personal character drama because, at this point, she has laid it all to rest. It's nothing that torments her akin to Bucky trying to square away with his past as an amnesiac assassin.

All of Natasha’s threads are focused on the break-up of the Avengers. At first, seemed like her arc was going to be about not falling back into bad habits (being mistrustful of everyone). That it was going to deal with how she felt let down by the team (after trying to be the reasonable party among everyone), but the film doesn't really commit.

After that one conversation in Budapest, "getting the Avengers back together" isn't even a focal point. We just get awkward callbacks that tell the audience that Natasha isn't on the same level as Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.

Yelena forgiving her family is used to tack on the sudden parallel idea that Natasha has been convinced she can personally bring the Avengers together again as a surrogate family once things work with her Widow Family.

Again, even in her own film, Natasha is playing the sacrificial matriarch of a Boy’s Club (whose event films she features only as a supporting character. Something I think people are only just realizing). That says to me the MCU never valued her beyond her ties to the male Avenger cast.

”You’re such a mom!” becomes a lot less funny in that context.

If this film was immediately set after The Winter Soldier or even Age of Ultron, wherein all of her history and SHIELD’s was leaked for public record, then there might’ve been a chance for an emotionally resonant story arc.

How would a Natasha scrambling to create new covers, and new ways to protect herself, deal with the sudden public attention of the world knowing that she was a foreign assassin that bought her way into the United States and became a celebrity superhero? How would a post-Winter Soldier solo film deal with Natasha’s past in way that she didn't become overshadowed by her own supporting cast?

How would a post-Age of Ultron solo film handle her past as informed by her nightmare (which stuck closer to her history as a trained dancer in the comics) on top of the events of The Winter Soldier?

But even as a post-Civil War narrative, Black Widow should've really cared to explore how Natasha felt about having to revisit her history with the Red Room, on top of being betrayed by Alexei and Melina. Instead of giving all those emotional beats to Yelena, actually show us Natasha confronting them beyond “it wasn’t real!”

How would the story turn out if parent with the biggest hand in the facilitation of her abuse (Alexei) wasn't turned into a flat comic relief character? What if he actually got chance to really consider her grievances, show remorse for his actions, without being turned into a “ha, ha, he’s do dumb (and fat)!” punchline (after setting him up as the total opposite in the prologue)?

Melina could've been an interesting co-antagonist working with Dreykov, but the film skirts past how she is complicit in the harm that her daughters faced (Yelena especially) with a fake Heel Turn moment that only undermined Dreykov as a threat.

And that’s really the problem with Black Widow. The film, or rather Marvel Studios, doesn’t want to really tackle Natasha’s past or pain like they were willing to do with Steve Rogers in The First Avenger, and The Winter Soldier.

Maybe because that would mean approaching the story with the emotional maturity of The Bourne Identity, a PG-13 film that was plenty violent without being excessive. It was also emotionally resonate by dealing with the fact that Jason Bourne was, pre-amnesia, a US assassin that did awful shit.

Instead we get a plot about mind-control, and magic red dust that can break said mind control (that apparently requires invasive surgery of the brain).

Whedon seemed comfortable with getting close to the actual violence that was asked of Natasha (vs. done to) by the Russian government as a kid. The screenplay for Black Widow can talk past Natasha willingly doing awful things, but doesn’t want to confront that by having her or Yelena deal with an army of assassins who are walking down the same path Natasha did, fighting and killing for another government without any sort of mind control.

This is why Natasha's assassination of “Dreykov’s Daughter” (Antonia) as the thing that happened in Budapest also doesn't land. The movie doesn't want to deal with how Natasha learned to live with murdering a child to buy her freedom into America. They make it so that she didn’t kill her, actually, just gave her a bad case of pizza face. She’s not even the one that pulls the trigger, the film suggests that it was Hawkeye.

Her mustache-twirling villain of a father, who somehow survived the explosion and building collapse with zero burns or broken bones, is the one who does all the truly horrible things to his daughter (turning her into a mindless slave).

The Original Sin that Natasha is defined by is swept under the rug in the same way her history as a killer is blurred by the script. It’s akin to rewriting Xena’s history with Callisto as the killer of her family and village, and deciding, “No, Xena didn’t kill them. They all survived with minor burns! Callisto can now forgive Xena!”

Natasha's Antagonist

Dreykov is a weak antagonist/villain because the screenwriting seems determined to accredit the abuse of the Red Room entirely to him instead of making a systemic issue. What started off as a clandestine organization for the KGB throughout most of the MCU is rewritten in Black Widow as the personal playground of a thinly veiled Harvey Weinstein analogue who puppeteers his personal assassins to do bad things, thus rendering them all innocent of their wrongdoings. It makes them "perfect victims" in way.

(Johansson has gone on record saying that this film was influenced by the #MeToo Movement. Well, celebrification of it, anyway)

Dreykov doesn’t challenge Natasha, or her family. There’s never an immediate danger or stakes being driven by Dreykov. He’s not doing something they have to stop “before time runs out”, he doesn’t have anything on any of the characters that could push their actions.

He takes a backseat to the family hijinks, so the journey to finding and destroying the Red Room has no urgency (Natasha being dead already notwithstanding). As the supposed architect of their misery, he’s about as threatening as Mason (Natasha’s Black Best Friend who buys her things while in hiding).

Dreykov fails like the rest of the MCU’s villains (not named Erik Killmonger) because there's no depth to the character. There's no real loyalty to the character as a demonstration of his power or influence. Again, all his victims are blameless in their violent actions. No one with speaking lines or face time (that isn't a G.I Joe grunt) is working with him because they believe in his goals or ideology.

Complicating that matter is that the script never reveals what his goals or ideologies are besides, "I can create chaos with an army of assassins. I am so evil."

It’s wild to me that so many are rushing to defend the implementation of this sloppily written (and miscast) character because, “he works as a villain because he's a human trafficker” and “he mind controlled his own daughter.”

“He does terrible things”, or a character representing awful things that happen in the real world, isn't enough to make an effective villain. If that was all it took, then 90% the MCU’s villains wouldn’t be so forgetabble.

(He’s not real, I shouldn’t be reading posts like, “he doesn’t deserve screentime b/c he’s an awful human being! He earned his lazy death scene.” Girl, what???)

If you’re gonna tackle human/child trafficking as defined by one antagonist, then really make it part of the story. Make it something that Natasha and Yelena are actively trying to stop. Don’t montage it over a bad Nirvana cover and then shift gears into a G.I. Joe scenario in a floating fortress.

If you're gonna make Dreykov the abuser of so many women, then make it crucial to your protagonist's narrative. Don't add a silly Angry Beavers plot where his stinky musk can control a woman's bodily functions because as a weak analogue to "how men police women's bodies".

Because Natasha has no real conflict with Dreykov, confronting him in the climax goes nowhere. Dreykov is Yelena’s antagonist. It's why Yelena gets to kill him instead of Natasha, so it would've made more sense for her to confront him instead.

The film eventually establishes he's no real threat to Natasha because the writing pulled a Xanatos. The character feels like he exists only so Johansson can sass him, and make a callback to the Loki Interrogation scene (a scene that only worked because of the audience misdirection.)

Dreykov could've been an effective villain if he was anything like the Headmistress characters in the Samee-Waid Black Widow series from 2016.

The Headmistress and Anya (the new Headmistress later on) were characters with emotional connections to Natasha and the Widow children she was trying to save. They taught these girls to believe in the totalitarian philosophy of the ruling class. Natasha and the other Widows couldn't live without them until they were able to escape their influence.

The Headmistresses were women, which makes it plain that women are also perpetrators of abuse. It isn’t just something that men do, which is how this script has approached this subject entirely (Captain Marvel did the same thing as well). Abuse being exclusively a male theater of action.

Antonia's death could've been meaningful in regards to Natasha and Dreykov as characters if Dreykov cared that Antonia was murdered by a Red Room assassin. Natasha admitting that she killed his daughter and regretted it would've made a lot more impact than just having him shrug it off because he's so heartless and so evil.

Or, as other people have said, imagine if it was Antonia who was the antagonist gunning after Natasha because of what she did, not only to her, but her father as well.

It would not only render the mind-control plot pointless, it would re-center the focus on Natasha, and force the writers to do something else with Yelena, Alexei, and Melina (assuming they're even necessary in this scenario). Then, Natasha would have a genuinely threatening antagonist because the stakes are personal on both sides.

It would've been a hellva lot more meaningful than using Taskmasker as a plot-twist (after hyping the character up as the controller of the Red Room and Natasha's personal nemesis).

Callisto’s story as a villain resonates because she cared about what she lost, and Xena knew there was no real forgiveness for what she did to her. Imagine if they approached Natasha’s role in Antonia’s death like that.

(But that's probably asking for too much nuance from Disney and Marvel.)

Conclusions

In story that wants to be about the abused reconciling with their past and family, the film effectively robs the abused of their autonomy by going the extra of mile of making them zombies. In the same way the Star Wars sequel trilogy avoided Finn’s history as an indoctrinated and enslaved Stormtrooper, Black Widow doesn’t want to deal with the ramifications of indoctrination.

How people buy into and protect organizations that strip them of their humanity by making them complicit in violent systems. Oh, sure, they’ll nod and wink at it (as they do with Natasha and Melina’s past), but they won’t go any further than that.

Instead of dealing with how a forced hysterectomy effects Natasha physically and emotionally, we get a joke that isn’t any better than Natasha calling herself a monster, or the “time of the month” joke that got rebuked by the director and the cast.

Instead of reflecting on her time with SHIELD and the United States, the United States is portrayed as "the good-guys who gave her a real family” (ignoring even the half-hearted criticism of the US that The Winter Soldier made), while Russia is still out there doing nefarious Cold War Things and ruining people's families. All of which just feeds into uncritical Russian stereotypes and Red Scare that the film’s foundation is built on.

I enjoyed the film, but the more I think about it, the more I realize Black Widow really does nothing except undermine Natasha's darker elements and self-imposed redemption arc (as written by Whedon).

On top of rewriting key elements about the Red Room (the movies being broken as the comics is a true irony), It minimizes Natasha's violent past to make her into a clean, and boring superhero whose solo film thinks lamp-shading sexism is the same as subverting it.

[tulipwritings]

Let you see the heart that's inside ✧ I

Pairing: The Darkling / Aleksander Morozova x Reader (Sun Summoner)

Trope: Enemies to lovers.

Warnings: Mention of sexual assault.

(Gif's not mine)

You wrapped your kefta closely around you as you stumbled through the hallway of the Little Palace. You felt like crying but the numbness of not fully grasping what just had happened stopped you from sobbing and screaming.

You had liked Pyotr. He was your closest and only friend ever since you arrived at the Little Palace after the Darkling found you — his Sun Summoner. Your stay turned out to be a tough time, barely finding friends since most of the other Grisha held grudges against you, envying the Sun Summoner who the Darkling was so keen on, even though behind the closed doors of the war room, the both of you kept fighting, divided by disagreement on how to act regarding the Shadow Fold. He wanted to use it as a weapon which you highly disagreed with. Once the Darkling realized your stubborness and that he couldn’t simply wrap you around his finger, his behaviour changed towards you, being distant and not hiding the fact how annoyed he was in your presence. Probably the only reason for him to not simply get rid of you was that he needed a Sun Summoner and you were the only one around. Oh, how you'd love to make room for those other Grisha, there was nothing to envy about bearing the bad-tempered Darkling.

You've been on your own your whole life, the loneliness had been such a familiar feeling that it didn’t feel lonely anymore at some point. Until you met Pyotr and you got used to him being around. But now you felt sick to your stomach only thinking about him, his stupid face and red kefta. When you visited him in his room this evening so you could go to the great hall together where dinner is served, he grabbed you by your wrists, starting to kiss your neck and once you tried to push him away, he slowed down your heart rate, making you defenseless. Now, stepping through the hallway trying to get to your room as quick as possible, you could still feel his hands on your body and hear the echo of his words over and over again. "Come on, (Y/N). You've been so sweet and kind, you showed me that you want me for quite some time now..." His powers of a Heartrender stopped you from objecting, all you could do was watching him touch and kiss you.

"Dinner is that way" a cold and yet soft voice said. The Darkling seemed to have a good day, at least that's what the rare softness in his voice gave away.

"I'm not hungry, get out of my face" you spat, not looking at him as you tried to pass him, but his hand shot forward, grabbing your wrist and pulling you backwards until his body blocked your way.

"I beg your pardon?" The softness in his voice was gone, there was a dangerous edge to it now. His touch made you panic and all of a sudden the numbness lost its fight against the tears, making you sob right in front of him, which made all of it even worse, since the least you wanted was showing weakness in front of the Darkling, who'd use it against you as soon as it was of use. "Let go of me! I'll never be kind again!", you shouted, knowing your words must sound ridiculous without any context, before your voice broke and your tears stopped you from saying anything else. The Darkling let go of you without even blinking. He was slightly startled, almost sorry once he noticed your shattered reaction.

"(Y/N)... wha- what happened?" he asked troubled, raising his hand for a second, wanting to touch your back to comfort you until he realized his touch had made you panic just seconds ago. He bowed forward, his face only inches apart from yours, as his raven eyes locked with yours. "Tell me."

He waited patiently until you gathered enough strength to gulp back your sobs, shakingly speaking up about what happened. Once he heard what Pyotr had done he stiffened, clenching his jaw and protectively looking up and down the hallway, checking if there was any sight of the Heartrender.

"Go to your room and take a bath.", he ordered, "I'll check in on you later."

✧・✧・✧・✧

You were sitting in your nightgown on your bed, your hair still damp as you heard a soft knock on your door.

"Come in..." Your voice was barely a hoarse. You had took a hot bath, eagerly soaping your body and hoping to wash off the feeling of Pyotr's hands on your skin. It's been hopeless — you felt used, dirty even. If you could, you'd shed your skin, leaving the unsolicited touch behind.

The Darkling stepped in, a tray in his hand that he placed in front of you. "I want you to eat something, (Y/N)."

You sighed, thinking about food made you feel like throwing up already.

"I'll leave the Little Palace tomorrow, I can't stand to see him again." And you couldn’t stand the thought of your only friend betraying you, the thought of fighting with the Darkling when there was no one around to rant about his self-centered, greedy behaviour, the thought of being among other Grisha and still being all alone. You had lost your only friend — if he had ever been a friend. You felt empty and lost. Unlovable, worthless. As if Pyotr had stolen your value.

"You won't leave the Little Palace..."

"So, I'm a captive now?" you snapped.

The Darkling took a deep breath. You could sense that he was annoyed with you interrupting him, but for once he was patient and remained soft instead of threatening you as he did the countless times you were arguing in the war room.

"You’re not held captive, Pyotr is." he stated, now sitting down on the edge of your bed, still giving you space and respecting your boundaries.

Your eyes went wide. "You... you believe me?"

"Are you fucking with me?!" There he was — the annoyed Darkling, angry with something you said. This time you couldn’t be mad at him, his reaction felt nearly soothing.

"I want Grisha to be safe." he went on. "The Little Palace is supposed to be a safe place for Grisha, I won't tolerate any kind of violence that isn't at my command. Speaking of...", he frowned, "I don't want you to have breakfast with the others tomorrow. You'll eat in your room, I'll have servants take care of it." He got up from your mattress, but stopped as soon as he reached your door. "And (Y/N)... don’t let the cruelty of others take away your kindness. It can be strength too." He left before you had a chance to ask any further questions.

Once he had closed the door, he left you behind with the unknown feeling of wanting him to come back. You hated how commanding he was. Yet, it was the first time you wondered who he was besides the leader of the Second Army that you couldn’t stand. You wondered if there was a side of him you might actually like.

Once he had closed the door leaving you behind, a pool of shadows surrounded him. Now that he was on his own again he stopped suppressing his rage about somebody touching you and the waves of darkness were its outcome. Nobody would harm you ever again.

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This is my first attempt of publishing my stories, I hope you like it. I'd be really happy about some feedback. ♡

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[flickeringart]

Cancer Sun and Moon Combinations

Planets represent different energetic principals in the life of an individual – the signs show how these energies express themselves.

Having an inner planet (or luminary) in the sign of Cancer gives the personality a softness, a caring quality. No matter what other placements the person has, the sensitivity and protectiveness is going to come through.

To simplify;

The Sun represents individuation, ideal self-expression and conscious self-actualization.

The Moon represents instinct, emotional nature and needs.

Cancer Sun – Capricorn Moon

The Cancer identity is sensitive to emotional stimuli and copes by retreating physically or emotionally into a ”shell” of safety in between necessary excursions out into the world. With a Capricorn Moon, there’s a need to compensate for innate lack or guilt of not being good enough through fierce ambition. The emotional resiliency and capacity to keep working through rough times is not how the personality expresses itself – it is careful and too touchy to take on the expression of unwavering competence. Cancer Suns are very human in that there are obvious fears and worries in their lives, but paired up with a Cap Moon, this emotionality gets modified slightly by a strategic and stoic temperament that is perfectly suited to face limitation and restriction. These signs are in opposition and complementary at the same time – The Cancer identity accommodates for weakness and worry, the Capricorn temperament is determined and practical – there’s little room for ”irrational” emotion. The person could be a very good preserver and protector of stability, a rock through thick and thin. Letting loose might not come naturally, because there’s too much emphasis on the consequences and the longevity of things. However, it might pay off to withhold temporary pleasure for a sense of security and trust in one’s ability to survive throughout time. Defensiveness and emotional coldness could be potential negative factors – people might have a hard time making sense of a person that is both moody and fuzzy as well as unaffected, controlled and inhibited. The emotionality would come off as more of a personality expression than genuine feeling that stems from one’s core. This double sided individual could put people off, and even more so as they get to know the person’s serious and somber temperament more intimately. The split is difficult to deal with for the person, and for people in their vicinity. None the less, there’s realness to this person, and that’s likely to be appreciated - no glamour or extravagance or godliness to inflate ordinary human existence with.

Cancer Sun – Aries Moon

A feisty temperament that wants to assert it’s own emotions and impose it’s perspective on the environment doesn’t always work in harmony with a sensitive and careful Cancer personality. Emotions rise to the surface with the speed of lightening, coming out before any inhibitory function has begun to set in. This might make the overall identity uneasy, uncertain of the ability to control impulses that might cause trouble. Cancer’s agenda is to avoid emotional harm and discomfort, it’s instinct is to preserve and protect. The Aries Moon is just out to walk it’s own path with courage and is not prone to feel lingering, debilitating emotion. Emotions peak, but they are symbols of one’s potency and power, of oneself as an individual. This combo creates a person who is full of energy but is likely concerned about how to handle the amount of force that wants out. The personality navigates to find comfort and soothing, not to compete or be the best. The two signs are conflicting, but from a positive perspective, there might be a great ability to advocate for gentleness and humility with passion. However, it can backfire and make the person react violently to the tiniest stimuli, making it difficult to socialize and not take offense from the things people say. The Aries temperament is enthusiastic and passionate, while the Cancer personality prefers to handle things indirectly without living and breathing their life’s mission. This presents a problem and the person might switch between being extremely invested in something to downplaying their involvement. Underneath the timid personality lies a fiery instinct that is quick to anger and frustration. It can be constructively used to assert boundaries and provide the Cancer personality with a bit a directness that it originally lacks. The Cancer identity can serve to direct the strong impulses of the Aries Moon as to stand up for things they care about and think are important. Compassion that is so important to Cancer can be disregarded in favor of the Aries Moon need to confront and assert. In the best of worlds, these can be integrated and lived as to add to one another.

Cancer Sun – Libra Moon

The Libra Moon temperament is designed to modify and balance out anything that is not socially appropriate. It operates from the standpoint of actualizing an ideal. Emotions are primarily dependent upon the fulfillment or unfulfillment of this ideal – if something is off, there’s dissatisfaction, if something is on point, there’s satisfaction. Within the context of a Cancer personality this temperament poses a bit of a conflict. Cancer relates to the feeling nature, the fluctuation of moods while Libra likes to keep things balanced and polished at all times. The person would inevitably feel as if it’s impossible to have an emotionally shifting personality with ups and downs and still satisfy the need for harmony. Seeking to have interdependent, emotional, intellectual and spiritually balanced relationship contradicts the Cancerian priority of being cared for and care for others through the overwhelming harshness of life. The personality is protective and the instinct is idealistic. The cyclical changes and phases are part of the person’s identity, while the emotional nature has the tendency to look to the thought scape for constant perfection. If it’s possible to find a creative solution to these conflicting energies, it would look something like working towards cultivating an ideal of beauty that involves inconstancy, to live out romance through mutual care and emotional intimacy, to seek to preserve a positive social image, to not seek to judge and label but allow for honest expression without too much censoring. This person has the potential to be very romantic and indulgent of the sweet and tender in life. It would be wise to watch out for laziness and avoidance of challenges, certain things require head-on confrontation and this is not the person’s strong suit. This combo screams indirectness, which is not to say that the person is passive, but the person would always attempt to flow around obstacles instead of attacking them honestly and directly.

Cancer Sun – Cancer Moon

The double combo reflect an immensely caring person – not only as a personality expression that stems from identification, but on a deeper, instinctual level as well. The ability to be in touch with the changes in the emotional atmosphere is superb which makes this person extremely attentive to other people’s needs. On the downside, it also makes them super sensitive, defensive and protective of their own needs. Cancer is not the one to glorify excessive independence, especially not a Cancer Moon. The person would absolutely need a support network and be a valued member among their associates. The person would probably not play out the role of the archetypal victim, but they could allow themselves to lean on trust-worthy people and provide support in return. Emotions are a natural part of life – especially for a person with this setup. They would be dead set on providing comfort for themselves and doing the same for others. If the situation requires, they might prioritize others needs as a way of manipulating them to extend services to them later on. Cancerians always appear very innocent - sometimes even fragile as to compel other people to treat them nicely. A face that reflects the capacity to be hurt can sometimes work as a defense against attack. This kind of person requires emotional intimacy and reacts strongly to attempts to create separation and distance. A glance, a tone of voice, a gesture or any other subtle indicator that one has lost emotional communion with another might cause a rage to be stirred. This is true of Cancer Suns, but especially of Cancer Moons as the Moon is the raw, instinctual nature. Clinginess and inability to accept rejection would not be unlikely. Dwelling in emotions and being unable to get out of the excruciating feeling of loneliness could sink the person quite badly. Detrimental coping mechanisms might be employed, from food, sleep, video games, exercise or anything else – chances are that they start off as comforting routines and end up consuming the person’s life. The person would not set out to overcome anything, but rather, get away from things. At the core, Cancer is protective and not provocative. There’s no aggressive imposing, but rather a powerful defensiveness in the face of threats.

Cancer Sun – Taurus Moon

The earthy Taurus Moon gives a sense of stability and grounding to the emotional personality. The instinctual nature of a Taurus Moon is in need of comfort and stability – but more as a sensual pleasure as opposed to emotional cocooning. The need to feel valuable and able to provide the things one wants to experience is strong with this temperament. Preferences and taste is important, as is control over one’s physical situation. The Cancer personality facilitates this through creating emotional connections with people, through defending and preserving personal possessions and resources. This is combo points to a person a great emotional sensitivity to physical threat. The person would have a hard time coping with changes imposed on them. Change implies uncertainty, which makes the Cancerian personality stressed and worried while the Taurean foundation for calmness is uprooted. It takes a while for a fixed earthy temperament to adjust to new situations, the person might be quietly frustrated and shed a tear or two while slowly but surely transitioning into a new normal. There’s serious attachment to people and things with these placements. The safety is in the routines with a Taurus Moon and in knowing what to expect. The Cancer personality will indirectly and subtly make sure to satisfy this need by tying close bonds to people and places. Buying people gifts, making other people food, welcoming people into their home and securing a safe base on a physical and emotional level is what the person’s life is centered around. There’s no risk taking in the person’s life, there are way too much attachments present to prioritize freedom at any cost. Even if the person is emotional and indirect, they would stand in the way of threat and protect their safety, - not their individuality however. The Cancer personality would defend through using their leverage on the emotional level, subtly coercing people to get their way. There’s little to no room for escaping up into the clouds with this combo, the person lives squarely in the reality of the physical and emotional, which can make it difficult to take a broader, more expansive perspective on life.

Cancer Sun – Leo Moon

Emotions starts to glitter and glimmer with this combo. The Leo temperament is radiant, craves attention and glamour. The person feels themselves to be important somehow, a child of the gods or the divine. This person has the capacity to own everything they go through, like a star in a movie they are enhanced through their experiences even if they’re difficult and sad. Paired with the sentimentality and emotional clinginess of Cancer, the person lives proudly in their constant moodiness, creating art out of everything. The Leo temperament gives the Cancer emotionality a rightful place in the spotlight. This can be done with a small circle of friends or on a larger scale. The fire Moon provides an inner source of light that can be drawn upon in the most depressing times, but it can also serve to inflate the ego, to dominate the atmosphere with suffocating stickiness. There’s great capacity to love and honor people, to be drawn to people in need of care and attention. However, Leo Moon is proud and would never diminish their own light for someone else. Cancer Sun, might not care about standing out which could present a problem. Insecurity and shyness could dominate and cause the more extroverted needs to take a back seat. It would be worth exploring ways of combining the two energies – to allow creativity to flow without having to be in full view all the time. Safety and comfort would be important, but the person would not want things to turn mundane and boring. There would have to be a sense of magnificence and specialness in daily life for these people – and it’s not difficult for them to create. The way they carry themselves, dress and behave says it all. Drawing inspiration and comfort from the past could be a thing since Cancer Sun tend to be very sentimental. The bitter sweet moments are like food to the soul. The person would be prone to fantasize about things that could’ve been, past connections and abandoned dreams. The feeling of being undeservingly robbed of their grandeur could break their heart – and the Cancer personality would dwell in the emotions of it, potentially try to calm themselves down with food or love or any other mildly addictive substance.

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Cancer Sun – Aquarius Moon

The Aquarius instinctual nature is intellectual and emotionally detached while the Cancer identity is emotionally fluctuating. This combo presents a conflict because it combines rationality and objectivity with the desire to protect and preserve what’s safe and familiar. Both signs contribute to create a reserved person with a lot going on inside. On an instinctual level, there’s a need to do things their own way, to think for themselves and believe that they’re right in thinking what they’re thinking. There’s strong attachments to being smart and reasonable, but the Cancer emotionality could skew one’s objectivity and confuse the need for comfort with correctness. Other people might be hesitant to trust the Aquarian vision when they see it in the same person who changes their opinions based on their moods and is desperately clingy at times. The person might deny any tendency to be emotional and crave distance while secretly yearning for closeness. The Aquarius temperament appears to be beyond human nature – coldly dealing with emotionally loaded topics like a surgeon using metal instruments to operate on a body. All the while the Cancer identity is emotionally unstable and need reassurance and mothering. Ideally, the person would find someone with whom they can bond over shared interests and causes while being emotionally contained. It might be that the person find is ok to show weakness and concern in relation to a concept rather than a personal experience. For example, the person might get emotional about the concept of friendships dying rather than the actual personal experience of loosing a  friend. Generalization is the greatest tool in the tool box for these people. On another note, they would get a thrill out of novelty – anything unpredictable or mentally exciting would make them feel emotionally satisfied. However, unless the timing is right it might just make them upset, for Cancers it’s all about the timing. Originality is usually associated with an Aquarian temperament and the person would prefer to exist out of the norm. The person would probably have great compassion and fondness for the little quirks in others.

Cancer Sun – Scorpio Moon

This combo is indicative of a person that lives in the emotional realm. They live through the intangible, the subtle shifts and movements of the tides in the atmosphere. However, on an instinctual level there’s the compulsive need to be in control. Whereas Cancer Moon would more easily display weakness and lean on others, the Scorpio Moon would seem more detached and composed at the core, unwilling to share their inner lives. This individual could seek to gain power through portioning themselves off from the emotional happenings – while being caring and emotionally reflective on a more general level. The primary need is to be able to make an impact but remain unaffected oneself. Defenses could be quite strong and rigid with this combo. Not many people would be trusted and not many would manage to figure them out even if they tried. The person is equipped with an eye for detecting dishonesty and manipulative tactics, as well as using them to secure their own needs. While the person is dependent and whiny and in need of reassuring, they instinctively prefer solitude before unpleasant company. The needy nature of Cancer is counteracted a bit by the desire to remain in power and not lay all the cards on the table for everyone to see. With people they trust, however, there’s great love and support of emotional needs. There’s the potential to have an intensely intimate connection with this kind of person. Not everyone is capable of seeing through all the barriers of the personality structure and get down to the bottom of existence, but this person would. The deepness of the Scorpio Moon would be nicely complemented by the Cancer’s proclivity for softness and compassion. ”It’s safe to be vulnerable” is the goal of the Cancer personality, ”it’s ok to be gentle”. The Scorpio temperament would make it possible for self-containment and resilience rather than complete dependence. But, the paranoia of being screwed or out-maneuvered could become excessive and the fear of getting hurt could make the person walled-off. There’s a sharpness to this Cancer personality that is capable of direct attack if needed. In the midst of general moodiness there could be a sharp remark or stinging glance that is directed on purpose.

Cancer Sun – Virgo Moon

A very sweet, caring and practically oriented individual is indicated by this combo. The Virgo temperament is analytical and detail oriented– it needs to process things until it makes sense. Since Cancer Suns are all about preserving and protecting what they’re emotionally attached to, the Virgo Moon would facilitate this through organizing and structuring life in order to make it possible. If the person feels neglected or mistreated by the people in their life, the Virgo instinct might be to add to this by finding little annoyances and faults in their concrete behavior. Some little thing taken out of context could be very upsetting. Not bothering to give them a hug or not looking them in the eye could be be a big deal even though it might mean nothing to certain people. The little everyday things have a lot of impact on these people – it can either make or break their day. This individual would feel seen through acts of service – it would melt their heart to know that someone notices their preferences and attempts to accommodate for them. There could be a tendency to get lost in over-thinking and worry. The person’s might not be able to relax because they must get everything right to a T – their emotional well-being depends on it. This would not only make them exhausted but other people around them would suffer as well. Yet, they can’t help it, because the details matters. The person would be adept at sensing what others need and seek to provide it in material form. There might be discomfort around confronting emotions directly and a tendency to deal with them in practical terms. ”I can’t cry right now because it would be inconvenient” is their stance. There’s a time for everything in Virgo Moon’s book, and spontaneous self-expression is too risky. It’s the details that are important, not the big picture. If they can’t get a grip on things on a micro-scale these people are prone to freak out and distrust that things are going to work out. Reassurance and protection from stress is what these people need, yet their nature kind of works against them on that point.

Cancer Sun – Sagittarius Moon

The emotional Cancer personality is complemented by a scattered and restless spirit. Life is exciting and full of potential, yet one worries and whines over minor discomforts. It’s difficult to be adventurous and careful at the same time – there’s no room for taking risks in the name of freedom, yet this is what this person would do, impulsively. Chances are that efter the mess is caused, there’s deep regret and insecurity – the person didn’t really want to say that thing or do that thing. When reality catches up, the person doesn’t want to deal with it and seeks to hide at a safe distance. The person is bold at times but overall surprisingly needy and clingy. Instinctually, the person is casual and arrogant, but the personality is quite humble and meak. When acting consciously, there’s great care and respect for others and themselves, but when on auto-pilot anything could come out of the person’s mouth and destroy the intimacy that the person craves. If there’s not enough awareness around this tendency, other people could feel deceived and gaslighted. Carefully planned trips in the company of people that can be trusted is what this person craves. They would need some padding and cushioning from the harsh outside world while still being able to explore it. Cancer’s need to retreat into a private world could suit the Sagittarian temperament well if it involved some kind of exploration of interests. Home life is always likely to be important for a Cancer Sun, however, it might be difficult for the Sagittarius Moon to take on the responsibility required to create a safe and caring environment. Sagittarius likes to speak the truth and does so without consideration of the cosequences. The intactness of the family unit might suffer because emotional boundaries are not respected and there’s no effort extended to create intimacy. The Cancerian need to secure permanent relationships can be difficult to fulfill, as the person’s instinct is to be inconsiderate and impatient. There’s the potential for great understanding and sympathy, but it’s on a more abstract level than what is usually required to sustain close personal relations. Adjustment is needed in order to not lose what one values and still satisfy one’s free spirit.

Cancer Sun – Gemini Moon

This combo screams scatteredness and moodiness. While the personality navigates the emotional realm, the instinctual nature is cerebral and intellectual. There’s a capacity to detach and play different roles but there’s also the conscious desire of wanting to create lasting relationships, be supported and offer support to others. The innocent dishonesty that comes with a Gemini temperament could sabotage the deep loyalty that the Cancer Sun is cultivating. The need to spice things up, to play with people and pull little tricks is irresistible. Usually they’re smart and playful enough to get away with it. This type of Cancer Sun combo has the potential to be very fun. Amidst the caring and gentle personality there’s a mischievous streak. The person is likely to be talkative and constantly active mentally. This person might love to satisfy the Cancerian need to escape by reading or watching interesting documentaries. Anything that stimulates the mind and is nuanced enough to be exciting would be satisfying. Relationships could work quite well, given the Cancer Sun intuition and attentiveness to emotion in combo with the Gemini Moon craving for interaction and communication. However, anything that stagnates will bore the Gemini temperament and there’s little patience for this experience. If there’s no movement, the person might attempt to set things in motion. The person is likely very resourceful and clever at coming up with creative solutions. On the downside, the capacity to manipulate and lie is quite advanced. On a deeper level, these people have no sincere feelings and can easily be immoral and cruel. On a general level, these people might be very caring, but subconsciously they have a hard time feeling remorse. What happens in the intellectual realm is not necessarily real, thought is potential and these people might fail to recognize that if thought is put into practice, it sometimes has serious consequences. On an up note, the emotional tides that Cancers can get stuck in is easier to see oneself out of with a Gemini Moon.

Cancer Sun – Pisces Moon

This is the kind of person that can see into your soul. There’s great sensitivity to this combo and a deepness that is immeasurable in comparison to the other Moon placements. There’s a lot of mood swings and one might want to crawl back to a state of pre-birth and pre-existence in order to find comfort. It’s difficult for this person to deal with the harshness of the world. One wants to protect and defend goodness and innocence at all costs. There’s the risk of falling prey to all consuming experiences and be overwhelmed on a daily basis. The person would need a soft environment that is designed to heal and sooth and might be surprisingly vicious in this pursuit. Insensitivity is a crime to this person, but at the same time there’s the understanding that every attack is a cry for love. Cancer Suns are not quick to forgive but a Pisces Moon might not have the stomach to hold grudges for long. It hurts them to not feel at one with other people and the world – and grudges is a sign of separation. The solution might be to extend love from a distance, while still keeping oneself safe through exercising healthy boundaries. Although Cancer and Pisces are softhearted signs, they have a hidden cruelty to them. Their aggressiveness often comes through emotional blackmail, identifying as a victim or a martyr. They’d want to be seen as harmless and brave in the face of injustice, to be the bigger person and take the high road of non-resistance. There’s no doubt that this person feel strongly and wants closeness and acceptance at all costs. Other people might appreciate this or shy away from their suffocating clinginess. Instinctively, there’s the pull to merge with the environment, to dissolve and let go of separateness. This need might not be completely conscious. Cancer Suns want support and care, but it’s not as keen on letting go of individuality and go with the flow. Cancer Suns have a lot of attachments – to the body, to their family, to their memories and belongings. They seek to preserve these, not to give them away or let them wither away.

[transsexualhamlet]

asmr i psychoanalyze my favorite war criminal, aka calling out norman the essay

basically all of my thoughts on norman on one callout post because i care him (both manga and anime are discussed)

LINK TO RAY PSYCHOANALYSIS:  https://chaoticgaymess.tumblr.com/post/646749875570196480/ray-81194-the-long-explanation 

this is going to be ungodly long so here’s a keep reading, essay below the cut

((tw for suicidal ideation and self harm, brief discussion of eating disorders))

Disclaimer: no shipping is included here this is just about norman also they’re kids who call each other siblings

Thoughts: So you may be thinking, Rowan, why do you yell about the colorless war criminal so often? Well the answer lies in your honor the court hates to see a girlboss winning. Norman is a girlboss :) Yes norman is a tiny twink who can't lift a milk jug. And he is a girlboss :) Obviously I don't condone, um, eugenics and all, but that's not the point the point is that he satisfies my need for more characters like Levi motherfucking Calder from Unwind because I’m apparently an edgy 13 year old. Also all of his problems are violently things I can fix and I keep him around as a pet project because someone needs to give him a hug and slap him on the face

I diagnose him with things: 

-pisces man :pensive:

-is he albino? Not literally. Is his skin so pale he would catch fire if he went outside at noon? Yes.

-autism: Yes I’m aware that calling him autistic makes him, problematic rep by perpetuating the autism unfeeling savant stereotype whatever but have you considered i’m autistic and I’m projecting also he’s L with standards? Anyway traits of AuTism he has: hyper   fixation, canonically breaks and fixes things over and over because like ofc he does, doesn’t understand Emotion, hyperaware of body language at the same time as it all somehow flying over his head, low empathy, sensory experiences™, min maxed in certain areas, and I don’t think he’s got social interaction quite right? There’s something off about it

-gifted kid (derogatory) This is self explanatory but basically him being the smartest and the best in a competitive environment caused most of his issues, such as the perfectionism, the need to succeed, the lack of self esteem and ridiculously high expectations on himself, giving himself no breaks or time to relax, the “i must be productive with every second of my day or i will die” deal, the “peaked at 11” thing, the way in which he goes through life like there’s going to be a fucking test on it

-Eldest Daughter™ lmao. Norman’s always had to be mature, he’s always had to be the best, he’s always had to do the things Ray got out of bc he’s a snitch and Emma got out of because Isabella likes her. Norman gets respect from Isabella only if he excels, and her bar for him is astronomical. He doesn’t have the Mommy Issues that Ray has, but it’s because for him Isabella basically just reflected his expectations on himself, whereas with Ray it was more personal.

-low empathy (part of the autism thing): this one needs more explanation, but it’s not a bad thing in and of itself. Cognitive empathy is a thing and he can use it, but he does not instinctively understand other people’s emotions, or even recognize them properly, especially when the person is not like himself. This is obvious in Emma. Man has no fucking clue what’s going on in her head or why she does what she does, but he can predict what she will do in any given situation very well. He could understand the suicide attempt from ray he predicted more because Ray’s an easier equation to solve, and someone who’s more similar to him. I know he gets it because, well, motherfucker’s just as self desctructive as him, just in a more dignified manner.

-he’s got some sort of chronic illness. This is also me projecting and a headcanon but he’s got something going on, even before lambda pumped him full of growth hormones or whatever which they maybe should have Not Done but oh well. (I assume this just didn’t happen in the anime, since he’s still so fucking short) But he's So weak. He passed out when it was too hot. He passed out when it was too cold. He can’t open a pickle jar. His skin is too pale and he’s skinny af. He’s much more prone to sickness and probably has asthma too? But in the case that he did actually have something going on, I don’t think grace field would see the need to treat it, if it didn’t impact the quality of his meat? Isabella’s probably just “you have chronic pain and you get migraines? Great, take some tylenol and do some calculus.” Can’t say that probably helped anything.

personality type: ISTJ

Basically, he’s the most boring personality type to exist, and personally as an enfp i do not respect him. But basically this means he’s a fucking nerd that gets his projects done for school the day they’re assigned, is probably the president of the Anime Student Council™, and could probably get away with premeditated murder (ok actual istjs this is a joke don’t skin me)

The only trait that norman doesn’t have on the istj thing is telling the truth. Yeah, he values the truth, but like, that doesn’t apply to him, clearly. Bitch is a notorious liar.

The only other personality type he has any similarity with is intj, which is the same except it’s more rare and a purple theme instead of a blue theme. Sadly, that’s not him though, because although he can care more about some kinds of philosophy overall this isn’t the case and ray already occupies this personality type tbh. 

strengths and weaknesses: This one’s kind of obvious, but he is aside from the crazy insane intelligence good at planning. Extremely good at planning. He can predict any outcome and figure out how to prevent it, using all his resources. For example he’s physically weak and someone could literally just walk up and stab him, but it doesn’t impede his progress on his goals because he’s surrounded himself with strong, mentally inferior people who would die for him in a heartbeat. He never gets stuck in some “everything is shit and i can’t do anything” deal like Emma and Ray do, he always works through it and has confidence in his abilities (in as much as he will solve the problem or die™. Weaknesses other than his twink body include his Low Wisdom score. It’s funny how he’s often associated with an owl, the mans is 14. He thinks he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t. Plus obviously his fundamental misunderstanding of so much of everything going on around him, the fact that he lies not just to the world but himself, his refusal to take care of himself and his incredible cowardice. His achilles heel is being forced to, actually confront his actions.

what he likes about himself: He does pride himself on his mental abilities, and his judgement, which in his opinion is the only correct opinion and the only correct way. In the past, he likes being seen as a leader, he likes being responsible for other people. He likes his ability to manipulate and lie, because he sees it as an asset, and I honestly think he enjoys being william minerva more than he enjoys being Norman. He prides himself on his unhealthy expectations and the fact that he is able to meet them. Honestly, he does think he’s better than everyone else, mentally, though it’s humbled by his self hatred. Cursed thought: If Norman had self esteem he would be light yagami. 

what he doesn’t like about himself/insecurities: Oh god, nearly everything. His appearance, his status, his superiority, his physical inability, his own mess of a mind, also have I mentioned his appearance. He’s obsessed with self control. He wants everything he sees wrong with himself gone. And I understand why having control of everything is necessary and appealing, everything for him has always been rigid and planned out from moment one, he was even more regulated in lambda, and though he desperately wants to Not Be Food, he has no idea what to do with the chains now that he’s broken out of them. So he just wraps them around himself. Regulates to an unhealthy degree when he sleeps, what he eats, when he actually takes even minimal care of his own problems, what he looks like, how much of himself he lets show, the expressions on his face, the literal thoughts inside his own head he will shut down if they are not Correct. It’s literal self harm. Norman, please stop it.

motivations/goals in life/general philosophy: To be honest, I’m not sure he knows what he wants. He sure thinks he does, he could sure give you a memorized answer, but it means nothing. He wants to excel. He wants Emma to be happy. He wants to be perfect and for that to make everything perfect. But he doesn’t realize everything he’s working towards will do pretty much the opposite of that. He’s a crippling perfectionist, and pretty much everything he does is motivated by his fear of failing. He picks the certain path, he doesn’t wait for anyone else, he doesn’t care if it’s not nice. Emma foils that a most of the time because he cares about her, but it can only go so far, especially after he’s had so much time without her to develop a Complex. His philosophy is very contradictory, basically the tokyo ghoul “everything bad that happens to you stems from a lack of ability”. All of his problems are his fault. All the world’s problems are his to fix. If he can’t fix them, it’s his fault, it’s because he wasn’t strong enough, and not being perfect condemns someone forever, including himself.

how he’s perceived by others vs how he actually is: In most people there wouldn’t truly be much of a difference, but with Norman things are different, because, well, most of his personality in grace field is a put on, as well as the tough guy dictator thing he radiates after lambda. How he appears to someone is determined by the context of their meeting- the kids at grace field see him as a nerdy, weakish, pretty boring kid who is really caring and kind. The researchers at lambda see an obedient, beaten down and perfectionistic boy. The lambda kids see him as an infallible leader, ruthless and genius, a good man who knows what’s right. But in truth none of that is him. It’s a fucking chess game to him, putting on different faces, lying and pretending and treating everyone differently. In truth? He’s a fucking coward. He’s scared out of his mind and he’s tired and he can’t take pain, he’s obsessed with reaching some goal he deems is necessary that in the end is going to be his death because he doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions. He’s taken on the role of someone evil, though deep down he’s not, he feels it’s easier to live that way because it strips him of his conscience. 

interpersonal relationships: In general, Norman sees all relationships in a pretty dim light. He sees everyone as black and white, for the most part, and other people make no sense to him intuitively, he has to figure them out like a puzzle. He’s manipulative and not particularly kind, but he follows all societal expectations to a T, overly focused on his appearance and placing the person he’s interacting with into a Category™. So he can be truly kind, to people he feels deserve it, to people who he values and doesn’t see flaws in. He gets incredibly attached to people he loves, protective, though he often doesn’t take their own feelings on the matter into consideration, and he’s ruthless with anyone who he deems a bad person. With people he understands and relates to, though, things can be different. If he sees someone as like himself, he will drop all the social interaction police bullshit and cut to the chase of whatever he wants or needs from them, and he’s not very forgiving in any manner, if he thinks what someone did is actually bad.

Emma: Norman obviously cares a lot about Emma, and honestly views her as better than anyone else. He realizes her moral integrity and all of the things she has and he doesn’t, and admires it. Because of his black and white view, Emma is like an angel to him. She couldn’t do anything wrong if she tried. But he comes to treat her as something to be protected instead of respected, and although he realizes she wouldn’t like what he’s doing, he fundamentally cannot empathize with her and doesn’t try to understand her. Their personalities are very literally opposite. Norman really needs to fucking listen to her. And Emma needs to understand that Norman doesn’t have a single ounce of empathy and you really do need to spell it out for him. Emma can only convince him when she has logical reasons for her actions, which she, doesn’t often have. And Emma gave Norman too much slack, because she didn’t see past the surface, and Ray never wanted to warn her, even though he knew the dude was showing a bunch of red flags, because you know. It was kind of an unspoken deal between them. (on ray’s part)

Ray: His relationship with Ray is a lot more complicated than with Emma. He understands Ray, where he doesn’t understand Emma, and he can see right through anything Ray does. And this makes things really tense between them, because Ray doesn’t, take kindly to being psychoanalyzed. If someone perceives him he will deck them and Norman is just there silently perceiving him at all times when Emma doesn’t see it. They are both constantly in competition with each other, but they care about each other a lot, though it’s kind of in a derogatory way. They both recognize each other as fundamentally fucked up, and silently agree never to bring it up with Emma. They’re nice to each other when she’s around, but all pretenses disappear when she’s gone. Ray is always frustrated with Norman, because Norman’s never been intimidated by him, and though he tries his best not to be vulnerable around him, Norman can always see through it, whereas Ray can’t crack Norman’s fake fucking smile no matter what he does. Norman will always take Emma’s side, and doesn’t see Ray as a good person at all, but he still understands and can excuse him, he takes measures to be… worse than Ray, which is better in his mind, because it’s rational, and ‘not selfish’.

Isabella: She has always had ridiculously high expectations for Norman, and treats him kind of harshly compared to the others. Bitch has heat stroke and Isabella’s first question is a calculus problem instead of like, “are you ok”. She knows he doesn’t complain about anything ever and she doesn’t stop him from being Terrible to himself, because it makes her job easier. They want smart kids, not mentally adjusted kids. She does really care for all of them, but she basically overrides it, she gives them what they want, not what they need, lets them be exactly what they’re making themselves. Isabella is distant with Ray but gives him anything he wants, she’s close and super nice with Emma, but Norman is… it’s weird. Isabella is proud of him because he meets her astronomically high bar. But at the same time, Norman never really cared for her that much and has never pretended to. Once they discover The Thing, though, he has a revelation, and it doesn’t take him long to switch his entire perspective about her. He’s pretty much like. Oh. She’s like me. That explains it, time to treat her like I treat myself: fucking brutally. Passive aggressive as hell. The kind of energy the :) emoticon at the end of an email gives. He does like just go “yeah we should kill her” at one point, which. You know, ok. When he got shipped out it was hhhh really interesting because Isabella knew full well he knew he was walking to his death and Norman was like “are you Truly Happy?” and just went :) and she was like h u h and tried to get him to talk while they were walking there because she feels Bad about it and he just. Did not. He didn’t say a single word just kind of smiled menacingly at her and I think it was half a sort of rebellion and half because he viewed her as similar to himself and therefore felt no need to put up any front with her, no words were necessary for him to impart exactly how he felt about it

Lambda kids: His relationship with the lambda kids is weird and bittersweet. I think he really truly does care about them, they were in a similar situation to his and he wants them to get what they want. However it is not a healthy or beneficial relationship, they see him as a god and don’t realize that he’s killing himself to give them what they want, he’s basically adopted them when out of anyone norman’s the one that should least be in charge of kids. I think he’s honestly younger than them but I’m not sure if they even know. He acts like their fucking mom, and that’s from what he thinks mothers are like… like isabella?? Giving them what they want, not what they need, lying to them, showing a front, caring deeply for them but at the same time using them for his own ends. And it’s not helpful for him. He thinks he knows what they need, but what he’s doing is what they want. What they need is therapy,(and so does norman), and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with using them as weapons because they love him. It makes him feel good, to be seen as perfect, to have people who don’t know how weak he really is. But it’s only making him worse, and he’s enabling everything the lambda kids are doing wrong as well. They need like, Yuugo and Lucas. Some actual adults who are actually wise and have the ability and the knowledge to take care of them and understand their mental problems and maybe actually address them. And actually be nice to them. But um sadly. 

what he’s doing wrong: It’s pretty obvious, but… Norman, you maybe *shouldn’t* commit genocide? You’re not helping emma, you’re not making anything better. You’re not helping the lambda kids, you’re enabling them. You’re not helping your friends from grace field, you’re ignoring what they want. You’re not helping the world, you’re eradicating an entire race from the face of the earth and murdering the poor for the crimes of the fucking 1%. You’re not being a martyr, you’re a selfish piece of shit liar you little coward, you just want an easy way out and you want to die on your bloody fucking hill instead of admitting you’re wrong. Grow up, cringe little man.

why he went wrong: I think most of the reason this happened was the way he was raised combined with the kind of person he is. Norman would have turned out fine, if there has been good adults in his life who actually cared about his well being. Instead he got people who just wanted to control him and make him what they needed, and family who largely didn’t realize there was anything wrong. Ray being an ass to him most of forever probably didn’t help but well, that’s just Ray. Even then, he would have managed alright if he escaped with the rest of the kids because he would never have been separated from the experiences that caused the rest of them to realize demons weren’t all evil. In lambda he didn’t have anyone supporting him or telling him when things went too far, so he fell into relying on himself alone, pushing himself further with absolutely no limits. All he saw was enemies and allies, and things got stratified. He never had a lucas or a yuugo or mujika when he would have needed it, instead he found children who wanted him to be in charge and a world that made it so he had to be. Everything was an echo chamber for his worst thoughts, so they just became more and more dominant.

what he needs: To put it simply, he needs Emma and Ray to cut to the chase and slap him across the face and make him take care of himself. He needs to be forced to see everything for what it really is- this edgy 14 year old committing atrocities to feel better about himself? He needs to be told that what he’s doing is irrational, because in reality, it is. There are better solutions that he’s ignoring, both to his own suffering and the demons, and the way he’s going now no one will truly be happy because of it, that there is no requirement that things be perfect and this bullshit doesn’t make him stronger. He needs someone responsible to take the fucking dagger out of his hands. He also needs someone to babysit him and make him go to bed at a reasonable time.

i describe his personality through songs on my spotify playlist for him:

-outrunning karma by alec benjamin: this one super applies because it calls him out for making shitty decisions, being manipulative and a liar, and having blood on his hands in a very calm and subdued manner, that he knows this is wrong and yet he chooses to keep running faster and faster towards destruction, that he means to escape it through death

-empty by boyinaband and jaiden: yes this is a song about anorexia yes it also applies to norman i’m not saying norman literally has an eating disorder (but honestly it wouldn’t be far out of character if he did) but metaphorically this applies to his method of ignoring his needs, both emotional and physical, in favor of seeming in control 

-toxic thoughts by faith marie: this one speaks to his gifted kid trauma. Man’s got perfectionism running his entire soul. He’s terrified of failing, because he’s always been at the very top, he’ll beat himself up over any miniscule mistake and forces himself to keep at bad habits that keep him Productive, but he won’t ask for help no matter how much he’s suffering because that would be failing, he fights with his mind, this song basically tells him “yeah i feel you but you need to stop that”

-no time to die by billie eilish: ignore the romantic overtones but this is emma and norman, emma who trusted norman and was lied to, betrayed, for norman’s greater good, and norman who refuses to feel or hurt because of it, who refuses to apologize or see himself as wrong, pushes forward because he’s going to Pass Away

-achilles come down by gang of youths: hhhhh it's like. His vibe. Obviously you can disregard the lifestyle specific shit but it's. It's achilles come down you have to understand it’s like the same deal as friend, please just like french and longer

-friend, please by 21 pilots: i feel like i don't have to explain this one but it’s more to the manga (not the anime where he kind of figures out he done did wrong by himself instead of committing unforgivable sins and still going yeah this is valid before emma is like holy fuck). He is like sorry emma I cannot fix anything I’m going to die :) *coughs blood* and emma going like stop it stop it stop it fuck you see you fucked up and i forgive you just stop don’t walk away while he’s like “no<3”

why im a repressed little norman kinnie even tho he’s my exact opposite: I don’t generally kin ppl like norman, honestly he’s an infj I have no clue how it happened but I’m pretty sure it’s because of my intense desire to project onto a little man who cannot lift a milk jug and has chronic pain and decides you know what I AM tired of being nice i DO wanna go apeshit. Also he’s a twink. A little bastard. He’s a terrible person and I go mood every time he does anything. I said mood when he fell out of a tree. Don’t know what this says about me, I swear I wouldn’t commit no genocide. He’s like the inverse of Yoichi Saotome, and somehow i kin him too. Damn.

Miscellaneous headcanons:

-man’s SO attached to his william minerva cloak. He’s a wispy little bitch, you know he’s wearing that thing inside the house, he’s fucking cold. It also makes him Look Important he can retreat into it like an emo middle schooler with an oversized sweatshirt

-although you could probably get Mad street cred from having two whole brands you know he’s not gonna whip it out and show off his lambda thing he’s incredibly self conscious and his chest hasn’t seen the sun in years

-norman’s got MAD laundry skills to be able to wear like, all white all the time while constantly murdering people. I think he’s the only one who knows to do the laundry. And Ray is the only one who knows how to cook.

-but even then there’s gotta still be a few questionable stains on that thing, but if anyone asks he’s like “ketchup” “I’ve literally never seen you eat anything with that much color” “ketchup :)” *coughs blood*

-he’s probably thought “well i have not literally coughed blood yet today so I am not legally obligated to take care of myself”

-He probably adopted much of his current personality from taking on the persona of william minerva. I’m calling him out for being like me, he’s a blank motherfucker, he absorbs personality traits from characters he plays! He’s just not in theatre so it’s a bit more intense!

-the first time he sees barbara Eating Demon Meat he kinda stares and goes oh cool! not for me and violently exits the room. Like it's hilarious bc he thinks that's really gross on a moral level though he understands why she would do it 

-Which is even funnier bc I’m not sure about the canon on this but there was That Chapter Cover that one time that kinda seemed to imply norman eating demon meat which i absolutely latched onto because I’m terrible. He was just politely eating it. With a knife and fork like why dude. As to a possible reason for him doing that I can come up with, of course barbara does it out of spite, but man we don’t know the properties, if it had some sort of painkilling aspect to it or it was like, caffeine, you know he would, but he would Definitely not talk about it

-I kinda disagree with what the anime did in episode eight? It was good I liked it and the imagery was fantastic but also have you considered Norman could not kill someone with his own hands if he tried, or even physically injure them? That’s what his minions are for shawty. That doesn’t make it any less bad, of course, but the manga captured it perfectly by the fact of he carries around a dagger and a scepter in the capitol battle, but he never even raises it out of more than intimidation. He walks through calmly like he’s not scared at all but he makes sure all the lambda kids do all the actual murder, he just stands there impartially, clearly The Mastermind, as the kids fucking murder the queen of the demons. And I think that’s more profound because he’s, a coward. And he doesn’t realize being the one who orders the strike makes you just as responsible as the one who sticks the knife in someone. The knife is just there to Compensate™  for the fact that he weighs like eighty pounds.

-he’s more of like lady macbeth (because he’s a girlboss) than macbeth himself. He has blood on his hands, but it’s the kind of blood that you can’t wash off. He never killed anyone himself, and he cannot admit he never would have been able to.

-the last thing is that there are definitely epic things about the anime, episode 8 was my favorite so far, goddamn that imagery and the bitch walking through the city while it burns down with the screaming asmr going on behind him my god. We stan. But like the downside of, letting Emma and Ray get to him before he commits first degree murder makes the whole thing lose a lot of his value. In the manga (oh my god look at me being a pretentious manga fan please) it fit more of his ideas- he never backed down, and he planned for Emma coming and trying to stop him. Of course he wanted Emma to stop him, he wanted it with all his fucking heart he was pleading for it to happen but the man wouldn’t give himself what he wanted if he was held at gunpoint. He knew she’d come and he made absolutely sure she wouldn’t be able to stop him. So when she came and he said “you’re too late”??? It kind of said it all, in the fact that he was disappointed that he got his way. He still thought he did the right thing, but deep down there where he shoved all his thoughts and feelings he desperately wanted to be saved from himself.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. Feel free to eviscerate me if these are not Correct he is just my favorite girlboss who I feel the need to yell at

[ais-n]

How would have cedrick responded to learning about what vivienne had done to boyd by putting him up for the position at the agency, giving him a promotion, and selling him to cyclone? Would he have been angry, or thought that she was trying to protect him in her own way? How would he have reacted to seeing Boyd after the Aleixo mission, or at the end of fade after his eye was removed, at times where it was really obvious the affect physically and mentally that the lifetsyle had on boyd? Would he chose a side in the Beaulieu's feuds, or would he play both sides to try to make both of his loved ones happy? How would Boyd feel about his reaction? Would Boyd want Cedrick to be mad at Vivienne? What would Boyd want from his father if he came back to life in fade, what kind of relationship would he want?

**ICOS SPOILERS - JUST FYI :)**

I'm putting the whole reply behind a cut because I ended up rambling a bit - also I have a (shittily written and very short) excerpt from Julian Files that feels kind of relevant to this line of questioning, so that's easier to throw behind a cut too.

I'm pretty sure Ced would've been pissed at her for the Cyclone stuff. He would understand her reasons for it, and would know that in her own fucked up way she was kind of trying to help - but he also would have been pissed at her for how much Boyd was hurt in the process. He was very loving/protective of Boyd, and also pretty optimistic/hopeful in general, so he would've thought there surely could have been a safer and less traumatic way to help Boyd in the short run without fucking him up further in the long run.

(As for the rest of the things you mentioned of joining the Agency and the promotion, I don't know for sure but I think he might have understood that stuff more - because there's enough of Viv in Boyd for him to get that sometimes when they shut down emotionally, certain life changes or certain shifts in perspective help them find a reason to open up again, albeit slowly. And even if he wouldn't have wanted Boyd to be in a dangerous situation, he would have wanted Boyd to be as prepared IN that dangerous situation as possible, so at least with a promotion he learned more skills to protect himself and others. Also, Ced wanted to help others, so he would understand at least that part of the job is trying to help in some form, even though it's far from a perfect way of doing so.)

There's actually part of a scene I wrote in Julian Files that I never finished because I don't love how the preceding scenes go, and the scene in question is a direct result of them. But in the general part of that plot, Cedrick was out of town for work and Viv was supposed to be watching Boyd who was like 6 or something at the time. But Viv, being Viv, was being neglectful of him and Ced didn't know. He knew that Viv wasn't the most caring of mothers but they'd had conversations about how to make sure Boyd was safe when Ced wasn't around.

In this particular case, some shit happens with a person who kind of stalked Boyd showing up at the home when Boyd's alone, he and a buddy break in to steal shit, Boyd gets hurt in the process, Viv gets home after the fact, Boyd accidentally breaks pretty much the one thing Viv had from her parents (a horse figurine thing), and she gets pissed and yells at Boyd that she would have preferred to have lost him than to lose this thing. So Boyd runs off to Lou's and stays with him for a bit. At some point days later, Ced is finally able to get home - he tried to come home right away when he learned what happened, but he wasn't able to, so he was freaking out the entire time just beside himself worried about Boyd. He had some basic info and knew Boyd was alive and seemingly okay but was still terrified.

I kind of hate the way this is written, as well as the chapters that precede this, but this might be the only scene I can remember writing so far where it got to explore Cedrick freaking the fuck out worried about Boyd and being upset with Vivienne not protecting him. There were some previous scenes written ages ago but this is the most recent one, and probably would be closest in context to the context you're asking about.

-----------------

UNEDITED SHITTY SCENE EXCERPT:

The door slammed open, making Boyd jump and his heart race. He’d barely turned around when heavy footsteps came at him. His father nearly bowled him over, grabbing him in a tight embrace with shaking hands holding the back of his head and crossing over his shoulders.

“Boyd, Boyd, I heard—They said—Are you okay?”

Boyd could hear and feel his father’s heartbeat crashing around in his chest. He felt instantly safer with the warm and strong hands holding him tightly and, strangely, his father’s rushed and panicked words, barely gaining breath between them.

Heavy kisses rained down all over Boyd’s hair on the top of his head, and his father’s uneven breath gusted out near his temple.

“I couldn’t get back any sooner—I tried, dear God I tried because fuck I was so scared and—shit, no, don’t say those words, they’re bad words, Daddy’s just really worried and—and, Boyd, are you okay? Are you okay? You didn’t tell me yet if you’re—”

Cedrick pushed Boyd out by the shoulders, his eyes intensely focused and scouring every inch he could see of his son. He ran his hands all over Boyd, and when Boyd accidentally winced and shied away from the pain, Cedrick instantly pulled up Boyd’s shirt.

He froze at the sight of the dark bruises and cut on Boyd’s pale skin.

“Viv—Viv—Vivienne!” Cedrick shouted, panicked.

Boyd’s mother came and stood behind his father, her face expressionless and posture straight. But Boyd saw the coldness in her eyes, and tried to pull away from his dad. He couldn’t, though; his dad gripped him carefully but firmly with one hand, the other beginning to shake with the shirt in his hold.

Cedrick twisted around to face Vivienne, his voice rising louder.

“Where the hell were you? You told me you’d be home with him! You told me—”

Vivienne’s stare only became more remote. Cedrick’s hand tightened so hard on Boyd it almost hurt. He let Boyd’s shirt fall back down.

“Don’t even fucking try that look on me. You know I can read you like a fucking book. You promised me, Vivienne, and you… He could have been killed, he could have—What would we have done? What would—what would I have done?”

Vivienne didn’t answer.

“Vivienne! You need to goddamn answer me! Where were you? Why don’t you ever care—”

“She helped!”

Boyd’s outburst made Cedrick snap his attention back to his son. Boyd trembled in his father’s hold, terrified because his parents rarely argued like this and it was his fault, he knew it was his fault because he let them know about Troy. He never should have told anyone. He never should have hurt that horse and he never should have told the police the truth.

It was just like Mr. Cole said. Everything was coming true.

“What?” Boyd’s father sounded a lot less scary when he addressed Boyd. Now he was tense but gentle, just like his hand running along Boyd’s shoulder. “Boyd, it’s okay—”

“She was here,” Boyd insisted. It was a lie but he didn’t care, he made it as convincing as he’d ever done in his life. “She was here but then she had to go get something, and Troy must have been watching and then he came in when she was gone but then she came back and the police got him so it’s okay now. You don’t have to yell. You don’t have to be mad.”

He tried to ignore the way his eyes grew wet with tears, and twisted the hem of his shirt in his hands.

--------

I never finished the scene so that's all I have.

Without writing the actual scenes out you're talking about, I don't know for sure - it always seems like I think characters will do one thing and then they do another unexpectedly. But I'd generally guess it would be something along the above vibe, maybe? Except with Boyd being less timid.

Ced sort of would have been in the middle but he also wouldn't excuse certain things. He would have understood that Viv does some shit because she's fucked up, and he loves her so he understands that her choices are sometimes fucked, but that also doesn't mean he'll excuse it and tell Boyd he has no reason to be upset about things he has every right to be upset about. He probably would have ended up being a little bit of a mediator, but less so in the way of trying to smooth things over and making everyone happy, and probably more so in the way of trying to make sure every side felt heard, but more importantly that they understood if they did shitty actions that they were shitty (in this case, that would be directed toward Vivienne), and that they figure out a way for these things not to happen again, while being realistic about knowing how everyone is.

As for what Boyd would have wanted, he probably wouldn't have wanted Ced to hate Viv - he would have just wanted everything to be figured out in a way where no one had to be hurt, and they could just get along, and he would feel valued. He would have loved to just have any sort of relationship with his dad, but Ced being Ced, the relationship would have been a largely happy/supportive one, with Ced being a doofy loving dad - but also someone who will always stand firm if he thinks Boyd, Vivienne, he himself, anyone, is doing something wrong or etc and needs to be called out on it.

If Ced were there in Fade, I think more than anything, Boyd would have just wanted to be able to go up to him, hug him, and be able to cry in his arms, and feel like it was okay and he wasn't being weak for wanting to break down. He would have just wanted to hear his dad say that Boyd was doing ok, that he was trying hard and that was important, and that he had value as a person and that Ced didn't judge him or hate him or wasn't disappointed in him because of anything Boyd had said or done or etc in his life since Ced left. All of which is what Ced would have wanted to do/say too. Well, and then Ced would have for sure wanted to say how proud he was of Boyd, which I don't know if Boyd would have thought to hope to hear in Fade but idk, maybe he would have hoped for that too.

They probably would've just had fun hanging around at times doing whatever. I could see the two having fun digging into different topics or theories or mysteries or whatnot to figure them out.

Also, Ced would have liked Hsin, and would have accepted him as a son in law, just FYI. He already met Hsin when Hsin was like 14 and tried to help him then, so if it later turned out those two got together, he would've understood. Honestly, Boyd/Hsin have a lot of Ced/Viv vibes in some ways, and Ced would've been able to see that, so he would totally get why Boyd and Hsin love each other so much. Except Boyd/Hsin were more volatile because they eventually actually talked their shit out more than Ced/Viv properly did, or really honestly got a chance to do - so in many ways, Boyd/Hsin's volatility was in part because they were ultimately able to be more brutally honest with themselves and each other.

Hopefully that all makes sense.

[dumpster-of-the-lost-souls]

I loath Bakugo so much. He simultaneously gets on every single one of my nerves.

Wanna know why?

Reason numero uno: His ego/personality

Characters with such massive egos that they could blot out the sun get on my nerves especially those who have done nothing of value to derserve their high opinion of themselves.

Bakuhoe only has that “perfect hero” quirk through sheer dumb luck. If I owned a hero agency the minute I heard of him I’d blacklist him from my agency.

His quirk which is literally Nitroglycerin sweat is to much of a hazard for hero work.

His abusive nature tearing down people who he sees as weak do to having a quirk that at first shows little applications for hero work or are out right quirkless. I’d rather not know how he thinks of people whose quirks are more of a danger to their health or people who are disabled due to their quirk or naturally born that way.

The fact that he told Izuku to take a swan dive off the school roof so he could get a quirk in his next life doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

Reason number 2 his quirk

Nitroglycerin is first and foremost and explosive. A very unstable explosive the slightest nudge or heat change could detonate it. It is infact the most dangerous and unstable explosive mankind has ready access to.

That alone is bad enough but what’s worse is that the narrative and Bakuhoe himself treat his explosions as little more then those joy poppers you get from a party bag.

I know first hand just how powerful explosions are.

I live 2.19 miles (AKA 3.53 km) away from a quarry and I know when their explosives go off I can hear them and I can feel them through the vibrations of the floor. My house is made of concrete for context.

Explosions are powerful and dangerous. The shockwave can travel miles and a powerful enough shockwave can shatter glass, rupture organs, destabilizing building structures etc. The heat can leave massive scorch marks, burn, and disintegrate objects people and other organisms. The sound of the explosion can deafen someone who is unprepared.

There is a good reason why the Mythbusters used bunkers, plexiglass shields, proper locations to test and use explosives.

With the scale of the explosions in BNHA it’s a miracle that Bakuhoe hasn’t maimed or killed anyone left. It’s only because of the plot armor he has the size of his ego that it hasn’t happened yet.

I side with the spectators on the Bakuhoe vs Ochako fight. Bakuhoe would have left Ochako out cold with hearing loss, vision and brain damage and several 3rd degree burns from the first strike alone. If Ochako continued as she did in canon and no one stepped in to call off the match I’m fairly certain Bakuhoe would have killed her.

Reason number 3 lack of consequences

People say that he has gotten consequences for his actions the sludge village incident or Kamino ward.

Those aren’t consequences of his actions and choices. He did not choose to be attacks by a villain. He did not choose to chained to the podium so that he could accept a medal he didn’t want.

When I say I want Bakuhoe to face consequences for his actions I mean let people find out about how he was physically abusive to Izuku, let people find out about the suicide baiting.

Let the “bakusquad” get a real nice look at who their “friend” really is I mean just after Kamino Ward he forced Kaminari to short circuit by hurting him that’s physical abuse. Image how they’d react with that incident in mind when they learn about Izuku’s experiences.

Or he could actually hurt/maim/kill someone but because they were in his mind weak it’s completely fine. But have that be stomped out by proper authorities.

Reason number 4: being shoehorned into the spotlight

My favorite arcs of the show are the Stain and Overhaul arcs because we get wonderful character growth, good storylines, kickass fights all without Bakuhoe storming in and demanding screen time

I’d love the show more if I didn’t have to put up with the Pomeranian all the damn time. Show me more of the alley fight trio, show me more of the Izucrew!

I’ve had it with the forced Izuku Bakuhoe duo and the “three musketeers”

Show me literally anyone else then this little shit.

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 rewatch Episode 2.22: The Fall of Night

Babylon 5 is at the center of not one but three conflicts as John Sheridan agrees to shelter a wounded Narn cruiser. The Centauri don’t like this. Earth doesn’t like this. The Shadows don’t like this. But Sheridan has a strong moral compass and what he doesn’t like is how much the institutions around him are willing to sacrifice in the name of forging some kind of cursory peace.

Things I liked about The Fall of Nighit

1, Lennier and Vir’s friendship. If you ask me Vir, could be friends with literally anyone. He’s such an understanding soul. Lennier is by nature a little judgey. More closed off. So when they sit down next to each other and discover how much they have in common both of them look at each other like “hello what” and automatically agree to meet again. But even this exchange is done almost like spies meeting and I don’t think we stop to think about that very often. These are the attaches of two ambassadors for two of the most powerful races in the galaxy… they could very well be exchanging state secrets instead of expressing solidarity for their equally frustrating jobs.

2,  The Centauri are apparently willing to put their ships on autopilot and black out from g forces if it means when they come to they’ll be in a better firing position. This seems extremely reckless and VERY Centauri. It is the spacebattle equivalent of the hair. Big. Flashy. Not well thought through.

3, In the wake of the mass driver bombing, Sheridan gives Londo an opportunity to speak and Londo is like “NOPE” and jets before he says something that’s going to get him and his whole race in more trouble than they already are. Garibaldi then reads Londo like a literal book, delivering one of my favorite analyses of the character. Everyone thought Londo was a clown, indulging in opulence, going into debt at the casino, drinking himself to a stupor in public, but Garibaldi was his friend and knows that Londo’s not dumb, he’s actually very smart and his mind moves really fast. His error is in his judgment and priorities and he’s currently in waters he did not expect to tread. He’s scared, and he’s going to keep darting in and out of cover until he feels like he has a handle on things or he gets picked off by a hunter, whichever comes first. Also a very classic JMS line “He’s a pain in the butt, but he’s our pain in the butt.” Hunt for that or similar lines in other JMS stuff, he loves that line.

4, The ache of watching McCarthysim at work is very effective. Zach knows the guys he’s ratting on don’t deserve to be ratted on and even says so. “They’re just fooling around” but we can tell by the level of interest and tone of the Nightwatch captian’s voice that they’re gonna get blackballed. Zach can’t deny that they said what they said, but can tell that ratting them out is the wrong thing to do. In the end he relents with a bunch of qualifications but the Nightwatch doesn’t want qualifications. They want names. Thank you for your service.

5, I love that the guy there to ally with the Centauri is from the Ministry of Peace. So poignant. They’ll get peace all right, by paying off the aggressors.  

6, When the Narn ship was coming under threat by the Centauri warship, Sheridan opened a line to Londo just to spit in his face and hang up. It was amazing. Also during this crisis, Sheridan whips out a law book to smack the Nightwatch guy back in his hole. Sinclair would be proud.

7, Watching B5 come under attack is so emotionally stirring. Even on a rewatch, I don’t want to see it hurt.

8, We have arrived! The scene where Kosh reveals himself. I love that G’Kar is hiding in the plants – like he’s not a huge gecko man who people are going to notice. I also love how plaintiff his voice is, thinking if he speaks on Sheridan’s behalf it’ll help him in the political shitshow he’s currently in. I mean he’s issuing this apology for helping a Narn ship and G’Kar is very very very grateful for that. Also B5 blew up a Centauri warship so he’s pretty grateful for that too, I mean come on… I like that B5 has like a standard subway system in the middle of it and that they let the Puppet Friends ride. I miss the puppet friends. I love that the rotational gravity system means there’s a weightless portion in the center of hydroponics and that we used that to our advantage in this story. Also the vorlons in their native form play on the perception of the lesser races. They are light beings, and humans see them as angels. The rest of the races see them as prophets or gods, but none of these perceptions are perfect. We see wings and white robes and think Angel, but Kosh didn’t appear like a rennaissance painting. He’s got a butterfly look to him, too. The face he wears is a facsimile of a human not an exact human. He’s not perfect, we’re just in awe. Love that.

9 And finally a lot has been said about why Londo doesn’t see anything when Kosh appears. He’s been touched by the Shadows, so he can’t be converted by the Vorlons b/c we’re playing a game of Othello today I guess. Maybe because he doesn’t actually believe in his pantheon of gods so he doesn’t have any deities to witness. Maybe he’s lying because what he saw was his own greed and vanity. The general consensus is the first – that he’s incapable of seeing the light because he’s in the dark. For a fresh take on it, let’s look at the Vorlons through this lens. Kosh said before that if he revealed himself everyone would know him… I take this as being a side effect of being Vorlon. Vorlons are a feeling not an image. Like Magenta. Magenta’s not a real color, it exists on the color wheel because something has to connect red and purple on the color spectrum… but the spectrum of visible light is actually a straight line. The wavelengths for red and purple are far from touching, but our brains can perceive when they’re both present, so Magenta occurs. It’s imaginary, but we see it for real with our eyes. That’s Vorlons. Perhaps Londo saw a shapeless light thing in the sky, perhaps that’s what Vorlons really are… or perhaps they have no visible representation at all until they hit our brains. Our eyeballs behold something, but our brains have to construct it out of pieces. When the rest of the galaxy looked at Kosh they used the color wheel to construct him, but Londo was only given the wavelengths. He saw nothing, because nothing was there to see. I really wish there was another Centauri there to be like “I saw the goddess Li welcoming me to her arms!” and Londo’s over there like “I’m the problem” instead of not really answering that question. Maybe it’s answered in season 3, I don’t know. Did Vir see anyone up there? He must have been on break.

What I like Less about 22

1, So here’s where I’m going to talk about Keffer. I know the origin story…. that he was an unwelcome addition to the cast added per network request, but who the hell is he other than that? I think its remarkable how he slips right out of my head the minute he is off camera. We know he’s a pilot, that he was close to Carlos (whose story/death you may recall I was laughing at in a previous episode because its significance ALSO came out of nowhere), and that he made friends with the GROPOS grunts (who we incidentally learned to care about enough in that one episode that we were sad when they died…. Awkward considering Keffer’s contribution to this episode…) Honestly the most interesting thing about him is that he’s got an old-timey fighter pilot scarf he wears and he believes in ghosts and I bet you all forgot about the ghosts. Honestly, the most interesting thing about Keffer is how he’s a lesson in how not to write an interesting character – and no shade on JMS for that, I know he did it on purpose. Significant things happening to a character does not automatically make them a strong character. Keffer experienced loss, came face to face with the shadows, got in fights… a lot of stuff happened to him, but he was almost always the only named character in those scenes. We cared about the GROPOS because they cared about each other and we responded to that. Keffer was there to play cabbage head and ask questions. He’s not tight with any of our main cast who we’ve had tons more time to grow attached to, and dies for plot reasons without leaving an impact with his loss. Heck, you can see the value of interpersonal relationships on character development in action when the show used a shoehorn to try and force some in in context to Carlos a second and a half before he died. We had him drinking at the bar with command staff suddenly, we had him die as a result of a flight mission Sheridan was part of to make Sheridan feel guilty about it. Everyone was standing around going like “No, Not Ramirez” and if you recall on my previous episode writeup I was LAUGHING at how tortured this sudden human connection was. Keffer could have been made interesting. Follow me on this.

My treatment on how to make Keffer interesting:

Let’s say Keffer was introduced as an old friend of one of our characters – Fraknlin let’s say. He was a friend from the Minbari War days that helped him sneak behind enemy lines. Perhaps he was complicit in the covering up and destruction of Franklin’s notes on Minbari anatomy. As a result, the two hang out in medbay sometimes, talking about old times and comparing the current war to the one they fought together. We learn that Keffer has a fire for justice. Hates bullies. Sees the strong as absolute defenders of the weak and that any stronger race picking on a weaker one is a bigger coward than the unvierse can hold. Then when Carlos gets killed by the ghost he starts researching what it could be. Kosh and Delenn tell him to stay out of it. The audience assumes he’s going to uncover something and bring Franklin and other characters into Delenn and Sheridan’s confidence about the shadows through curiosity and honor, but we’re learning through the episodes that the Shadows are IMMENSELY powerful and have no patience for flies. When he breaks off from his squad to go have a looksee at what he suspects led to his personal friend Carlos’s death, we know this is going to kill him. He ignores the warnings of those who have more awareness and dies to bring back evidence of the Shadows to the station. Sheridan recognizes how Keffer’s curiosity and sense of judgment led to recklessness, something Sheridan himself is prone to. He vows not to let Keffer die in vain, but also states that the proof he got has changed everything… and that Sheridan would have done the same. Killing your men in the name of a mission is never the goal but there’s a line everyone crosses when the safety of the universe is at stake and sometimes things are worth dying for. Franklin walks into medbay, casts a look to the counter where Keffer used to sit all those nights, and turns away.

But that’s not what happen. Keffer’s dead now and I don’t miss him. Glad he emailed the Shadows to ISN five nanoseconds before he died.

Babylon 5 is now the last best hope for victory because sometimes peace is another word for surrender and because secrets have a way of getting out. On to season 3!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hi! So, Ogata is my favorite character, and I’ve been trying to figure out his whole like, philosophy. I’m not sure if you’ve covered this before, but maybe you could help me understand something that seems contradictory to me? It’s about him basically thinking that everyone is the same as him, but, in ch.103, after he’s killed Yuusaku and is killing his father, he says: “a child born from two parents who don’t love each other...grows up to be an adult who’s lacking something fundamental, don’t you think?” so he’s acknowledging that he IS different, right? That he’s “missing something,” BECAUSE his parents didn’t love each other, so why would he say (in ch.243) “everyone‘s the same deep down,” and (in ch.187) “I’m sure you’re the same as me” (to Asirpa) and “‘pure’ people don’t exist in this world,” when he says Yuusaku “grew up to be a man with integrity...because he was born to two people who loved each other” (ch.103)?

I’m just confused with his logic...like, he seems to acknowledge that Yuusaku turned out differently than himself because his brother had parents who loved each other, and he didn’t, that he’s “lacking something fundamental.” So...why does he continue to believe that “everyone is the same as [him]” (ch.165)? I know he doesn’t WANT to think he’s different, so he wants to believe “everyone’s the same deep down” (ch.243) and before he kills Yuusaku he says “whether or not your parents love you doesn’t cause any difference at all in what a person becomes” (ch.243), but after he killed him, and his father still didn’t love him, it showed Ogata that, basically, yeah, they turned out differently because one lacked love from his parents and the other didn’t, and he even says that, so why does he insist everyone is the same as him? Am I missing something with his reasoning?

Welcome in the club of those who like Ogata as a character!

He’s undoubtedly one of the most interesting in the story and one of the hardest to figure up.

In regard to your question we don’t have a canon answer but, for me, his words need to be read in context and not as an extreme generalization WE ARE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME as Ogata is clearly aware we’re the same only on certain things and on other things WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT.

We know he’s aware of our differences, not just only because he acknowledged himself as a child lacking something, or because he knows he has characteristics other don’t have and viceversa (he can shoot, Sugimoto can’t, Koito is a spoiled, beloved rich prince, he’s poor and without family love) but also for bits like the one in which he acknowledged HE couldn’t do it (meaning someone else could).

‘Yappari ore de wa dame ka, umaku ikan monda na.’

やっぱり俺では駄目か、うまくいかんもんだな

Of course though, although humans are all different among them, they also share many traits in common and it’s to those traits he’s referring when he says others are the same as him.

So to better dig into all this let’s look at what he says.

‘Minna ore to onaji hazu dasu.’

みんな俺と同じはずだす

Lit: “Everyone should be the same as me” though I’ve been told in this contest it means more “I believe everyone is the same as me”. [Chap 165]

In this bit Ogata is not saying ‘everyone is the same’, just that people doesn’t feel guilty when killing people in the same way as he doesn’t.

The first thing to note is that in the manga we see that, as Ogata says so his image is covered by a swirling screen which Noda uses to point out how a character is inside himself not as calm as he looks on the outside but is haunted by swirling emotions.

So, although Ogata looks calm on the outside, this topic actually haunts him on the inside... and Noda confirms this in in chap 243, when Ogata asks confirmation to Usami.

You don’t ask confirmation of something you’re confident about, which means Ogata doesn’t feel so confident about the whole ‘nobody feels guilty’, in fact he asks confirmation to Usami.

There’s a really old post I made in relation to Ogata’s words but GK actually digs a lot in how everyone feels guilty but everyone also copes with guilt in different ways, the most common being ‘suppressing it’.

Ogata, as a child, killed his own mother in the fruitless attempt to bring his father back to her and had to cope with what he had done from a very young age which taught him, better than to other, how to suppress that feeling.

The story clearly hints he feels guilty for having killed Yuusaku yet Ogata is in full denial about it.

The story also has plenty of people in full denial about it. What Yuusaku is missing in his picture of ‘everyone feels guilty’ is that soldiers have to survive it or they would crumble after their first kill and unable to continue fighting and Yuusaku playing the pure icon is nowhere near enough.

Ogata is surrounded by people who’re taught by the army itself to suppress their guilt.

Sugimoto didn’t invent his belief his enemies were ‘bad, heartless people’ this was what was taught to soldiers.

Ogata takes people’s copying mechanisms against feeling guilty at face value, assuming they’re not copying mechanisms but the truth of those people. He sees them not as people trying to fight guilt by suppressing it, but as people not feeling it... with good reasons or he should face he too is suppressing his guilt and therefore should also face feeling guilty.

That’s where his belief steems and why it’s shaky, because it’s based on a lie people tell themselves to survive... but ironically this makes them all (or most of them all) the same. They’re all copying with guilt and trying to suppress it by denying it in various different ways.

Very likely part of Ogata’s story arc will include how he’ll be forced to accept he actually regrets what he did, and if he’s denying it is only because he’s not ready to face his own guilt.

Going on.

‘Omae datte ore to onaji hazuda’

お前だって俺と同じはずだ

Lit: “You too should be the same as me” and yes, it’s the same construct as the previous so this too means “I believe you too are the same as me”. [Chap 187]

Here Ogata is talking of something different by what he talked previously. Here he’s not talking about guilt but about how everyone can kill if he has the right motivation, and one of the saddest things in the world is he’s right.

The world isn’t like a fairy tale, with people cut into two factions, the ones who’re good and would never be able to do something wrong and the ones who’re bad and can only do wrong.

There are many shades of grey and the hardest thing to swallow is that with the right motive, we can do more or less everything.

Of course ‘the right motive’ is a very broad concept.

There are those terrible people who do it for the lowest motives, racism, greed, hate, boredom, religion... but there’s also who would do it because he’s enlisted in an army, or in self defence, or to protect another, or in a moment of point break rage, out of revenge, in desperation, under the belief they’re stopping the pain of the person they’re killing (euthanasia) and so on.

It’s something my psychology teacher warned us about, how actually, given the proper motivation which vary from person to person, in the right setting which again wary from person to person, we can end up doing terrible things we wouldn’t do in normal circumstances... and that’s why believing ‘I would NEVER do this’ is actually counterproductive.

You’ve to be aware there’s always the risk in the future you could do something at the present you know you’ll loathe doing, and the best way to still stop yourself when that time will come is to be aware of how that time can come and prepare yourself to fight it.

Awareness you might be weak and preparation to face such weakness is your last defence line to stop yourself.

Anyway Ogata believes what would make Asirpa tick is a wish for revenge, which was really popular back then and on which Sugimoto had counted as well when he has involved her in the gold hunt.

Asirpa didn’t want to take part to the gold hunt nor didn’t want to kill, Sugimoto said she however wants her father’s killer dead and she could have him killed by proxy, by turning his life useless to his captors, without her having to dirty her hands killing him (or the convicts as Sugimoto planned to do that by himself).

As you can see both Sugimoto and Ogata believed AVENGING HER FATHER would be a powerful motivator for Asirpa and, in Sugimoto’s case, she’ll accept to take part to the gold hunt while in Ogata’s case she’ll be seriously tempted to just do it. It’s to Asirpa’s credits she manages to restrain herself... but it’s interesting to see how later she’ll tell herself she’s ready to kill to protect Sugimoto...

...but then, when she considers doing it to protect herself, it’s the memory of almost killing Ogata what stay her hand.

In short it’s the memory of the sense of guilt she felt in that circumstance what stopped her... and that’s why soldiers were taught to suppress that guilt, because they should kill again and again.

On the other side what’s Yuusaku’s reason for not killing?

His father told him not to.

It’s not that he found it morally wrong or something, it’s just his father told him not to. There’s to wonder if, had Hanazawa told him the opposite, to kill as many as he could, Yuusaku would have been a killing machine.

There’s not deep refusal of killing what moves Yuusaku when he refuses to kill, it’s just obedience to his father’s words. Yuusaku doesn’t say words he had come to believe because he had thought about them, he’s merely quoting Hanazawa. This is probably why Yuusaku doesn’t manage to reach or understand Ogata back then, because there’s no understanding in what he says, just acceptance what his father said has to be true.

But I’m digressing.

So to sum up.

If you ask me Ogata isn’t contraddicting himself.

He’s aware people are different on some matters and the same on others because people are deliciously complicate like that.

Ogata is also right on the fact we all have the potential to kill in the right situation and for the right reason but messes up on the guilt part because he’s working with wrong information about himself and the others and therefore fails to understand this part.

However, since guilt had seemed to be one of the theme tied to his character the discussion might come up again and he might come to understand this better... or Noda might decide to explore why he’ll never overcome his maladaptive copying mechanisms and acknowledge he felt guilty.

We’ll see. I hope I was of some help! Thank you for your ask!