#at first I was using the term “mary sue”

[number1villainstan]

Random questions? I'm down! So on the whole thing with deku not existing and all, can you elaborate I've had some thoughts on it but haven't thought of it hard enogh too write anything about it?

jesus fuck this took so long to answer, i straight up forgot this was in my drafts--

The short answer/thesis statement: Midoriya Izuku is a "black hole protagonist": he, as a character, twists the story around him in order to make himself look sympathetic/always right/super cool (or, more accurately, Horikoshi writes the story that way) to the detriment of the plot, themes, and development of other characters--hell, even to the detriment of his own character depth/development.

(Disclaimers and justification/the rest of the essay under the cut. This is going to be long, and will probably take a long time to answer.)

(Disclaimer: I've really only watched the anime to the end of the Shie Hassaikai arc and through part of the Gentle Criminal--sorry, School Festival arc and read the manga chapters where Lady Nagant appears (the first time) or is mentioned. Quite frankly, I don't want to watch or read further, except for maybe watching the Nagant episodes, or clips of the MLA. That being said, from what I've seen of spoilers, I'm not sure the later part of the series is much different on the points I'm going to talk about.)

Probably the first thing is Deku's internal/inherent traits as a character. What traits does he have? Well, there's his physical appearance, he's a fan of All Might, he cries a lot, he wants to be a hero. Okay, sure. But why does he want to be a hero? What does he get emotional about? He was bullied for being Quirkless--where do we see the effects of that in canon? He and the rest of Class 1A have been repeatedly attacked by villains and lived through seeing one of their classmates chained up like an animal on live television BY THEIR SCHOOL and then kidnapped by a group of villains that attacked a summer camp that was supposed to be safe. (Yes, I am salty about the Sports Festival and Bakugo, because that was bullshit.) Moreover, that student that got chained up was supposed to be someone Deku looked up to. What the hell are the emotional effects of that? Does Deku even see Bakugo Katsuki as a person? A bully? Or just as a standard to surpass? Canon doesn't answer any of these questions--it doesn't even treat them as relevant. Deku's just a bland character for the author to make look cool through Beating Up Villains and pretty (but ultimately hollow) Speeches About The Importance of Heroics and Compassion.

And of course, we have the traits we're told he has, like compassion and understanding, but that don't actually play out--or at least don't play out consistently--in his actions. If he's so compassionate, why doesn't it extend to Overhaul, who breaks out into hives every time someone touches him? That's not normal or healthy! If he's so understanding, then what's this shit I hear about him telling Dabi he's worse than his abusive father? And--furthermore--why does this "compassion" only seem to come out when he's physically fighting people? Why is it that he never steps down from a fighting stance and sits down next to someone? (Although maybe that part's just shonen bullshit.) Furthermore, his informed compassion never leads him to change his mind--no matter what his opponent's arguments are, the narrative always frames Deku as in the right.

And then, of course, there's the fact that he takes up far more than his fair share of screen time. Yes, even though he's the main character. Like 80% of every single episode is dedicated to just showing him off (and despite the disproportionate amount of screentime he gets, he's still such a nothing of a character). How much character development does anyone else around him get, outside of maybe one or two arcs? Hell, it's so bad that Bakugo Katsuki, the guy who's apparently supposed to be his long-term bully/friend/frenemy, has practically no details about him. We don't see his room in the dorm tour, we don't see his parents outside of the montage of a bunch of different characters' parents when the teachers are going around (and the fact that his mother slaps him and calls him weak for getting kidnapped goes completely unaddressed? In a series with the Todoroki family and the Hassaikai arc???), we see comparatively little of Bakugo outside of his interactions/relationship with Deku. And Bakugo is supposed to be a deuteragonist--think of how many secondary characters have their characterization cut short or subsumed into the black hole of Deku. Uraraka Ochako, Iida Tenya, to some extent even Todoroki Shouto, every other member of Class 1A.

And then there's the effect of having Deku as a protagonist on the story's treatment of its villains. BnHA tries to send the message of "everyone deserves to be saved" or "villains are products of their circumstances", but, for a variety of reasons--including Deku being a "black hole protagonist"!--not a whole lot of the villains actually end up getting saved (rather than arrested), and when they do sometimes it's in a way that negates their very real concerns/reasons for being a villain. Very first to my mind is, of course, the Hassaikai: the only one in that group "saved" in any capacity is Eri, which, being one of thirteen named characters (among a host of unnamed ones), isn't exactly a very high rate of 'saving.' I thought everyone was supposed to be saved? And of course, there's the added factor of Overhaul--the main villain for that arc--being the character most heavily coded as mentally ill and/or neurodivergent in the series, and that that coding is used to make him seem more scary/villainous/evil. (I could write a whole Rant on how the narrative's treatment of Overhaul's character is ableist as fuck, but that's not what we're focusing on here.) And then we have Lady Nagant--who is saved, yes, but how many of her concerns about the deep structural issues associated with hero society and the HPSC are actually, meaningfully, specifically addressed? She shouldn't have been 'saved' by a fifteen-year-old cop in training. She shouldn't have been able to be 'saved' by a fifteen-year-old cop in training.

Sometimes, the kind of self-indulgent overpowered protagonist that Deku is can have its place, but BnHA as a story is trying to make a point, and Deku's role in the story actively contradicts its messages. BnHA is supposed to send a message of compassion and "everyone deserves to be saved" and whatnot, but then, not least because of its black hole protagonist, turns around and says that actually the mentally ill don't count, queer people don't count, anyone who's ever hurt a child doesn't count, anyone who reacts to trauma in the "wrong way" (with anger, irritability, etc) doesn't count, anyone who was subject to the wrong high-control group doesn't count, anyone who has the wrong idea about how the world should be doesn't count, anyone who isn't "sympathetic" for whatever fucking reason doesn't fucking count. Maybe I could just write Boku no Hero Academia off as a mediocre show if it had failed its goals in some other way, but as someone who fits just a few too many of the traits I just listed, it's hard to ignore the bigotry and judgement behind these contradictions.

And quite frankly, this shit makes me mad.

[lizzybeeee]

THE ENTIRE DRAGON AGE AMA IS A DUMPSTER FIRE

They avoided all the high-rated questions with genuine criticism (not blind hate!) and went for questions that were safer and allowed them more leeway. After that awful IGN article and that treatment of Davrin...God, just put it down. I have no faith that BioWare will be able to continue Dragon Age or Mass Effect with the respect it deserves.

Edit - They had an opportunity for genuine discussion with fans who were concerned/unhappy with the way Veilguard was -> people unhappy with the story, the marketing, the lack of 'RP' options in an RPG, etc... Instead they just doubled-down even more, avoiding those critical questions, with no real acknowledgement that fans have very reasonable problems with this game.

Some Highlights & My Initial Ramblings Below:

The Executors

"They attempt to manipulate events in the most subtle way they can manage."

So, very clear that they're not simply observers of what is happening in Thedas: they're manipulators...

"Magical Illuminati Confirmed! Lizard People Did 9:30 Dragon!!!!"

All that complexity of character -> his hatred of Orlais, his experience as a general, his relationship with Cailain, and the influence of Howe...all diminished. Any influence from a shadow cabal is too much influence - all the humanity of Loghain's choices/consequences...God, what a waste.

Not to mention what this does to other events/characters in the series -> they imply they've been intervening as far back as the magisters breaking into the golden city. I do not find this compelling! At all!

2. Solas and the Executors

Oh my god, he sounds like such a fucking Mary-Sue I'm so sick of Solas at this point -> "Actually, I know more about the Executors than anyone alive - not even the rest of the Gods know as much as me."

("I'm also, like, an Ancient Elven God, I'm responsible for the Blight and the Veil, and I kind of locked the Gods away cause they were evil - but, like, I'm really sad about it. Also the Herald of Andraste thinks I'm cute <3")

<- Previous comments: massive oversimplification, obviously

But I miss the days when not everything was about Solas. It removes so much interest and wonder in this world when the fucking egg is behind it all. I loved him as a character in DAI and now I just feel this bone deep tiredness when I see his stupid face.

Don't you dare threaten to bring Gareth David-Lloyd back -> keep him away from this mess!

3. The Fate of the Rest of the Evanuris

Yay. I'm so looking forwards to "The Return of the Elves: Electric Boogaloo 2" - it was done so well the first time!

"It was the elves all along!"

The only character with any potential to be interesting is Andruil*, but how they handled all this lore was done so shallowly and so poorly that I find it hard to give a damn anymore. Not to mention that the game literally mentions Ghilan'nain mourning Andruil - so is this a retcon/redirection/or have you confirmed that one of the most interesting members of the Evanuris' is dead?

*interesting in that she's established in lore to potentially have a tonne of really cool things attached to her (the void armour, the great weapon she has etc...). The rest of the evanuris are nowhere near as well established as she is.

4. Southern Thedas, Sociopolitical Issues, and Future Games

NOW YOU WANT TO INCORPORATE GEO-POLITCAL EXPLORATION?? You avoided any meaningful discussion like the plague in DATV but now you're acknowledging it?? OkaY. okAy.

They couldn't even give us the long-term ramifications of the mage/templar war how the hell am I supposed to believe that they will be able to pull off 'elven gods are real' etc...? For a game series that totes : your choices matter -> they have not proven that they have been able to show that in a meaningful way. They literally cleaned the slate with this game to avoid doing that.

So, what, does that mean that the Veil is never going to come down now? Or are you going to have the entirety of Thedas build themselves up again just to have the Veil fall and send things into chaos once more?

What a fatalistic, miserable outcome for Thedas -> why the fuck would anyone bother to live in Thedas if you're going to keep throwing meteorites at them? By all means, change/conflict has to happen for the series to move forwards...but this is just so miserable at this point.

(The Elder Scrolls, at least, gives people room to breathe between crisis' or sets them up in different areas of the world! Bethesda treats past installments/your decisions with greater respect than DATV does.)

Even, then, if the Veil remains up, that means that the spirits are just trapped in the Fade being miserable for the rest of existence. The entire series has been humanizing spirits, from Justice to Cole, and now they're just throwing in the towel? I guess they can stay in the fade now! Problem solved!

What do you mean the Evanuris are not a threat anymore? IN A PREVIOUS QUESTION YOU LITERALLY SAID SOME ARE STILL POTENTIALLY KICKING AROUND THE BLACK CITY?

Weakened, sure, but Solas was 'weak' in DAI. You're giving yourself an out if you decide to go back to the elves again. Please do, I'd love more content on how the elves alone fuck everything up!

5. More Southern Thedas, the Chantry, and Tevinter

Thanks for the confirmation that things in the South are so fucked up that they have to work alongside the 'Slave Capital' of the known world to rebuild!

Slavery was one of the biggest things that caused a rift between the north/south chantry system -> one of the reasons why there were exalted marches -> a uniting belief in the south is that slavery is fucked. They didn't address slavery in DATV - what hopes are there that they will do so effectively in a future game?

Don't tell me that Dorian fixes everything off screen either -> either he solves slavery off-screen or the south is being forced to work the slaver-capitol because their land is nuked and they have no ground to stand on.

I'm so thrilled.

6. Solas and the Idol / The Blight

I will never get over Solas fucking curing the Blight off-screen and no one asking questions/giving a shit. Hello?? The Hero of Ferelden would like a word with you???

So the Blight is calcified in Minrathous, at least, but everywhere further away is still fucked! Once more, the South is doomed to suffer from the long-term effects that regular blights have -> not to mention the red lyrium (which still exists according to the AMA) across the south.

I don't care; it's lame. It's a lame way to conclude the blight and I hate it. This game did not earn 'cure the blight from thedas' at all. You could have had us learn how to soothe a titan and see how that can diminish the blight but you did it this way.

Another 'magical ritual' because Solas has such a good track record with them lmao.

7. The Agents of Fen'Harel / The War with the Qun / The Crows

Turned him against the idea of being a leader???!!

Fen'harel's Call to the Elven People After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned. This is from the Trespasser Epilogue, Epler!

Your concept art for Joplin literally had him as a leader of a faction of elves. Just be honest that it's a retcon and you changed course - don't try to save face with this reasoning.

About the Antaam: "We needed some big mindless bad guys to fight and so we did this because we didn't want to address the Qunari War/Invasion we set up in Trespasser".

You had to canonize Sten as being alive and Arishok in order for this reasoning to work -> you didn't even come up with an alternative Arishok to take Sten's place.

Yeah, the exchange that set up the Crows we see in the game as "idealists" did not make the game. I can confirm that!

I'm sorry, "Caterina kept Illario in check?" as in, 'kept him an idealist and not the usual Crow'? The woman that beat him with a cane and starved him and his cousin to train them as Crows. Fuck off.

lmao -> tell me you're coming up with this on the spot without telling me that you're coming up with this on the spot.

8. World State Discrepancies - Isabela

Outright ignores the very real criticism about the marketing from this game and World States.

"there are absolutely places where we unintentionally suggested there was a hard canon (...that Isabela is always assumed to have joined Hawke's party.)"

Unintentional?

Excuse me, you have her talk about Merrill and the Kirkwall Crew as family - that was not unintentional in the slightest. Not to mention Sten, Blackwall, Sera, and Cole are canonized as being part of your world state no matter what.

You had a story you wanted to tell - one that only fit a few world states - and you went ahead with it and disregarded those choices. Don't try and lie about this all being a big misunderstanding.

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

Edit - They could have taken the opportunity to address the very reasonable criticisms that people had with this game but they cherry-picked questions and avoided/minimized anything remotely critical.

They could have provided us some insight into the game development time but each time they approached the topic they settled for "we're happy with what we delivered and it was well optimized."

They had an opportunity to acknowledge that people were bothered by the handling of the lore/stories (to potentially mention they could course-correct/ rethink their plans) but instead they doubled down on everything that they did and even 'justified' some decisions. They doubled down on the Executors, Solas's changing motivations, the destruction of Southern Thedas, and the elves/Solas being at the heart of everything etc...

This AMA basically confirmed that the only reason they did what they did to the south was for a reset -> It's not a compelling or fulfilling narrative to have everything we've done reset back to ground zero off-screen. BioWare games differentiate themselves from other RPG's by their import system from previous games - it was compelling and exciting! With DATV they set the expectation that BioWare can outright throw out entire games worth of choices/build up, not solely retcon them.

Justifying your choice to water down the lore/world of your story by saying you'll address it in the 'next game' does not instill me with confidence, BioWare! It doesn't explain that lack of it in this game either!

They avoided every question that, rightfully so, pointed out the misleading comments made by devs in the pre-order period of the game:

the fact that there were only 3 imported choices from previous games was leaked by a reviewer -> BioWare was vague from the start about choices

that this game was the most 'romantic' in the series

that world states/ headcanons wouldn't be disrespected

that there are 'lore' reasons for bad darkspawn design

that there are lasting, impactful choices/consequences to be made in this game

that the lore/world was not watered or toned down

that companions are deep and you can disagree with them etc...

BioWare's behavior towards their customers in the lead up period to this games release was downright scummy. I absolutely felt misled after playing the game for myself and recalling what I read in interviews put out. While EA is undoubtedly poison, you can't hold them solely accountable for this.

I feel for the individual developers who worked on this in what was undoubtedly a toxic environment from EA - but I feel that it's pretty clear that BioWare itself has a lot of problems within and in their leadership/executives. Working for EA does not give them an excuse to mislead their customers.

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

I already had a very grim outlook on the franchise from the end of DATV but this literally look my interest out the back and sent it to God. What a disaster.

[jointherebellion215]

Birdie

John "Bucky" Egan x female!reader

Summary: A rare night out in London has Bucky coming to terms with his feelings for you.

Word Count: 2.9k

Tags: mechanic!reader, songbird!reader, female!reader, she/her pronouns used, drinking culture, cursing, mutual pining, moderate bouts of denial, insecurities, women supporting women because it's what we deserve, let's pretend that The Old Therebefore is an ancient Appalachian folk song in this universe, maybe she's a Mary Sue idgaf, I just wanted to write something happy so LET ME LIVE, WWII era, there's no Y/N but reader has the nickname "Birdie"

A/N: Yeah, I'm obsessed with Masters of the Air. I had to write something for my mans before the creative procrastination literally killed me. Please leave a like, comment, or even a reblog if you're so inclined :)

You can read my OC version of this story on AO3!

Songs Mentioned in This Fic:

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by The Andrews Sisters

G.I. Jive by Johnny Mercer

The Ole Therebefore (Accapella) by Rachel Zegler

Disclaimer: I own nothing. This story and any recognizably named characters are based solely on dramatic portrayals of the characters from the series, not the real individuals they represent. All the respect to the actual service people who fought and died in the Second World War. Also, don't copy my writing without explicit permission. That includes you, you AI sonuvabitch.

Your heels clicked on the cobblestone streets, turning into the pub you’d heard so much about. You were out celebrating a very rare weekend off. The Brass had somehow allowed you and twenty other mechanics from base two days leave, so you took advantage of the opportunity and headed straight to London.

Your two best girlfriends from base were with you. Teresa was one of the toughest nurses you’d ever come across. She could give you a wide grin, crinkles around her hazel eyes, and reset a broken bone without breaking a sweat. It helps that she was already working towards becoming a nurse back in New Mexico, the war just sped along that process. You had bonded over your love of books, giving each other recommendations almost weekly.

You’d met Irene on the boat to England. She puked on your shoes almost thirty minutes exactly after leaving the port in New York. You gave a small grin, offering her a handkerchief and a piece of ginger candy and the rest was history. Finding out that she was a fellow mechanic was the icing on the cake. Coming in at a whopping five foot two, the spritely blonde could easily be found in a crowd with her loud Appalachian accent.

It seemed almost like fate for the three of you to have found each other. Being some of the few women on base naturally made you close, but you were closer with Irene and Teresa than any of the others. That’s not to say that you weren’t friends with any of the men, because you were. Friendly. 

All three of you were dressed to the nines, in contradiction to your everyday work wear. You all got ready together in your hotel room, giggling while you applied makeup here, spritzed some perfume there. You all felt confident and were ready to have a good time. You spotted some familiar faces and made your way over towards them, your friends linked arm-in-arm with you. Lemmons was the first to greet you.

Of the fifty men on the ground crew, Sgt. Ken Lemmons was the most welcoming of them all. From the get-go, he didn’t care if you were a man or woman. He just wanted to know that you were capable. You were sure he had to go through some hazing because of his age, which probably changed his perspective on gatekeeping the job. This made earning and maintaining respect a lot easier for the women on your crew. We all came over with the same goal, it was better for all if we just helped each other out.

“Hey Birdie! Nice to see you out and about.”

Ah, the famed nickname. You tend to hum and sing under your breath when elbow-deep in a project. It helps you pass the time and clear your mind. Of course, the rest of the ground crew quickly caught on to this habit of yours, which quickly earned you the nickname “Birdie”. You, of course, never sing solo in public, so this confuses anyone who’s not around you while you’re working. But the name stuck, so here you are. Birdie.

Chairs are quickly cleared for you and your friends, which you all graciously take. You go up to buy some drinks, knowing what your friends like, and quickly return with your drinks of choice. Conversation flows, laughs are shared, and a few drinking games are played over the next hours. Teresa soon speaks up on a topic you’d been hoping to avoid.

“Do you think he’ll be here tonight?”

You shrug and look into your drink, “Dunno. Why does it matter?”

Irene, the ever supportive best friend that she is, backs up Teresa. “What do you mean ‘why’? This is your chance to finally make a move!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You quickly deny, taking another sip.

An unladylike snort leaves Irene, “My ass! You and Major Egan have been making googly eyes at each other when you think the other’s not looking for months. I’m saying it’s time for you to perk your tits up, buck on over and ride that—!” You slam your drink on the table, pressing your hand over Irene’s mouth, heat rising to your cheeks in embarrassment.

“Are you insane?” You whisper harshly, looking around to make sure no one overheard you. You seem to be in the clear, which makes you calm down a bit. Irene pushes off your hand, takes a swig of her drink, and consults the person who started this whole conversation.

“Am I wrong?” You look to Teresa, who cringes slightly in agreement.

You gape at the pair of them. Normally, you were the median between the two girls who had vastly differing opinions. But this is what made them come to a consensus? Unbelievable.

“Look, I’m not saying that I don’t want to.” You start, which makes your friends nod encouragingly at you. “It’s just that… Is he really as interested as you think he is?”

They both groan and slump against each other, like they’d just run a marathon. Teresa sits up, scooching your chair in closer so that the three of you were in a private triangle, cut off from the rest of the group.

“Let’s look at the facts here, okay?” Teresa starts to tick off a finger with each point she and Irene make. But you seem to always have a rebuttal at the ready.

“He brings you coffee every morning.”

“I thought he does that for everyone.”

“He constantly fixes his hair when you’re around.”

“He takes care of his appearance!”

“He walks you to the mess hall every day for dinner.”

“We just happen to be going the same way. And we happen to have the same dinner schedule.”

“He read The Hobbit when you said how much you loved it.”

“He’s an adventurous guy, it’s an adventurous book, what’s not to like about it?”

“You two literally will walk and talk outside alone for hours.”

“A man can’t have a stimulating conversation with a woman?”

“He laughs at all your dumb jokes.”

“Hey! They’re not all dumb. Like, the one with the goose and the—”

“Point proven. Anyways! He has your picture in the inside pocket of his jacket.”

That one stops you in your tracks. You brain tries to justify this meaning but comes up blank.

“He…” You struggle with an excuse. “He…” Your best friends give victorious smirks in your direction.

“He… likes the extra padding in his jacket?” You stutter over what is possibly the most pathetic, sorry excuse you could have ever come up with.

“When are you gonna admit to yourself that he likes you? Like, actually truly likes you?” 

You gave a sad sigh, letting the insecurity you were feeling deep down come to the surface. “I just… He’s just so…” You had stomped down your feelings for so long that it was becoming hard to articulate what exactly you’re feeling.

“He just seems so unreal. Like, of everyone he could have chosen, why me? I mean, I know I’m great. But you’ve seen the other girls on base. They’re all so beautiful, smart, classy… and none of them are covered in engine oil ninety percent of the time.” You looked down at your hands, specks of grease and oil peeking out from beneath your nail beds. It seems like it would never completely wash out, no matter how hard you scrubbed. You hadn’t even painted your nails for this weekend, knowing it would be money wasted come Monday morning when you’re back on the clock.

Teresa and Irene share a look that you don’t see, then come forward and grab each of your hands. 

��The words you just used to describe those girls. All of that is you, Birdie. That and more. You being a mechanic doesn’t make you any less of a woman, and to hell with anyone else who thinks otherwise.”  You nodded in agreement, Irene’s words of encouragement slowly washing away your anxieties.

Teresa spoke up next, “You deserve someone who will rearrange the stars and the whole night sky for you. And I’m more than willing to bet that Major Egan is up for the job.” 

“Besides, none of that 'unreal' stuff. At the end of the day, John Egan is nothing more than a man. If he can’t look past his nose and his d—" You gave a squeak to cover up the vulgar word Irene was about to blurt in public. She rolled her eyes fondly and continued.

“If he can’t see what you’re worth and make the effort to treat you a hundred times better than that? That’s on him. Not you. You know what you deserve, and you deserve everything you want. Absolutely everything.”

You sniffed, happy tears coming to your eyes. You brought your best friends in for a hug, thanking them profusely. 

“Don’t sweat it,” Teresa grins into your shoulder “every girl needs to be pulled out of her well sometime.”

You pull back from the hug, grabbing your glass and tipping your head back, finishing the rest of your drink. “Even if he’s not gonna be here, let’s have a ball!” Your girlfriends cheer as the three of you go to the bar for refills.

One drink turns into two, which turns into a few more, and suddenly you’re buzzed. Your group are having a rambunctious time, Irene dancing by the local piano player. Once Irene looks over to you, she stops and whispers in the player’s ear. He nods, then starts a new tune. Irene starts up her voice, walking over to you and Teresa, encouraging you to join her. 

The alcohol has loosened you up enough that you don’t feel the nausea you usually associate with being perceived, so you join in the harmonies you and your friends have practiced in your bunks at night.

He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way

He had a boogie style that no one else could play

He was the top man at his craft

But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft

Soon the whole pub was jumping and dancing along to the tune as you brought a new vibe to the pub. It was like a spark that started an entirely new night and everyone was eager to go on forever.

One song turns into an entire set, which ends with a full rendition of G.I. Jive, which had everyone singing along. It was a magical moment; made you feel like you were a part of something important.

Irene sidles up to you, giving you a hug. She says in your ear,

“I think it’s time to slow it down a bit. How about you sing that song I taught you.”

She means an old Appalachian folk song that’s been in her family for generations. You had heard her sing it one night and immediately loved the dark, but strong nature of the lyrics. It was an honor to learn it from her. 

“I don’t know, it’s your family’s song and…”

“And I can’t think of anyone better to sing it to these soldiers.” You gave each other a look, her slight eyebrow raise gave you the courage to nod in acceptance. She smiled, hugging you again, her voice yelled out to the crowd. 

“Birdie’s gonna sing solo!”

The announcement is met with raucous applause, Irene and Teresa shoving you towards a dodgy looking table. Crank offers a hand up, which you take gratefully. As you find your bearings on the tabletop, you quickly spin around and find all eyes on you. 

The crackling energy in the air seemed to simmer, the fast-beating hearts of the pubgoers recognizing a moment to acknowledge you. Nausea starts to make an appearance, but a deep breath quells the sensation within you for the time being.

You take another deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

You close your eyes, open your mouth, and sing.

Meanwhile…. 

Majors Gale Cleven and John Egan walk down the familiar street, one eager to catch up with his fellow countrymen’s alcohol intake, the other just happy to spend time with his friends. They were arriving later to the festivities due to being caught up in filling out reports. By far the worst part of having a higher rank was the paperwork.

“It’s pretty quiet.” Buck acknowledges. “They’re usually rowdier by this point.”

Bucky sniffs, shrugging off the concern. “Ah, it’s probably nothing.” 

As the two men approach the pub, they find that a crowd has formed. Soldiers, civilians, RAF, USAAF, old, young— people had obviously stopped to watch whatever was going on. It was dead silent, save for a voice singing. Was there a radio show on or something?

A familiar face peeks out at them from the crowd, DeMarco quickly waving them over. 

Bucky is quick to question, “Hey, what’s going on?” but is immediately shushed by nearby crowd members. Buck cringes in apology, despite not being the one to disturb the peace. His best friend, ever unshaken by the opinion of strangers, carries on.

DeMarco leans in, whispering, “Your girl’s taking us all to church.”

“My girl..?” Bucky’s nose scrunches in confusion. He makes space through the crowd and quickly makes sense of DeMarco’s words. It was you.

I’ll catch you up

When I’ve emptied my cup

When I’ve worn out my friends

When I’ve burned out both ends

Standing on a tabletop, watchful eyes sat all around you like baby ducks flocking to their mama. You were captivating everyone with each note and word that flows from your mouth. Damn, you've got a set of pipes— a voice that belongs on the radio, in concert halls, on Hollywood records. He had no idea.

His little Birdie.

“Wow.” Buck mutters in awe from behind him, and Bucky couldn’t be more in agreement.

When I’m pure like a dove

When I’ve learned how to love

He hadn’t noticed before, but her eyes were closed. Like she needed to concentrate on each and every breath she took, every single movement her body made, before letting them out in an angelic melody.

As if by divine intervention, her eyes pop open and lock on his as she belts “how to love” 

It could’ve been an eternity, for all he knows, the amount of time that they spent locked in each other’s gaze. The world pauses around them, everything frozen. Her eyes were already the kind to knock a man clean off his feet with a single gaze, but he thinks- for a brief moment- that his heart completely stops beating.

John Clarence Egan would swear every day from then on, until his dying breath, that the course of his life was altered in that very moment. He knew how it would continue from then on, and how it would end. How he wanted it to end.

Then the world starts back up and carries on.

Right here in the old therebefore

When nothing is left anymore

Her final hums are joined by a short blonde woman who stands nearby, another face he recognizes from base. 

The applause that picks up after the end of the song is near deafening. The star of the hour gives a shy smile, a quick curtsy and is given a hand to step down from the table.

Everyone soon starts mingling, the normal chatter of the bar returning. But Bucky is stuck in his spot, dumbfounded. In all the conversations you’d had together, somehow this never came up. He should’ve put two and two together, as he recalls overhearing your hums one morning as he made his daily coffee delivery to you. But you had been caught off guard, so much so that you tripped off the ladder you stood on and fell. Luckily, his quick reflexes kicked in to catch you before any serious injuries occurred. 

Remembering the sensation of his hands on your waist and thighs, face just inches from yours, sent his brain into a tailspin. That’s not even considering just how damn cute you were when, after a beat, you turned away from him and playfully mourned the cups of coffee that were splattered all over the hardstand.

“John. John?” A hand waving in front of his face knocks him out of his reverie. He blinks once, twice. Then looks to his best friend.

His voice comes out uncharacteristically weak in response, to which he then clears his throat and corrects. “Yes—yeah?” He pops the collar of his sheepskin jacket to try and hide the rampant red of his ears that signals the heat radiating from them.

Buck just shakes his head and gives him a knowing smile. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Egan. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“See what day?” Bucky starts to consciously return to his body, leaning on the bar.

“The day when a girl finally knocks you on your ass. I knew you had a thing for her, but that?” He points to his face and motions to indicate where they had just been standing. “That’s something else. That’s something real.”

Bucky gives another shrug in response, to which Buck throws back an unconvinced frown. He turns his head to gaze over the pub patrons and is distracted by you once again. Any denial he was about to spout immediately dies in his mouth when you lock eyes with him again and give him a dazzling smile. The world starts to fade away again.

His heart pumps faster in his chest at the sight. Damnit. He sighs, telling his best friend the truth he’s been privately wrestling with for a while now, all the while keeping his eyes locked on yours.

“I know, Buck. I know.”

Bucky smiles back at you and is elated when your face lights up. You give him a wave.

“She kinda snuck up on me.”

[messysketchyobeyme]

ALSO

I’m still so so happy about the way Obey Me impacted my life. It was initially a game I downloaded just to get my mind off of the pandemic, but I wasn’t expecting to get so enthralled with the characters.

There are so many aspects about Obey Me that I adore but don’t really see in other otome/dating games.

The first thing being the fact that the love interests actually like each other and how the majority of the story focuses on their friendship/familial bonds. To be honest, there were a lot of times where I was playing to see the brothers get closer to each other rather than them getting closer with MC lol.

A lot of the other games in this genre either have the love interests not interact at all or have them hate each other, and it makes me so sad. I love found family tropes (or, at the bare minimum, friendship), so I really appreciate Obey Me for doing that.

Another aspect I really loved is the MC. Even though Obey Me is an otome, the fact that they made the MC gender neutral is so sweet to me. Whenever the characters refer to the MC with they/them pronouns, I get really happy! It was really nice for the devs to be inclusive when they didn’t need to.

I also just really like MCs character. Although most of their dialogue is through choices the player makes, you can still get a good grasp of their personality. They are super strong and confident! They are stubborn and struggle to take no for an answer! They are empathetic and sweet almost to a fault. They can be as dominant or submissive as the player chooses, but I did notice that as the story progressed, the MC was a lot more dominant in terms of their personality.

I really liked it. Whenever I play other otome games, the MC is always super soft and submissive. Even games with ‘strong’ MCs have them turn super shy and flustered whenever their love interest looks at them in a certain way. While that may be some people’s cups of tea, it’s not really mine, and I am so happy that Obey Me provided us with a strong MC who has no qualms bossing the brothers around lol.

To be honest, MC was lowkey a Mary Sue near the end of the series, but I DIDN’T CARE!!!! This game was my silly little power fantasy, and I LOVED playing as a super powerful sorcerer who gets everyone (and I mean everyone) to somehow fall madly in love with them.

Obey Me’s story has never really been all that serious to me (I mean, the whole plot is about demons going to school lol), but the game means a lot to me. I still hold it fondly in my heart. :)

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

I used to looooathe Glory. I thought her bad mood and constant sass was really annoying; however, I came to realize how a lot of her behavior stems from her abuse. Since then, she has become waaaay more of an interesting character to me.

Kestrel and the other guardians (but mostly Kestrel) always berating her and making her feel useless is probably why she started off as so snappy and pessimistic. She didn't see much of a point in trying to be better because nothing she ever did was good enough to them.

She doesn't show her emotions because crying or getting angry would've made her vulnerable to further abuse from the guardians. Some people find it strange that Glory doesn't seem shaken after using her venom on someone, but with this in mind, I think her cold attitude makes sense. She buries her feelings deep down (she doesn't even like to let her emotions slip through her scale color).

I doooo have to admit that it's little irritating to me that ever since the first arc, pretty much every dragon that isn't a villain automatically adores her? I guess dragons like Snowfall are initially skeptical of her, but they come to admire her pretty quickly. Of course!! It's great that she's finally getting appreciation after a childhood of neglect, but it just feels a bit forced to me.

I also think she becomes a little bland after the first arc, but I think that's because we don't get things from her POV anymore and generally just isn't that involved. As I said before, Glory tends to keep her thoughts to herself. Plus, she's learning the ropes of being a queen, so she's probably trying to be more mature.

Contrary to what a good chunk of the fandom believes (and what I used to believe), Glory definitely isn't a "Mary Sue." Yes, she achieves a LOT, but she is still flawed. Honestly, I think that term is often used just to be sexist :/ But that's a whole different debate.

This is a pretty shallow analysis; Glory is a surprisingly complex character (so are the other DoD tbh). But I don't have the energy to do a deep dive right now 🥲 So yeah. You can still dislike Glory (even with all of that said, I myself still feel kind of neutral about her), but don't brush her off as OP or a Mary Sue or whatever.

.

[lets-try-some-writing]

I have been reading your review of Transformers One again and also looking back at the movie, which gives me this hot potato take:

Orion Pax weirdly feels like a Gary Stu, not because he was overpower and flawless (which I know there are no solid definitions of the term Mary Sue/Gary Stu and I don't think he's one). It's just that his characteristics felt too convenient to the plot as the writers just slap all the likable traits of a typical heroic character and just called it's a day without further exploration. They tried to go for the angle of a normal bot, average Joe from lower classes that get thrust into adventure and great destiny. But nothing about him is normal, even though he was supposed to be an insignificant miner. He was already special in the movie, with his tendency to break protocols and his obsession to find Matrix and be something more, and as you mentioned in your review, we simply don't know why he adamant about finding the Matrix. Would it be better that we showed a hint of Orion Pax not trusting Sentinel actually finding the Matrix in his expedition and felt out of place for being the only one who's skeptical of Sentinel??? And his trust issues with Sentinel could come from all his times sneaking and reading the history of Cybertron and noticing the hole in those records??? This would have made him very compelling and interesting, and also explained why he was so calm and level-head about Sentinel's lie and betrayals compared to other characters. Yeah sure the movie "showed us" Orion Pax's good and heroic traits to hint at his worth for the Prime title later, but uhm, it feels like the movie told us about his traits instead and expect us to roll with his characteristics as his scenes didn't convey these traits well enough or quite lacking.

And for a character supposed to be the main protagonist, he felt more like a deuteragonist supporting D-16/Megatron, which resulted in him being that hero who was just there to make the main villain more compelling and interesting.

I did like TF:O Orion Pax in my first round but after sometimes, I realized I simply like him because I projected a much-better written protagonist with similar traits into Orion Pax and made way him more interesting than he's actually is.

Aside from my issues with Orion Pax, Elita-1 is simply a plot device character, and I just don't get her personality/characteristics at all. She also didn't have any arc and her interactions with other characters, especially with Orion Pax when they were on the surface felt very artificial to me. And she's fake girlboss because nowhere in the movie showed that she's better than anyone, especially Orion Pax.

This is just my longest ramblings about my issues with the movie that barely evoked any emotions for me.

No no you are absolutely cooking with this.

TFO Orion IS a Gary Sue. He has no proper emotional base in order to establish his goals and opinions on things. His background is plain but lacks the hint or originality needed to give him the spark to act out of line, at least in a believable manner. His behavior is selfish, and yet he is proclaimed a hero by the end of the film without his arc having been completed. Orion can absolutely be selfish and foolish in the beginning, but if we are going to herald him as a saint, he needed to have had more development. As it stands, Orion was made God's favorite because... reasons. (Alpha Trion why didn't you guide our main cast while you had the chance????)

I 100000% agree with you on your assessment of Elita. She's there for the sake of sending a poorly written message and that is all. No growth, no real origin, no backstory, no properly established relationships. She's there to kick around a few future Decepticons and make everyone else look like fools. She needed so much more to be excellent, and I am legitimately sad that she didn't get the arc she needed to be a respectable character.

It seems we are on the same page anon.

[pathologicalreid]

Girlie (gn) you hate Maeve? You have good taste I see, I fucking hated her (well strongly disliked but still) mary sue is such a perfect term, she was just boring and I feel Spencer felt so wet and weepy with her

i don't hate maeve so much as i hate the maeve plotline! i think strongly dislike is a really good phrase to use when talking about my feelings towards maeve's character.

as a character, she's super flat and one dimensional. i think she and spencer were "together" for eight months(?) and the episode where you learn the most about her is the one where she fucking dies. i've spent all day thinking about this and im beginning to think that part of the reason why she is a mary sue is that spencer tends to put people he cares about on pedestals and ignores their flaws.

and youre like "what flaws does she have if you barely know anything about her" and okay i'll tell you:

b-12 and magnesium as a treatment for migraines is fucking insane. i'm not saying it couldn't work, but all through season 6 (re: 6x12 "corazon") spencer is seeing doctors and anyone who has ever dealt with a fuckass chronic disease/illness will tell you that a blood panel like that would be one of the first steps in reaching a diagnosis!!!

why on god's green earth would you have a stalker, be dating an fbi agent, and not let your fbi agent boyfriend help you? i have been stalked before!!!! it's not fun!!!!! i'd take all the help i could've gotten at the time. this has always rubbed me the wrong way because oh my god the solution was right there the whole time. he could have protected you! he would have protected you!

i know they weren't technically doctor/patient but there is still some weird power dynamic in their relationship that gives me the ick. other than they're smart and they read, they really dont have much in common.

their relationship to me is equivalent to the girl i dated online after we met through percy jackson fan accounts. i.e. not really a relationship. most of their interaction was off screen and i think that did a huge detriment to the plot.

in the end, i think the maeve storyline and 8x12 "zugzwang" is a hard watch. i can't take it seriously. i'd skip it, but then i'd miss so much blake content (and hotch looks so good in that episode sorry spencer) (not into the fuckass bob in season 8). at the same time, i know it was like... mgg's idea and i'm pretty sure he's friends with beth riesgraf. (he loves to traumatize himself idk). but the whole thing gets messier when you think about the implications left by 14x15 "truth or dare" and the abhorrent jeid plot in season 15 where it's insinuated that spencer has been in love with jj for fifteen years (zoinks) and it's like what about maeve??? i don't know man (gn) i could go on for hours about this

that being said, i see a lot of people not liking the actress who plays maeve. i am telling you that it had to have been the writing or the directing in the episodes because beth riesgraf is incredible. she played a character named parker in the tv show leverage (one of my favorite tv shows of all time) and let me tell you That Is Her Role.

jesus this was long i had more to say than i thought sorry thank you anon

[retributory]

Can you talk in detail about LBH and what your favorite things are about him?

second go at this because tumblr nuked it the first time. lol. sorry this is so long and unorganized and only a little answers the question this is more of a stream of consciousness nico inner monologue sneak-peek that is binghe themed.

1) just the concept of binghe is very funny and appealing. 2014 edgy mary sue half-demon big dick op sex guy emperor of the whole world domesticated by loser 20-something with a 10k karma reddit account. really good no notes.

2) i think a lot of people (even binghe fans) tend to unintentionally flatten him because it's actually a little hard to write him. the fact that for most of the novel you have a misinformed opinion of him based off of sy's meta-contextual knowledge of events that have not happened and will not happen within the current timeline means that it's hard to actually know binghe's deal the first time around. even after that you have to grapple with the meta-meta-contextual facts of binghe being an alternative version of a character within a character within a novel within a novel that is being affected by a 'real person' within the first layer of meta, but of course svsss being very much a story that is often about being a writer/creative that second layer is played with often . . . to put it lightly i think it's probably a contributing factor to both the fact that he's really controversial and to the fact that a lot of svsss meta can get really, really existential LOL. this is before getting into the fact that you're at minimum actually talking about two characters anytime you're talking about him, so . . .

3) the thing is that i think binghe (both) fans are often incorrect about him because he (bing-mei) isn't actually a puppy crybaby, he's just acting like one. but haters are also incorrect, because similarly he (bing-ge) isn't really a domineering evil emperor. putting aside the very complicated ideas we could get into re: are fictional characters the executors of their own actions when viewed meta-contextually, the fact is that binghe spends most of the novel playing some sort of role. which makes sense! at the time of sy transmigrating, (nominally) 14 year-old binghe has already lost his birth mother, been found in a river, lost his adoptive mother, been ritually abused by his peers in all settings, lived on the streets, managed to get into cqms just to be a scapegoat, been ritually abused by his shizun, etc . . . when sy uses the term 'white lotus,' it's not actually a compliment. it should be noted sy also knows that ultimately binghe is acting nice because he wants adults to treat him nicely, and he does not (yet) have any kind of power or authority to do anything about being treated wrongly. i think probably the first hint of binghe's real personality is when he leads off lmy because he thinks sy is staring at her - i don't think binghe is mean, but he isn't nice either. he's very jealous, he gets upset easily, he doesn't take issue with manipulating others to get what he wants.

(aside: even as a child, he has already very much formed the worldview that existence is transactional, something that is informed even more by sj's treatment of him. even though sy challenges that worldview, he doesn't get rid of it. all of binghe's love language is based around the idea of doing something for him; cleaning his house, making him meals, keeping him safe. naturally i think that's informed by the only affection he's received being at the hands of a woman who couldn't do much for him other than acts of service in the first place, but i also think that usefulness is a core tenet of what binghe believes that he and other people need to be.

i don't think it's controversial to say that bing-ge does not actually love any of his wives. i'd go so far as to say i don't even think he actually enjoys having sex with them - he is purely doing so to fuel xin mo, and would otherwise either not bother with them at all or kill them. being the wife of the Emperor of Both Realms is the transactional reward for providing him with no-questions-asked xin mo-feeding sex, of which he textually will just rape them if they don't agree. because bing-mei actually does love sy, i think he has to consistently challenge the idea of 'usefulness as a core tenet of a relationship,' which is one of the bigger problems they have to navigate).

very much a core part of svsss is that both of these people (sy and binghe) are. hmm. not the best people. bugfuck crazy actually. binghe puts on the waterworks because sy likes fussing over him like an overbearing mother, and while the underlying thing that he's having crocodile tears over really is bothering him a lot of the time, he's playing it up for puppy baby points. but that isn't his actual personality. his actual personality is when sy starts soothing him automatically when binghe gets the idea that sy may have been sexing lqg up in those caves. lmfao

4) speaking of, he's very easy to read as having bpd. i think other people are fully entitled to have their opinions on the matter but binghe's quote-unquote bad personality is majorly explained if you simply operate under the assumption that he has a cluster-b personality disorder (which are caused by childhood trauma, dontcha know . . .). it's easy to view his xin mo-induced catastrophic meltdown in vol 3 as splitting, and his constant back-and-forth of "shizun is the best person ever, shizun is an angel, shizun is incapable of wrongdoing" to "shizun is the worst person ever, shizun is cruel and unrelented, shizun hurts me on purpose" is easy to see as the sort of black-and-white thinking that bpd is characterized by. of course you can just think whatever, but i like to see it that way, especially because binghe is still seen as desirable despite his flaws, while any character that has or is implied to have a cluster-b disorder is usually treated as some sort of inhuman monster.

5) of course, backing off that, did you know i actually rarely like romance? for years i made a habit to intentionally avoid all romance novels because i disliked the genre out of principle. despite being largely into the shipping scene of any given fandom i was in, i both generally did not interact with other fans and also generally avoided anything romance-centric. i avoided mxtx's works (tgcf specifically) for years because i was quite convinced all romance was the same as the very very boring sort of stuff i had unfortunately read, where both the main character and the male lead are completely and utterly perfect and the only conflict is the fact that they aren't currently together. the only reason i read svsss . . . was because someone on my twitter tl at the time was complaining about it, and their complaints sold me on it because they (bq) sounded so weird. i read the entirety of it extras and all in 3 days. it sent me cartwheeling down a rabbithole of a genre i had FOOLISHLY written off. thank you binghe's terrible personality for saving me.

6) i also . . . am eternally enchanted by binghe's borderline horrific body. the satire of 'what does a perfect harem lead power fantasy stallion actually look like' kills me. when sy feels his abs and they're uncomfortably hard all the time . . . his actual literal horsecock obliterating sy's stupid insides . . . i think binghe has body dysmorphia but the opposite way around people usually have it. he wants a smaller dick and a less sexy body. i think he is trapped in his perfect stupid sexy body and it really kills me.

7) this is getting too long i think i have to shut up. my FAVORITE THING ABOUT BINGHE?? his personality. if you put a gun to my head. but he is so cutiebaby anyways. i understand sy completely; i also want to coddle and baby binghe when he does awful things. binghe would have loved puppygirl posting online . . .

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 3

Propaganda why Feyre Archeron is insufferable:

"She is Miss Perfect Special Never Does Anything Wrong. Rhys with her is like Gordon Ramsay with children, EXCEPT SHE'S A GROWN ADULT. I didn't hate her tooooo much in books 1-3 (she was barely tolerable), but in the novella, she becomes this housewife First Lady type character who is fine doing paperwork after stating previously that she wants to be doing something more "important", and living in a McMansion. THEN THE FIFTH BOOK STARTS WITH HER HAVING AN "INTERVENTION" FOR HER SISTER, WHICH IS BASICALLY FEYRE TELLING NESTA THAT SHE'S GRIEVING INCORRECTLY. Bitch, who are YOU to tell someone that THEIR grief is making YOUR life uncomfortable?? "Wah wah the social implications" you're the literal queen, no one cares that your sister is embarrassing you.

Imo, Feyre is also the result of a lot of internalized misogyny on the part of the author, bc she has two men in love with her and gets along very well with every other male character that's not "evil", but many of the female characters are antagonistic or unhelpful towards Feyre, seemingly apropos of nothing. It's giving "I'm not like OTHER girls". She also very clearly doesn't want children but then miraculously changes her mind bc apparently female characters can't be fulfilled without children. 🙄

Oh and btw Feyre also manages to get the powers of EVERY fairy court ruler at the end of the first book. I DO NOT use the term "mary sue" lightly, as that label has been used against feminist characters a lot, but Feyre exemplifies the Mary Sue trope."

"SHES SO ANNOYING AND SO SO STUPID AND BY THE END SHE JUST BECOMES A COMPLETE DOORMAT AND LETS RHYS WALK ALL OVER HER tbh im more mad at the author for butchering her but she's still annoying as all hell"

"Thinks she’s the victim of everything. Destroys an entire Court. Forces an intervention on her sister who is grieving differently than Feyre is."

"She's the WORST. She's an asshole to her family but thinks she deserves to be worshipped by them because she hunts or whatever, feels entitled all the time, is ableist to her dad, is fantasy racist and turns from being racist to not being racist in a BLINK, is ridiculously overpowered and treated as oh-so-special by every single other character ... I hate her and I wish she would die. "

Propaganda why Marinette Dupain-Cheng is insufferable:

"shes annoyinng anf shes a stalker"

"I love fanon miraculous but by god she has got to stop obsessively stalking her crush and generally making a ton of other terrible decisions. I’d submit Adrien too but he’s more of a deuteragonist"

"I started the show, watched one episode, and never tried again. I simply do not vibe with her."

"I get she has social anxiety but the way she goes about stalking Adrien is kind of the worst like she even has creep shots of him hanging in her room? That’s weird. I think Adrien’s going through enough without having to deal with the main character being his stalker lol. I know they’re (spoilers) at this point but in the beginning it was so sus"

"In the newest season, Marinette hides the fact that Hawkmoth was Adrien’s dad. This leads to the bastard getting a statue and honored as a hero after his death. Adrien now never gets to know the fact that his abusive and neglectful father was the one trying to kill him and is instead proud of him."

"Her crush on Adrien is like a black hole for her character. Things she’s done because of it:

1) stolen property

2) ruined dates

3) humiliated other characters

4) has a chart of Adrien’s daily schedule for the next year in her room (this is stalking)

5) broke into his room and sniffed his pillow (also a crime)

6) sniffed, took the hair from, and tried to kiss what she thought was a wax statue of Adrien

7) convinced her parents to let her go to China. Why? Not because she wants to connect with her mother’s heritage, not even because she’s a budding fashion designer and Shanghai is considered a fashion hotspot. It’s because Adrien was there."

"She easily gets away with bad, stalkerish behavior, it always feels like she can ‘do no wrong’ unless the show wants us to pity her, and the show writers want us to think she is a quirky and socially awkward girl when throughout the series we see her be friends with basically everyone in Paris with many connections to high up places."

"Listen, if Adrien's here, she needs to be too. I like her, but from the odd stalker-ish behaviour, to straight up lying to adrien and telling him that his abusive father was actually a 'very good person, a hero even and not the main villain of the series I promise', there's no way she doesn't deserve to be in the polls."

[rockermazy]

All singing in the show is canonically diegetic - meaning that all singing 100% takes place in-universe, for all the characters to hear and potentially participate in.

In the first (non-pilot) episode, the " Story of Hell" book, as read by Charlie, states that Lillith "empower[ed] demon-kind with her voice and her songs - and as the numbers of Hell grew, so did its power." After the extermination began, Lilith's "dream was passed down to her precious daughter, the Princess of Hell", who is presumably Charlie herself. Two scenes later, Charlie is in musical-notation hammerspace with other denizens, being the cognito hazard that she is.

In episode 7, Rosie invites Charlie to rally Cannibal Town in defending the hotel during the upcoming extermination. When Charlie initially fails, Rosie asks how she normally explains her hotel. Charlie replies, "Through singing". Singing is canonically a gift of both Charlie and every demon - both Hellborn and Sinner.

Which leads me to a theory: One thing that's been nagging me since the pilot, is how Lucifer and Lilith have been fucking for nearly 6,000 years, but only NOW decided to have a daughter in the 21st century. It makes Charlie's existence look almost Mary Sue-ish*. After watching Helluva Boss, it made more sense that Charlie might be an "insurance baby", much like Octavia is to Stolas' lineage. Lucifer might not be unkillable. Carmine and the hotel battle of episode 8 have both demonstrated that angels can be killed with the right ammunition. But why was Charlie born now, in the 21st century? My theory is that Heaven asked Lilith to leave Hell, hoping she'd take her song with her. Heaven knew that Lilith was the one making Hell stronger through her songs. Charlie uses song to rally the people around her.

Husk used song to heal.

Song, even when used to butt heads, (ex: Lucifer vs Alastor), will make combatants drop valuable info, basically outing themselves to everyone within earshot in this universe.

My guess is that a conversation sometime in the past went something like this: Heaven: Lilith, bitch - we see what you're doing. Stop teaching Hell how to sing - the bonding and wholesomeness is threatening our status quo." Lilith: No. Heaven: Fine, we'll exterminate. Lilith: (years later, looking at Carmine's charts) hmmm... the number of sinners getting exterminated each year seems to be climbing. Heaven might want all of us dead. Hey, Luci-boo... get your depressed-ass over here. You wanna make a kid this time? (Waits til Charlie is somewhat grown, and asks Heaven for a "meeting".) Lilith: ok, I have got an offer you cannot refuse - I will never EVER sing again, and my power will leave with me - IF you give me a spot in Heaven (or Earth - I should technically be immortal since I never touched the Forbidden Fruit). Heaven: um... win for everyone? ok! Charlie herself (for lack of a better term) might be Lilith's "ace in the hole" herself. Also, this makes me wonder if the only way to avoid lying is to avoid singing on the topic XD

*I have nothing against mary sues. I'd been wanting for years now to do something visual describing the internal turmoil that religious trauma caused in my The-Cell-starring-J-lo --like inner worlds. Telling personal stories and Mary Sues are inextricably intertwined. This show has inspired me to either keep pursuing that or just quit. Because picking apart past trauma for analysis can be more trouble than its worth - especially if you are ready to forget. u.u I still get deep chills every time I hear Emily and Charlie's duet in "You Didn't Know", even though I've officially considered myself atheist for like, what, three months?" This shit was an essay. I'm just going to play Warframe instead. Peace.

[aihoshiino]

Hey there! I love your OnK posts especially about Ai so I wanted to ask you something that's been on my mind this week. Do you think she was "fridged" just for shock value? I've heard people call it that because of how it starts Aqua's revenge quest and I was curious how others saw it. Would love to hear your thoughts!

anon can i just say. not calling you out but the thing about being active in other parts of the fandom outside tumblr means i will get asks like this sometimes and immediately know which post on the subreddit I am being asked to indirectly reply to. again, not calling you out, but i did read this ask with a strong sense of like;

but anyway, to actually answer your question: No, I don't think Ai was fridged and I think that anyone passionately insisting she was has a fundamental misunderstanding of what purpose her death serves in her own arc and that of others and also just… what fridging even is as a concept. I've commented on this before and basically summed up my thoughts as best I could so lemme grab that old comment of mine.

Fridging implies a certain disposability and lack of care for the woman at the center of things. It's sort of drifted and gotten muddled because of misuse in modern discourse like the term 'Mary Sue', but as it was coined, it was specifically, explicitly both observation and critique of how female characters are treated in fiction primarily centered on men: the ways in which they are treated as uniquely disposable, their interiority as less full and complex, their stories as less valuable and their tragedies as inherently unworthy of exploration and interrogation. The term literally originates from the phrase 'women in refrigerators' which itself was coined by Gail Simone in reference to the trend in American superhero comics of gratuitously brutalizing, sexually assaulting or killing specifically female characters for the sole purpose of spurring the protective instincts of their male counterparts. While it's true that Ai's death spurs Aqua's revenge arc, it is also the very explicit capstone to Ai's own character arc that she goes on over the course of the prologue arc and her life in general. It is the textual manifestation of something that exists in subtext: that being an idol and growing up in the entertainment industry has robbed Ai of the opportunity to have a normal life. It makes pitch perfect thematic sense for this idea to climax in an embodiment of the misogyny, purity culture and fan entitlement that has caused her so much pain to make that idea literal in bringing an end to Ai's actual life. On top of that, Ai's actual death scene is entirely about her: it takes place entirely from her POV, centers her feelings and pain and resolves her character arc and the two most important relationships to her. The manga even frames the scene in such a way that Ai's own thoughts and feelings drown out and crowd out the most bloody and shocking moments, spending page time that could be used on goggling at the spectacle of her pain instead on forcing the reader to look at her heart and understand her. Rather than focus on her bodily agony, up until the last moment, Ai's death is about her strengths, her flaws and the absolute purity of her love. From there, interrogating the tragedy of her life and death is the entire driving force of Oshi no Ko's narrative. Ai touches and contextualizes every character's story; her legacy is the light that every one else chases while standing in her shadow. She's the beating, bleeding heart of almost every emotional beat. Almost every arc involves her, directly or indirectly, and the current arc of the manga is built explicitly on the idea of understanding and empathizing with Ai as a person and trying to honor her wishes even though she's gone. So no, I don't agree that she was fridged and I think it's reductive to try and make that call entirely off the first episode. As someone who has spent the better portion of the year having a cognitive energy dedicated to this character that surely makes me in some way mentally unwell, I think her death is so incredibly, miserably satisfying as the capstone of her arc and getting to go through the rest of the story with her heart and legacy as its foundation has enriched pretty much everything else about it.

'fridging' is not 'anytime a woman dies' anymore than 'bury your gays' is 'anytime a gay person dies'. The context surrounding these phrases is important and by extrapolating them to the point that they can mean literally anything, they lose their edge when it comes to serving as tools of critique and commentary on harmful trends in fiction.

[chaos-has-theories]

Confession time: I know I shitpost about My Immortal, but now that I've read the whole thing I.... don't actually get why it's this big of a deal?

Like sure, it isn't well written. The plotlines get tangled up in each other, and it's unfinished.

But like... first of all, it high-key isn't alone in those traits. Second, it's entirely likely that it wasn't even written sincerely. But ohhhhhhh my satan (as Ebony would say) who CARES. It's a meme now, and I point and laugh like I do with loss.jpeg, but... I enjoy the immediately recognizable patterns of the first chapter, and the iconic overdressedness of Ebona Darkn'ess Dementia Raven Way. I think it's a fun sandbox to play in, and recently my brain has been a toddler demanding to go to THAT sandbox, no mum, no other sand tastes like that.

But this post is, mostly, about the My Immortal Wikia. It's so useful! It has the full text, links if you can't decipher a certain spelling, collects info on every character and pulls together threads you might miss otherwise....... and it's written in the most condescending tone you could imagine. Like come on.

Maybe I'm just overly allergic to the use of the term "Mary Sue". I'm not even arguing, Ebony has defined the term almost as much as Lieutenant Mary Sue has, but good grief. Idk. Idk!!!

...

That said, I'll be bringing back the Immortalstuck post for the 1 yr anniversary. There will be more. To save my sanity, I'll put them on @my-immortalstuck, but I might still reblog things here. You have been warned.

[goodluckclove]

In Defense of Self-Inserts

This is written in response to an ask sent from the Always Delightful @fukurouonthesea, who asked for my thoughts on creating unique characters in regards to a tabletop game character they're building. My first thought on getting this question is that Fukuro likely assumes unique characters are a subject I know things about - good to hear! Good that people assume I know things! That works out well for me.

So I can speak more on the perspective of writing characters for prose and scripts rather than TTRPGs. I recently finished my first campaign, but I was sort of tricked into playing by my wife who was DM-ing and ended up going the whole time with a joke character I really couldn't find any actual dramatic pathos in*. My next attempt will hopefully be more intentionally-crafted. But also still probably chaotic. I tend to lean that way, apparently.

But characters! How do you do them? Or, more accurately, how do I do them? There's a ton of paths to get to the same goal of Cool Guy That's Fun To Read About, but I'd love to take this opportunity to put off actually working on Migration Patterns for a while longer and instead ramble about something I've been wanting to dive into for a while.

Self-inserts are actually super useful! They're great! All of my characters are self-inserts and virtually no one has ever commented on that! I genuinely don't think they've noticed!

(this is a long one)

What is a self-insert, really? The definition I'm the most familiar with in writing is a character drawing (maybe even heavily drawing) from yourself as the author. I saw people back in the day get very mean about self-inserts, considering them an overlap with the Original Sin of Mary Sue-dom. It's 2024, though, and these days Mary Sue is primarily a term used to describe female characters that a critic personally doesn't like. Still, I've had a TON of writers come to me worrying about writing self-inserts, and I'm consistently confused.

Maybe it's because I've been doing this for long enough that I've built up an immunity to the dumb nonsense people say online posing as "Objective Writing Advice". Maybe it's because I'm a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut, a man who straight up wrote himself as a side character in a few of his most notable books. I've never gone that far, but I absolutely pull from my own life and identity for all of my characters and it consistently works.

I think when a reader points out a character as a self-insert, it's a reflex of seeing someone with notably less nuance than the rest of the cast. This character - let's name them Goobis - is written with the near-explicit intent to be just super cool. It's an instant turn-off for me in a written work if there's one person I can just look at and immediately know they're crafted to be the fandom darling. Goobis might have faults, but if they do, they're pretty cool faults. They're things that could definitely be bad if pushed to a thematic height (Caring too much, over-protective, self-sacrificing, a level of snark that's guaranteed to make impressionable fans slightly insufferable for a few years), but they aren't.

Goobis, typically, gets kid gloves in terms of the treatment of the story. Plot Armor, maybe. Or they might be a Plot Martyr that has every bad thing ever happen to them and everyone around them is either an old-timey villain or a kind cardboard cutout that weeps oh no poor Goobis!! Both are fine. There's an audience for both, clearly. But from what I've seen those are the types of characters that typically get readers - myself included - to think they're a form of wish-fulfillment.

You can do wish-fulfillment in writing. You should do that at least one, it's nice and good for bone health. But man, there are a lot of writers (Including adult ones that I've known in my real life) who can benefit from - like - distance, man. Draw from yourself and your life, but unless you're ready for a conversation maybe don't be one-to-one accurate.

I have a relative who got a masters in creative writing. I found his novella online and aimed to read it and send him my thoughts as a show of support, only to find that it was actually unbelievably pretentious and I honestly couldn't get through it. What drew my attention, though, was that the main character was dealing with the grief of his father, who died literally the exact same way my relative's actual father died.

I caught it immediately and I think I whispered "oh no" out loud. Like, what are you doing dude? Your mom read that shit, and she had to see you describe an entirely accurate depiction of how her fucking husband died that is such a weird move. Processing grief through writing is great - but change some fucking specifics, you weirdo. Make it a mom instead of a dad, or maybe an uncle or grandpa if you're keeping the patriarch thing. Change the reason why he needed surgery, or the medical complication that caused his death. Maybe don't name the exact hospital where your Dad died in this non-autobiographical work. Fucking hell.

Shifting some surface-level details from events in your life is, often times, enough to make it so people directly involved in these events can read them and not even realize what you're referencing. You can also tweak a certain event slightly to fictionalize it even further, while still having the honesty of your real life experience. I dropped out of school while starting the same creative writing program my relative graduated from. What if I stayed? What would my life look like? What would my writing look like? Would I still even enjoy writing? The concept of sliding door moments is a fascinating one to me and it's something I think about a lot.

On a more internal level in terms of character, you know more of yourself than anyone else in your life. You know your fears and your faults. You know what makes you lovable - or what people say they love you for, or what you'd like them to love about you. You probably know things about yourself that are so painful and trembling that you assume that if anyone else finds out about them they'd immediately realize you're worthless as a human being. If you don't know any of that, maybe you should. Internal contemplation - or external though something like therapy - is absolutely beneficial in a ton of ways, including for your art.

People are complicated. Everyone is complicated, and the average person as the most experience with their own network of identity. And in my own work (The only craft I can really speak for), putting at least a touch of myself in the characters I create has really caused people to engage and relate to them.

And it's weird, because I can't really think of any major faults that any of my characters have. At least, not in the way a lot of newer writers describe character faults - like some rubber stamp easily marked in the center of a person's forehead. There are things about the cast of my series Songbird Elegies that I see as struggles that either have to be processed or managed. Someone might be self-loathing, or struggle with emotional intimacy, or have a temper that will absolutely steer them wrong. They might be impulsive to a degree that is no longer Quirky Cute. That's not great.

But growing writers will sometimes make a fault out to be a thing that you can see very clearly in a person above anything else. As if you can point at a guy on the street and say BAM - SEXIST! Which - yeah, you can do that. I can have brief interactions with people I don't actually know and come away thinking that someone is stupid or lazy or irresponsible or any number of bad qualities. It's only if I got to actually know them - either though a relationship or just somehow following their lives as an outside observer - that I'd learn they slipped through the cracks in school so deeply that they just stopped caring, or they went through a loss that resulted in them choosing to survive instead of actually live.

Your worst qualities weren't predestined from birth. The Meyers-Brigg is absolute nonsense mainly utilized by the military and most major corporations. There are things you might hate about yourself that once served to protect you. This is true for everyone you see, but when you're just starting out in art it might be hard to see that. That's why it's so helpful to first draw from yourself.

So draw from yourself to whatever degree you want. Give Goobis your sense of humor, but maybe use it as an opportunity to explore why you're so quick to joke and what doing that might be avoiding. Have Goobis experience the same childhood birthday that irrevocably changed the course of your life, but maybe change what year it happened and make it a close-up magician you found instead of a Spiderman Impersonator. In fact, consider seeing what would change if it was Goobis' innocent little brother who stumbled across Spiderman's dead body instead of Goobis themself. If you're willing to be honest - not excessively self-deprecating or praising, just honest - you'll probably be surprised how many people see themselves in the people you write.

God that was long. I hope that helped maybe? Helped someone?

*It was an eldritch horror wearing a cowboy Hat of Disguise to look like a bulldog. His name was Socks. He ended the campaign traveling to early 2000s Philadelphia and kidnapping an NPC with him. This was after Socks paid for the NPCs Wizard school education, then paid for the NPC to become a potter after crossing paths again, and then sacrificed the NPC to be an immortal slave to a Time Spider. In the climax of this campaign Socks used the Teleport cantrip from Wizards101 to banish the final enemy to the Tomb of the Beguiler. Things went off the rails real quick.

[shinidamachu]

Regarding Kagome getting hate for being a Mary-Sue if she were more like Sesshomaru, you should know that she still gets the Mary Sue accusations as she is. People call her too “OP” just because she didn’t train enough and because Rumiko said her spiritual powers are naturally more powerful than Kikyo.

They also consider her a Mary-Sue in terms of how much the narrative “glorifies” her (according to them at least) because multiple guys are crushing on her and the fact that it seems the Inugang always takes her side whenever it comes to fights with Inuyasha and she supposedly never has to learn from her faults. They claim Rumiko making her out to be so pure-hearted is also Mary-Suesque and that the narrative pretends that Kagome has no faults that she has to grow from and is perfect personality wise.

Oh, believe me, I'm totally aware. I only used the comparation with Sesshomaru as an example to make the point that no matter what she does, Kagome will get bashed because an especific, biased part of the audience is already phrone on hating her and will make up any excuse to justify it. And you brought up great new other examples.

They call her overpowered but, while her lack of training is a valid criticism, it's not a crime to be naturally gifted. In fact, it's a pretty common trope. What they conveniently "forget" is that raw talent alone is not enough: even though Kagome had a lot of power, she obviously didn't know how to use them.

So in the beginning she had to work with what she knew and improvise, showing us other facets of her character, such as her intelligence, creativity, cunningness and inventiveness.

Nothing was handed over to her on a plate. She had to work for it. There was no official training because she was learning on the job and doing amazing at it. Not because of her reincarnation status or some deus ex machina type of thing, but because of practice, persistence and resilience. If her spiritual powers are naturally more powerful than Kikyo, it only proves that they are different people, who see the world — and by extension, themselves — through vastly different lens, which inevitably bleeds into how they relate with their powers and with other people.

That being said, the narrative never glorifies Kagome and they know it. On the contrary, I'd argue it actually holds her to higher standards than any other character. She's constantly getting tested about her flaws. Just on the top of my head I could list Mount Azusa, the infant incident and that time she saved Kikyo from miasma. But even if her main lesson is that it's okay to have feelings, the narrative will still paint her as wrong again when she does have them.

And even when that doesn't happen, Kagome herself is hyper aware of her own flaws. That's a huge part of her character, due to her feelings of inadequacy. But she's always the first person to hold herself accountable for her actions, admit when she's in the wrong, apologize and make it better.

Now, the Inugang could be more sensible about Inuyasha's predictment — especially Sango, for obvious reasons —, I'll give them that. But Inuyasha doesn't help himself with his poor communication skills, either. All his friends know is that he's hurting Kagome, whom they love, over someone dangerous who has a history of trying to murder him.

As for the "multiple guys crushing on her" thing... I mean, can we blame them? Face card never declines, my God!

[entomjinx]

Uta is NOT a Mary Sue

I wrote this on twitter for a "what's a controversial One Piece opinion" post, but I definitely want it here too. Also I apologize for any typos, as I'm physically incapable of not making at least one.

Uta, by definition, is not a Mary-Sue despite how people seem to believe so due to her past, abilities, family, and how she's introduced into the story.

Definition: The term "Mary-Sue" comes directly from whether or not the character in question is 2 dimensional, depicted as lacking any flaws, which makes them unrealistic, and the rules of the story tend to bend to them second they would stop the character. Other notable things about Mary-Sues is that they are typically free of any weaknesses, they're innately virtuous, and typically attractive.

So let's break this down bit by bit.

Right off the bat, I will say she's attractive, but so are most characters in One Piece. If attractiveness is all it took to make a Mary-Sue, then everyone would be a Mary-Sue. It's the same with the fact that she has a unique design.

Uta has several very clear weaknesses:

One: her devil fruit is stamina based. If she falls asleep, they all return to their bodies. If she dies, they die with her. She has to die to take her opponent down like that, and it is therefore, a weakness.

Two: she doesn't fight much outside of the song-world. This could be because of a lack of training to fight, as shown by her unwillingness to harm someone's body. Instead, she has to have unconscious people fight for her.

Three: If they can't hear her, they're unaffected. There is a whole scene depicting marines in headphones to block her voice, and it works until they're knocked off.

Four: she's not omnipotent while in the song-world. Several people were able to hide from her and the things she created.

Five: she can't alter a person's will, only their form. Sunny, Bepo, and Blueno fought against her after their bodies were changed. The people from the audience still called out for Uta to stop.

I could continue, but I think these get the point across.

She's not virtuous; she's morally gray, like most characters in One Piece.

She wants to start a new era, but the way that she plans on doing so removes people's freedom and will kill them. That's not virtuous, even if she believes it is. It makes her similar to a cult leader. Even if they somehow had everyone's best interest in mind, wouldn't call a cult leader virtuous, would you?

Everything above covers how she has character flaws, but I'm going to add a few more.

She begins to panic when things don't go how she expects them to. That's why the audience gets turned into stuffed animals and such. If they won't stay themselves, then she has to keep them there.

She was eating wake-shrooms the whole movie. Those are literally in universe stimulant drugs. Another point against virtuous and towards character flaws.

She didn't seek help for the things that were bothering her, which ultimately led to her crazed idea. Her isolation led to her being so independent that she probably didn't know asking for help was an option.

And finally, the big one: is she a two dimensional character? Definition first: a 2 dimensional character is a character with little to no character development. They're too simple, and show little to no serious thought. The have no real dimension to them.

Guys, the whole movie is about her. We see how her trauma changed her from loving being a part of the red haired pirates to not being able to stand pirates at all. How her lack of outside help and isolation only made everything worse, and what ut eventually turned into. We see her realize she was wrong the second she's able to process a fraction of what she's done, which if you pay careful attention to the movie, you know that not all of it was fully her. Parts of it were the wake-shrooms, which make people slowly go insane. (How many shows was she using one or two on, I wonder?). Some theories even believe that Tot-Music was still affecting her mind after the first summon, but I digress.

She just needed help.

There's so much more I could put into this analysis, but I've made my point. She's not a 2 dimensional character.

To address some of the concerns I know will come up:

"She's the daughter of the strongest Yonko." Being Shanks' daughter doesn't make her a Mary-Sue anymore than being Garp's grandson and Dragon's child makes Luffy one.

"She's Luffy's childhood friend. He was supposed to be alone." Being friends with Luffy doesn't make her more of a Mary-Sue. If anything, it adds more depth to both characters, as it helps explain why Luffy wanted a musician so badly. It also explains part of his hatred for loneliness. He had one friend who went missing and he never saw her again. ("Being alone is more painful" -Luffy's flashback post Marineford) -She was adapted into that spot of the story very well. "Luffy's never mentioned her before." Luffy never mentioned Ace before Alabasta either. In case you haven't noticed, Luffy doesn't really talk about things unless he's asked directly or has a direct reminder.

"She's so overpowered that she almost killed 70% of the world at once." Yes and? Kaido regularly attempted suicide. Big mom steals people's life spans. Luffy has a god devil fruit that the government renamed because they couldn't get a hold of it for 800 years.

All of them are objectively stronger than Uta in terms of strength. She had to become popular enough for most of the world to listen to her, and then strategize exactly how this would play out. There's also the fact that some people may be immune because of Haki (gorosei)

She had a plan and it was effective because she blindsided everyone with it. That's a talent and a half, and it wouldn't work more than once.

It also has nothing to do with whether or not she's a Mary-Sue and I think it's silly to bring it up, but I know how people are.

And finally: nothing is stopping you from continuing to dislike her. You don't have justify disliking her by calling her something she isn't. If she doesn't vibe with you, she doesn't vibe with you. Everyone has things they dislike, and that's perfectly normal.

If you'd like to know what an actual Mary-Sue looks like, then I recommend trying to read just five chapters of "My Immortal," with the main character Ebony Darkness Dimentia Raven-way, the Mary-Sue of Mary-Sues. Everything is so exaggerated that it's easy to spot.

If you genuinely want to discuss any of this, then I'm down to talk about it, but if you're here to hate and didn't even bother to read everything, then I'm not interested.

Thank you to everyone who made it this far, and I hope you have a good day <3

[imfromthemiddlekingdom]

Felony saying that everyone in the universe can access the force if they tried hard enough makes me want to deck him in his fugly face

He’s ruining all established canon in real time. Speed running the absolute destruction of continuity of the SW universe and people are still rooting for him and his blorbo self inserts like there’s no tomorrow. Literally the whole reason I no longer engage in Ashoka content is because he massacred my girl and made her so one dimensional that my Mary Sue self insert fanfics OCs I wrote when I was 14 looks well developed compared to the absolute bland “girlboss kick ass take names” personality Ashoka has right now.

There were so many opportunities for him to explore the absolute potential of angst and conflict within Ashoka in this new series, to give her character a believable story of grief loss and growth yet he threw it all away because he wanted his OC to be the specialist girl that ever lived. This series could’ve been used to explore Ashokas conflicting feelings regarding the Anakin that taught her and was a mentor to her whilst trying to connect it to the monster that killed her family and hunted her culture into almost extinction and tried to kill her, a person he confessed to love as a sister, on Malachor. It could’ve been a good send off to a great character, to have her face that the Skyguy she put on a pedestal in her mind was in actuality the worst sort of scum and have her try to come to terms that just because she can forgive him for being the genocidal maniac he was and still hold love in her heart for who he used to be and also understand why the Jedi, her family, wasn’t the reason for their own downfall.

But alas. We got another series of “the Jedi caused their own downfall!!! Anakin did nothing wrong ever and him killing all my family and everyone I’ve ever known is so not his fault!!! It’s definitely the fault of the unbending stuck in the past council!!!”. Instead of a series that could’ve made Ashoka’s “departure” (literally never going to happen with felony at the helm, he’s going to find a way to make her immortal and then show up 200 years in the future to be the protagonist of another light v dark fight since she’s his special SI) from the series tie in nicely thematically and canonically with every other Star Wars media we have, he decided that the best way to have this series go down is 1) everyone is force sensitive if they tried hard enough ig and 2) the Jedi were bad!!! Their protocols don’t work! They were mean to my little meow meow Anakin Skywalker the greatest Jedi of all times™️ therefore he got to kill them all!!!!

Got a bit off topic but I’m still so mad that he had this chance to make Ashoka truly experience growth like the first 5 seasons of TCW yet he decided maintaining the badass rebel without a cause aesthetics for her was more important then good story telling.

Honestly though, my main problem with this series is that he decided that apparently everyone in the universe can be force sensitive if they “just tried hard enough”. Like your Midichlorian Count no longer matters since even if you were Force-Null you can still be special!!!!

This takes away any and all urgency in the Jedi Fallen Order games. It makes Cals journey absolutely redundant. It throws away all the tragedy contained in having inquisitors being force sensitive kids kidnapped from their parents and tortured till they give into the dark side. If all beings are able to use the force in his universe then there are no consequences to the inquisitors not finding the Holocron that holds the names to all force sensitive children in the universe. There would be no need to them to chase Cal and the Mantis Crew throughout the universe to obtain what they have. They could’ve just went down to any random level in Coruscant and take homeless Force-Null kids and train them.

Even better! It makes the entirety of the KOTOR games redundant!!!! Oh and I guess the hidden path is also redundant since everyone can be force sensitive and no one truly needs more saving from the empire over others :/ totally not like these kids that were saved by the path would’ve been taken and tortured into inquisitors, definitely not since EVERYONE is force sensitive nowadays or is it just the ones Ashoka trains herself because she’s the “living embodiment of the daughter uwu she’s so special and unique look how well she can train a non force sensitive to be force sensitive!!!”

Everyone in the Star Wars universe has Midichlorian’s in their blood. That is a fact. It is also an established fact that the amount each person has is different and is not determined nor dependent on lineage. Force-Nulls typically range in the 1000-3000 count and you need 7000 to be force sensitive and higher to be accepted into the order. (The order isn’t the end all be all of force cultures, Rouge One shows that Jedha’s force culture isn’t restricted to only force sensitives as the Guardian’s were never specified to be only a religious order of force sensitives. And high canon doesn’t depict many other force cultures but we know that there are many force cultures in the universe that co-exist with the Jedi with which the Jedi weren’t in opposition towards; literally not even the witches of Dathomir were oppositions anywhere outside of the battle fields.) You don’t need to be force sensitive to be part of a force culture (Jedha literally has pilgrims who come far and wide to make a pilgrimage to the holy site and not all of them were force sensitive), Sabine could’ve very easily been taught the tenets of the Jedi without retconning her to be force sensitive or making everyone in the universe force sensitive.

No where in either the EU or High Canon did anyone ever say that you have to be force sensitive to be a badass or to make a difference. Hera did not hold the title of the best pilot in the universe just for some rat of a man to come and say that Anakin was the best because *muh force sensitivity!!!!* Some of the most heroic and most influential (good or bad) people in the franchise are Force-Null! And that’s great! It means that the force doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else! It’s a quirk of the universe! To retcon that everyone can and is force sensitive if they tried hard enough is literally cheapening everything the franchise stands for. Andor did not literally give us an entire story about how Force-Nulls in the Galaxy makes just as much of a difference as force sensitives for felony to come out and say that “you know what??? Midichlorian’s are a scam! You get a force sensitivity! You get a force sensitivity! Everyone gets a force sensitivity!!!!”

Sabine was great as she was in rebels, why cheapen it with “oh she’s actually force sensitive all this time!!!” When we could’ve stuck with badass Force-Null Mandalorian can kick your ass five ways to Sunday with her paint bombs and blasters you force wielding asshole!!! Like why even do that felony. Do you want people to hate her??? Nvm ofc you do, you need Ashoka to be the best in every way possible even if it means ruining every other beloved character in this franchise👍