#because honestly everyone suffers from this mindset

[artificial-ascension]

I saw someone talking about the hatred towards bi lesbians and in the tags they mentioned that bi gay men aren't given near the amount of hatred and I think that boils down to two thing:

1. Women aren't allowed to do anything, as an ex teen age girl I can confirm that no matter what you do as a women you will be judged (ex. Girls who like traditionally girly things are all judged as boring and basic and girls who don't are seen as "not like other girls" and "vying for male attention.)

And 2

Femininity it upheld as the golden standard of purity in alot of circles and therefore being a lesbian also attracted to men is seen as somehow 'tainting' the purity of being a lesbian by likeing icky icky men while on the other hand being a bi gay man would be viewed as the opposite, making up for liking men by being also attracted to good pure women.

And obviously not the case always and not all circles hold up the flawed belief that anything associated with men or masculinity is evil, but I think it's good food for thought and it all boils down to a mix of misogyny and man hating.

[alice-after-dark]

Vox as an Abuse Victim

So here is that massive Vox post I promised, a day late for...reasons. I swear I have been working on this post for days, even before that StaticMoth discourse influx in my inbox.

After making my post about Vox and Angel and reading @deeply-unserious-fellow's post about a similar topic, I thought it might be finally time to make this post. Most people who have seen my content know how I typically portray StaticMoth. I have mixed feelings about Valentino at the best of times and outright dislike him at the worst. But frankly this post isn't actually about him (well, mostly). It's about Vox and why I am really hoping that Viv keeps the angle of Vox being an abuse victim.

TW for domestic abuse, physical violence, implied sexual abuse, abusive relationships, gaslighting/victim-blaming, and other canon-typical triggers. Contain abusive StaticMoth.

Honestly? The primary reason I hope she keeps it is because it would make him an even more complex character and bring attention to a criminally underrepresented group: abuse victims who are also bad people.

As pointed out in the post I tagged above, the world has become obsessed with this idea of a "palatable" victim, the poor suffering cinnamon roll. An abuse victim is expected to look like a victim. You're supposed to instantly feel sorry for them and want to protect them...but that's not so easy when the victim is someone who also hurts people, is it? It's not so easy to pretend they didn't do bad things too...but they are still a victim. That does not change just because they are a bad person. And thus it becomes complicated and interesting. Because it's not so easy to root for the victim when they're also victimizing others, especially when those others are people we care about...like Angel Dust. At the bare minimum, Vox is doing nothing to stop Valentino from abusing Angel or any of his other employees. Having Vox be a victim of the same abuse that Angel Dust suffers (at the hands of the same abuser no less) and yet also being someone who enables Angel's abuse creates a very complicated situation.

In a most media, the discovery of a mean/bad person being abused is frequently portrayed in a "well, they were abused so you can't be mad at them anymore" kind of light. Like "see? They're just an asshole because they were being abused! Now that we know, they're suddenly a good person!" Except that's not how it works. Someone can be a bad person and also be a victim. And even if them being an asshole was the result of their abuse, those behaviors and the consequences of those behaviors don't just vanish. They still hurt people and frankly I would riot if it came out that Vox was being abused by Valentino and then everyone in the show just up and forgave him for being an asshole. Like...no? He would still need to make up for his own shit and actually work towards being a better person. I like this character because he's an unapologetic asshole. If making him a victim takes that away, then that would be such a missed opportunity.

In fact, one thing I find interesting is that I definitely believe that Vox would have no problem admitting to being a bad person, but would rather fight an exorcist alone than admit to being a victim. His ego won't allow for it. He would probably laugh in your face and call you delusional while literally having a broken screen. Because he can't admit it, even to himself. He would see it as a sign of weakness and that's not acceptable to him (side note that being a victim does not make you weak, that's just what Vox's toxic mindset tells him). While I am fairly certain that he would have moved on from most 1950s mindsets since he is all about the future and progress and moving forward, toxic masculinity is still very much a thing today and I can definitely see him embodying it in some aspects, like needing to appear strong and in control at all times (and Hell's power hierarchy definitely encourages this mindset, so...). Fuck, even now in fucking 2024, men still have a hard time being taken seriously as the victims of abuse. Unless of course you fit a certain mold.

Angel Dust is the perfect example of this. He is a palatable male victim. He's effeminate, he's funny, he's friendly, he's caring, and we actively see him miserable in his suffering. Despite being in Hell just like the rest of them and having been a former mafia member and clearly able to stand on his own two feet it combat, his victimhood is constantly on display and the audience wants to protect and save him. On the opposite end, Vox is shown in a position of power that is constantly reinforced. He's an Overlord, he's manipulative, he's cruel, he's greedy, and he enables abusive behavior from others. He is not a palatable victim, which is why it's perfect.

Now let's get into what I believe is the actual evidence that this dynamic could still be present.

Something I see people commonly say is that Vox being abused by Valentino doesn't make sense because why wouldn't Vox just fight back? He could just shock Valentino into next Tuesday? And to these people I kindly say fuck you. Because while physical strength can be a factor in abuse, it is very rarely the thing that keeps the victim from leaving. Abuse, even when physical, is heavily psychological. It's like telling a victim "well, why didn't you just leave?" It's not that easy. Abusers tend to target those with low self-esteem and it's made pretty clear that Vox is a very insecure person (I feel the need to point out that having an ego and having high self-esteem are not the same thing, in fact having a big ego is typically a side effect of very low self-esteem). It's entirely possible that Vox makes the conscious decision not to fight back because he's afraid of what will happen if he does. He's afraid Valentino will leave. We know Valentino is just as mentally and emotionally abusive to those around him as he is physically abusive and we have actively witnessed him playing into Vox's insecurities and mentally messing with him (specifically in the events leading up to "Stayed Gone").

So let's talk about the scene leading up to "Stayed Gone," because I also see Vox's behavior towards Valentino here used as justification for why it's not possible for Valentino to be abusing Vox. Full disclosure, I myself in the past have even thought that it demonstrated them being mutually abusive towards each other, but have since changed my opinion after reading more takes and doing further analysis. Having rewatched this scene many times now, I have some observations.

There's a small moment that always caught my attention when I watched this scene because I wasn't sure what it meant, but looking at it in the context of this post, I think I can see a possibility. When Vox goes to see Valentino, he approaches the doors and they are opened for him by Valentino's servants. Vox pauses in the doorway, glances at them, then continues on inside.

What was the point of this moment? It seems out of place. Surely Vox has gone to Valentino's room before? Surely this door opening thing isn't new? And looking at Vox's face here, he looks...concerned? Like...they might hear what goes on inside? And he maintains that expression even as he enters the room, like he doesn't like that those two are out there and might hear them.

It also makes the entire situation feel so routine. Like Valentino is upset and these girls just expect Vox to show up and take care of it. And the scenes prior to this also sets it up as a normal occurrence. Vox rearranges his entire schedule to deal with Valentino, like he absolutely expects this situation could take up the rest of his day. And Valentino clearly doesn't listen to Velvette in this regard as she had to call Vox to come deal with Valentino despite him wrecking her department. Her comment even further establishes this as normal when she tells Vox that Valentino is "up in his tower, waiting for a flat-faced prince to calm him down." And when Vox arrives? "FUCKING FINALLY!" All of this sets up a standard situation: when Valentino is upset, it is Vox's job to calm him down and make him feel better. Valentino is a full grown adult and yet he has made it someone else's problem to manage his emotions.

Then of course we have the classic moment of Valentino literally throwing his glass at Vox only seconds after Vox has arrived. And this has to have been a conscious decision, because right before that, he throws his first glass on the ground before demanding another. So if he wanted to just break something, he didn't need to throw it at Vox, but he did. And I definitely don't think he cared if Vox got out of the way or not. But how easily Vox moves aside tells us that he fully expected to have things thrown at him and was ready for it. Now, I do believe that Valentino would throw shit at literally anyone when he is mad, but the key here is that Vox, his supposed friend, on-and-off lover, and business partner, is not exempt from this behavior. He even breaks Vox's phone when he realizes Vox is not paying attention to him. He has no qualms breaking Vox's property just to soothe his rage (I would also like to point out that he fucking obliterated that thing; just how hard did he fucking throw it?!).

Something in this scene that did initially throw me as I was writing this is that Vox doesn't seem particularly afraid of Valentino. Not the way we see Angel is when Valentino gets angry. We also see him actively get angry with Valentino, get in his face, and manipulate him. In the past, I believed this behavior from Vox to have established their relationship as mutually abusive. However, after reading yet another post from @deeply-unserious-fellow, I realized that everything Vox does here is only in direct response to Valentino's tantrum.

So let's go through some things here. When Vox initially tries to tell Valentino he can't go to the hotel, Valentino straight up ignores him. Does not respond to Vox's words, completely carries on like he didn't even speak. From this point on, Vox takes an entirely different approach to the situation. He manipulates Valentino into thinking that not shooting up the hotel is his idea and even offers further appeasement in the form of shooting his own employees as a method to satisfy Valentino's temper. I admit to initially viewing this as Vox being abusive, but frankly, when your options are being manipulative or letting your business partner go shoot up a hotel that houses the literal Princess of Hell, yeah, I'd take the manipulation route. Because, as I pointed out above, Vox cannot actually control Valentino. He tries to give him an order and is completely ignored. And even when he does successfully manipulate him, he still has to appease him in some capacity.

Now, there's also something here that is often played for shits and giggles, but I'm taking it 100% seriously right now. Many people point out that Vox's screen gets brighter when he gets in Valentino's face. Valentino is a moth demon and after Vox does this, he seems to be dazed for a moment, enough for Vox to rapidly switch back into manipulator mode and does his thing. It seems to have snapped Valentino out of his rage and I literally can't help but think that Vox has learned this as a defense mechanism. Valentino can't see very well, so it's very likely Vox's hypnotism doesn't work on him, so Vox had to find other ways of manipulating him and calming him down when he's in one of his rages.

Something I also want to point out is that it is made very clear through a single solitary moment that Valentino is in no way afraid of Vox. When he tells Vox about Alastor, Vox screams in his face, manhandles him, and Valentino just...pushes him off and saunters away, grinning like the cat that caught the canary. He doesn't even look upset or concerned when Vox grabs him. He just...laughs it off...like he knows Vox won't actually hurt him. Because I genuinely think Vox won't. Later in the episode, we hear Valentino's voicemails to Angel Dust and how he's emotionally manipulating him, telling him he can't really get better. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he's given Vox a similar treatment, especially considering that it's obvious Valentino knew what kind of reaction he would get out of Vox by bringing up Alastor. And sure, he brushes it off with a kink joke, but in all seriousness, why did Valentino keep Alastor's return from Vox? We know Angel has been at the hotel for a little while and Alastor has been involved with it as of a week prior to the beginning of season 1, so why suddenly bring it up? It's almost like he was specifically holding onto this information, waiting for the perfect time to use it that would be the most beneficial to him.

There's also another little scene that always caught my attention. It's when Valentino is getting pissed about the shadow construct that Angel Dust is flirting with.

Valentino starts getting pissy again, demands Vox's attention, gets annoyed when he doesn't get it, then immediately switches to mocking and confident when Vox starts bitching about Alastor. Like...he's so fucking proud of himself for getting Vox all worked up over Alastor. Like it's some kind of game for him. Riling Vox up and messing with his emotions is fun for Valentino. Alastor dredges up some real shit for Vox and Valentino exploits it. And from here on, he just keeps egging him on. Now, I'm pretty sure "Stayed Gone" would have happened with or without Valentino, but the point here is that he is definitely playing with Vox's emotions here.

As for the not being afraid aspect, again, Valentino hasn't actually threatened him with something that truly scares him. I don't think he's afraid of what Valentino could physically do to him. It's more likely to make him mad than anything else, even if he doesn't fight back (he'll probably go take out his anger on someone else). The thing about Vox is that we see that he does not like to appear weak in any capacity and I think this extends well into his own psyche. If he admits, even to himself, that he's a victim...to him, that's admitting weakness and he just can't do that. So Valentino's not abusing him, they just had a fight. He didn't hit back because he's in control of himself and he knows he could totally toast Valentino. It's Vox's own fault for pushing his buttons when he knew Valentino was mad. It wasn't rape cause he never said "no".

TLDR: Vox can be both an asshole and an abuse victim and it would be a really interesting aspect to his character as long as the show does it right and doesn't scrap his assholeness to make him a more palatable victim. Show him being a victim and also victimizing others. Show him not wanting to accept that he has been abused. LET PEOPLE BE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH FEELING SORRY FOR HIM.

(that's all for now, I have literally been working on this post for days and I'm exhausted)

[winns-stuff]

LO RANT:

TRIGGER WARNING: SA

Okay I’m back again and it’s only to say this.. The comments on the new fastpass are genuinely disgusting. I don’t care how you put it or feel about both characters it’s absolutely deranged to ship or want a redemption arc for a rapist, maybe I’m being too harsh but I can’t find soft words to use for this. The fact that there’s so many people girlbossing this entire situation as a “I got the entire lineage on my shoulders!!! I slept with the brothers and the father!!!!” thing is weird to me because these fans are all missing the point of Hera’s entire story and it makes no sense that as I’m ALWAYS saying these fans are quite literally shipping rapists with their victims when the entire point of Lore Olympus was to shed light and bring awareness to Sexual Assault that is not violent or gruesome in physical action.

And we all know why this is happening, Rachel doesn’t know how to properly handle this situation and it’s clear that that’s how this is coming across to her fans. They don’t see this as a rape survivor story they see this as another dark romance since she doesn’t bother on actually addressing the assault in a respectful and dignified way, every single time she adds another sexual assault in her story she’s always glamorizing it or diminishing it whenever she gets tired of writing about it and it’s infuriating. Your fans should know better than to ship victims with their abusers and you wanna know why? Because you pride your comic on healthy relationships and mental health talks, you use the sexual assault as some kind of badge to show everyone that you know what you’re talking about when it’s clear that you will abandon all real representation of a situation that affects millions of people around the world just for crappy fan service.

Lore Olympus fans are groomed to dismiss these arcs since they’re not even treated like they’re serious and it doesn’t seem like Rachel takes it serious as well, she’s never taken any advice from survivors who aren’t pleased with how she portrays SA and she completely ignores the feelings of those truly affected by the traumatic events that she shoves into her webcomic just so it’ll stay “interesting”. I’m tired of Rachel getting away with drawing absolute trauma porn and I’m sick of her sexualizing every single woman we come across, how many times do we have to continue this long and excruciating pattern of giving the women of your comic terrible consequences and make them suffer just for drama and nothing else. How many other situations are you willing to completely spit on just to look self aware?

This is honestly the last straw because there’s been so many people genuinely shipping Hera and Kronos and also saying borderline disgusting things just to defend stuff like that. Rachel needs to say something, you cannot just sit back and be quiet while your fans openly admit to wanting to see a rapist and his victim together for the sake of your own comic and “beloved” main character hell even for a lot of your fans you need to speak up about this and address it letting a mindset like that fester in a fandom probably filled with survivors of assault is a disservice to them and it’s a slap in the face to the comfort that your webtoon gave them.

[mult1verse]

I need advice about manifesting with difficult circumstances

I don't know if anyone is going to read this but thanks to everyone who does.

So first of all, I want to start by saying that I have read everything there is to read about LOA and especially manifesting when you're going through difficult things. I pretty much know the basics, knowing that you must have faith in your power, knowing you are god, living in the end and accepting you already have your dream life, not having conflicting thoughts about your desires, affirming and persisting, etc.

And the thing is I DO BELIEVE in manifestation because it has worked for me in the past. Through loa I was able to get physical changes, lost a lot of weight and changed my face. So I know changing big things are possible.

And I don't intend to trauma dump on a bunch of Internet strangers but my brother died last month from heart failure. He was only 21 years old. And I hate to make it about me, but the grief and seeing my family suffer obviously makes it really hard to stay positive. This is where my question about manifesting with difficult circumstances comes in. Honestly this feels like the universe telling me "you are not a god, you can't control everything". I feel especially guilty because I used to have a subliminal for sibling's health and maybe I wasn't consistent enough with it.

Since this happened everything around my house is sad, which is understandble because I can't even imagine the pain my parents are feeling. But how am I supposed to have an optimistic mindset around this? How am I supposed to be like "why am I so lucky and why is my life so perfect"? Some people tell me to wait some time but I don't think my family will feel any better soon.

And I don't want to do something crazy like shifting to a timeline where he is alive or going back in time, no hate to people who do that but for me that's too extreme. And also I have 1 year left of university to start working and help my parents, so in the meantime I want to manifest my parents having a better job and better health so at least they don't have to struggle with that when they're grieving, I also want us to stop fighting and arguing all the time because that certainly makes things worse. but how can I help them when they have a negative mindset and are hopeless? Access to therapy is not something we can afford right now.

Anyways, sorry if this is too negative. I'm going to tag a bunch of blogs that have talked about negative circumstances before so I don't have to send this to multiple people's ask box. I hope that's okay with y'all. @eamour @cosmicdream222 @dream4jk @valeriasdream @lotusmi @lains-reality @jellyrabbitz @therealitysculptor @sexydreamgirl @charmedreincarnation @mrspotatoheads @gildedmorrow @dreamlifebunny @sagelasters

[theloganator101]

The Great BNHA Review: Potential

So I'm actually gonna be splitting this into four parts and then one more wrapping up how I feel about the ending and the overall series. The topics I'm going to talk about are the following.

The potential the characters had and how Hori squandered them.

The world they live in and how things are done in society, only for nothing to really change in the end and for things to not make sense.

The morals and messages it tries to convey.

And then (REDACTED).

Anyways, let's get going with Potential.

With a cast of characters as interesting looking as they were and the glimpses of personality we saw, like Jiro thinking she has to choose between being a hero or a musician, or Shoji and mutant discrimination. You would think that with how interesting the class looks, that they would get some role in the story or their own respective arcs to expand on their characters.

Except that's not what happened.

The main focus most of the time either falls on Izuku, Bakugou, Shoto, and sometimes Ochako. So that's four out of twenty students that gets the spotlight while everyone else is regulated to minor characters who are only brought in to fights.

Which is honestly kind of disappointing because many of them look to have stories waiting to be told and can be good characters! Because I wanna learn more about Sero, I wanna learn more about Hagakure, I wanna learn more about Shoji. But now that the manga's over, that's not gonna be possible.

This is especially terrible since in the final war arc half of the fight is just fucking flashbacks to expand on some of the characters fighting when it should've been something covered earlier in the manga instead of hyping Bakugou up. It all just feels too little too late and makes things cluttered and unorganized.

And then we have the villains.

They were kind of cool when they got introduced and had a lot of potential to challenge the heroes. To really make them open their eyes to how flawed their society is and why it needs to change. They could each have an upbringing that brought them to where they are now and why they wanna join to make a difference. They could be some compelling and intriguing antagonists for the heroes to face.

... Except we don't get any of that.

What really hurts the villains in this series is how Hori tends to flip flop between making them sympathetic and their heroic counterparts wanting to save them, and making them so cartoonishly evil that the villains from the POWERPUFF GIRLS comes off as more compelling compared to them!

And it's like... pick one or the other Hori! Either they're victims of society or they're just irredeemable! And what sucks the most about this is that they HAD something going on! They could've rise from losing AFO and promise to make a change for the better! The My Villain Academia part shows how this was possible!

But instead they ended not in a bang... but a whimper. they all pretty much died in the end or confirmed to the very society that hurt them so what was the point of trying to redeeming them?

Then finally... we have the main character himself. Izuku Midoriya.

Oh how Hori utterly failed you...

You started off so promising in the first two episodes, You could've been a quirkless hero to make the message of anyone can be a hero really have an impact. You could've rose from your pain and suffering and show everyone what you can really do.

But sadly that's not what happened. You were given a quirk that hurts you, nobody really helps you with it, you're forced to work with your bully and never grow out of the mindset that he's awesome, every adult you associate with has failed you in some way, you're forced to distance yourself from your friends so Hori can have his Cash Cow Triplets, you're never really challenged in any unique way other than "just punch your problems away", and ultimate... you just became a watered down version of what you started off as with no introspection whatsoever.

I have never seen a character so stagnate in their arc and development in such a series before, only beaten recently by Vaggie in terms of just never growing or learning anything else.

Izuku really deserves to be in a story with an author that can utilize his potential to the fullest and give him the love and attention he deserves, because this series and Hori just wasn't it.

As for the Pro Heroes, they really were nothing in the end. All they can summed up as them just saying.

"Our society is bad, it's up to the next generation to make things better in the future. We need these teenagers to fight in wars because only they stand a chance compared to us bumbling adults!"

That's all that I get from them.

Stay tuned for next post where we'll look into society and how it's flawed, and what the characters do to change (not really) any of it.

[neotriobrainrot-reborn]

I've heard some stuff about Peni being closer to her comic iteration now, but what I find more interesting is her being lead into that direction, and the end of ATSV, her straying from that direction.

Think about it! The first time we her in the movie is her tired, depressed, and beaten down by the world around her. She was made to just accept that her trauma was just a necessary step to maintain canon and that it was simply something that had to happen. She simply had to suffer & stay in line to what canon had predetermined for her, just like everyone else

But spider society, and by extension, she herself was wrong. Miles very existence & the fact that he is spiderman proves Miguel wrong, everything in ITSV proves him wrong, and Miles having a positive influence on the entire spider groups lives proves Miguel wrong. Ironically in the first movie, despite the fact that Miles was never supposed to be spiderman, he was the one that stopped the collider and saved the multiverse.

Miguel view of canon is wrong because even ignoring everything I just said, the Spot isn't gonna stop if he kills Miles father. He's not gonna stop until either something is done about him, or the entire multiverse is ripped to shreds. Miguel and his followers plan on doing nothing and letting his father die for practically nothing, which goes against everything Spiderman stands for, that you shouldn't just stand around and do nothing. Despite Miguel technically being the closest to a spider due to weird experiment stuff and Miles being an anomaly, Miles embodies what it means to be Spiderman better than Miguel

Honestly, I will say that Miguel had gotten the closest to nearly killing the idea of Spiderman

And to get back to Peni, I think she, along with others, realized this. That being put through constant grief all for some canon that Miguel has flimsy proof on at best, is all for nothing. That she had abandoned her friend for nothing. They were vulnerable & racked with grief enough that they were practically manipulated into thinking that their pain & suffering, and by extension, other's pain & suffering, was something that had to happen and they just needed to suck it up, get over it, and stand by to let other Spiderman suffer for the greater good.

Which back to my point, is why I actually like the interpretation of her being lead to fill in her comic book self by the nature of the Spider Society, and being strayed away from that and snapped out of that mindset that needlessly suffering will somehow help others more. That the symbol of Spiderman revolved around endlessly suffering for no reason, even if it did nothing to help anyone. I believe that after the chase scene, she had to process that Miles "had" to suffer for no reason, and had to challenge the notion of what canon events even were and how Miguel's understanding of the concept falls apart like wet paper.

And by doing that, Peni broke away from what canon told her she had to be, and by extension, became something unique to herself away from her comic book iteration.

Peni, along with others, had learned that it's not what canon tells you that dictates your worth and value as a Spiderman, it's you and you alone

And she decided to embrace herself with a smile on her face

I love analyzing stuff! Please let me know your thoughts of this. I am open to constructive criticism. I just needed to word everything running in my brain!

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

Rant on Kestrel and Kestrel Apologists:

TW: Child abuse, Abuse Apologism, and angry controversial ranting.

Kestrel is one of the most easily hateable characters and is a IRREDEEMABLE dragon.

She is literally a CHILD ABUSER. She physically and verbally ABUSED the DoD. She also let and even used her strong>weak favoritism, racism, and ableism from her strong>weak mindset towards Sunny affect the way she abused the DoD.

She also literally abused the DoD since they were TODDLERS, which is revealed within the book Dragonslayer, since Sky, who was around 1 year old - who’s currently eight years old - saw Kestrel HIT the DOD because they were playing, like any child would do, with Glory showing signs that Kestrel was abusing her the most - who are currently now 7. This means that she started to abuse the DOD where they LESS THAN 1 years old - just as, or even younger than the currently age of CLIFF, who’s nine months old!

🔥There is literal PROOF that Kestrel physically and verbally abused the DoD on the wiki AND within the books.🔥

I also want to remind people that in the prologue of The Dragonet Prophecy, when the Skywing egg died, instead of suggesting to give the remaining eggs to dragons within the Talons of Peace that actually want to be parents and/or raise the dragonets themselves - she literally wanted SMASH the DoD eggs - KILLING them instead!!

And within the prologue of TDP as well, she stated that she literally didn’t care how she affected the dragonets, as long as she raised them to be within the prophecy.

Kestrel NEVER cared for the DoD. She CHOSE to abuse them. The only reason why she tried to save them from Scarlet and appeared to Morrowseer in the epilogue was because it was her JOB. Nothing else, especially since she stated HERSELF somewhere within a main part of the first book that she literally didn’t care about them.

So when I see the majority of the fandom - or at the very least, the fandom on Youtube and some parts of the WoF wiki - is sympathizing over hating Kestrel, I honestly don’t get or like it at all, what-so-ever.

And when I hear some people say things about Kestrel that are somewhat similar to THIS:

“Yes, she abused those kids, but it was because she was grieving the death of her own kids!”

“She did abuse them, but she was just doing so because of the death of her children.”

or even

“She wasn’t abusing them, it was a form of tough love!”

It makes my literal blood BOIL.

Because while defending a fictional character’s abusive actions is much, MUCH different than defending abusive actions of a person in real life - let alone child abuse -

Defending actions like these is still indirectly connected, regardless whether it is fictional or not, due to the fact that child abuse is a literal thing happens to people in Real. Fucking. Life. Like - to this very damn day. Especially since these excuses towards child abuse like this are even used to excuse real people literally being or was abused as kids as well.

Grief is NOT an excuse to abuse literal children. NOTHING IS!!! Abuse is a CHOICE - regardless of how people were raised, or even by how mentally impaired they are. It explains it, but does NOT excuse it. EVER.

There are literal dragons within Wings of Fire - and literal people IRL even - who suffered through MORE grief and/or trauma in the past than Kestrel, that, despite it, we’re still better dragons in the end. Like GILL, for example, who lost not one, not two, but TWELVE of his daughters. And despite this, he was STILL a good dragon who cared a LOT about his subjects and sons, and tried his best to stop the literal war that happening within pyrrhia - in order for ALL dragons to live in peace - and even created a protest within Scarlet’s arena in order for EVERYONE to NOT be forced to battle each other to death for a horrible and iconic villain for her own joy and amusement.

*Sigh* I am SO sorry for making this angry, probably hateful, and VERY long rant. This was something that was bothering me for MONTHS on end, and wanted to let it out so people can know my view about Kestrel and the way she’s treated within the fandom, although this is probably a improper and bad way to do it.

I am NOT saying people shouldn’t like Kestrel as a character, or even as a dragon, for how awful she is. I’m also NOT saying people shouldn’t feel bad for what happened her either, because what did happen to her, was, indeed, downright AWFUL. Feeling things like this about her is ok!

However, it’s one thing to like a character for how awful they are and feeling bad for what happened them-

than literally EXCUSING and even JUSTIFYING her literal abuse towards literal dragon CHILDREN because of how bad you feel about and/or how intensely you sympathize her.

So yeah - In conclusion: Kestrel one of the most easily hateable characters and is an irredeemable child abuser, who physically and verbally abused the DoD since they were the age of toddlers. She also never cared for them, and only attempted to save them because it was her job. People also shouldn’t justify or excuse Kestrel’s behavior as well, since it unintentionally and/or indirectly defends the same type of abuse that is currently affecting people IRL. And while yes, you can like her character and feel bad for her, you should NOT justify her actions towards the DOD at all. WHAT-SO-EVER.

Anon also left some evidence. I put some of it below:

Abuse Against Glory

Abuse against Clay

Abuse Against Starflight

Abuse Against Everyone

[theculturedmarxist]

I like how libs, mostly white cishets, talk about how trump is worse than Biden while using every minority under the sun as their scapegoat victim. "oh but gay people will suffer worse under trump" "oh but minorities will suffer worse under trump" "oh but disabled people will will suffer worse under trump" instead of asking the people they seem to be "fighting" for what they think. And the smugness too thinking they figured it out and how they are the main smart person that has figured it out and everyone around them is stupid. I honestly do hope trump wins and is as horrible as they say he will be they really deserve it. Oh and this coming from someone who is gay, a minority, and disabled, Biden has materially been worse than trump has been. If the vote blue maga people want to do something useful they should kill themselves

I like how libs, mostly white cishets

I think the problem is less their physical identity and more that they're comfortable petite bourgeois/Professional-Managerial Class types. For them, Trump is worse than Biden. While the PMC isn't exclusive to the Democratic Party, that's where you'll find that they predominate. They're the same people that are saying "what do you expect me to do, NOT work at Raytheon?"

Minorities, the disabled, etc, sure, they care about them, but only insofar as they care about themselves as a part of that group. This mindset is fixed in their heads even if only subconsciously because their own position requires exploiting all those identities as they exist in the working class. Sure, they care about the quality of life of their paraplegic employees, but they'd damn well better clock in on time.

The promise of the Democratic Party is that its members aren't supposed to be touched by the same miseries as the hoi polloi. Their credentials mark them out as a better sort of person. They're smarter, they worked harder, they earned it. They don't really have a problem with the GOP preying on people, they have a problem with the GOP preying on them. Just take this leaking dickhole as an example:

It's fine to talk shit about Biden! 😌 But you still better vote for him🤬

The problem isn't that Trump is deporting people. Biden's busy doing that very fucking thing, after all. No, the problem is that now the wrong people might be deported! This is so much worse than when regular brown illegals get imprisoned and deported en masse.

You can take the right to abortion as another example. Trump's plan is to let the states figure it out for themselves. Well, it turns out that's the Democrat plan too. The Democrats and the PMC aren't really concerned about abortion because their class position basically guarantees they'll be able to get it. They live in states where its protected, or they have the money to take care of the problem some other way if the need arises. It's an abstract problem for them. Their only real fear is if that suddenly isn't the case, that they would face the real problems of regular people. That's the terror and threat of Trump to them, not that he'll commit genocide like Biden is, but that their ass might be the one in the fire this time, which of course makes Trump "worse."

[celestiall0tus]

Abuse is Abuse. Stop blaming the victims and glorifying the abusers!

This needs to be said for such a long time. All across media we see abuse glorified, its victims blamed, and the abusers getting a slap on the wrist more often than not. Especially in recent times. Buckle up because we're in for a ride.

Right off the bat, I have an inkling of what I'm talking about. I suffered from mental and emotional abuse for my entire childhood and teen years. My early 20s were full of strife as I tried to cope with that realized trauma and the fucking shit storm that became our world. So, from an abuse victim and an individual who suffers terrible anxiety and depression, I want to touch on these characters and our perceptions of them.

Pink Diamond

The biggest one I want to address is Pink Diamond. Yes, Pink Diamond/ Rose Quartz. This will always be my personal sore sport because Pink was a victim. She was a child in mindset and actions among the other Diamonds. She was raised by them and thus absorbed all their ways. She was treated more like a jester to entertain the other diamonds and locked away when she wreaked havoc, possibly even bubbled for times. She wasn't treated like the other Diamonds, like what she was supposed to be. She was less than that and powerless to be herself. She had to go through with what they said and didn't have her own autonomy in that degree. She had to fit into a mold that she wasn't meant to fit into.

And honestly, Pink is the strongest of all the victims I'll be touching on. The hardest thing isn't acknowledging the abuse or seeking help, it's breaking free. I haven't even done that part, not fully. But Pink did. She rebelled. She fought against the other Diamonds for what she wanted and believed in. She saw the truth and took a stand. She grew. She changed. She moved on. Despite being a gem, she was the most human of all the cast. And yet we ignore everything because of the decisions she made that impacted everyone around her.

All her followers were corrupted. Pearl was sworn to silence because of a simple order. Steven had to deal with her baggage. And, I'll be fair, it's ass, but not entirely her fault. In life, we can't say what will happen. We often need to roll with the punches and work with what we know at the time. Pink didn't know how the Diamonds would react to her "shattering" because while they claimed to "love" her, what reason would she have to believe it? For Pearl and Steven for that matter, Rose thought the Diamonds were done with Earth. She thought she was free. She never intended Steven to have to deal with her baggage since she thought it was all done and over with. In all of FIVE THOUSAND YEARS, the Diamonds never came for them. She likely thought they were all safe and could live peacefully. They'd never have to look back. She'd never have to look back. Her past wouldn't hold her back. She could finally be free to be herself.

I truly find it appalling that she is damned for this. She broke free. She made mistakes but took a stand. She fought for her own freedom. She didn't have to have her past hold her back anymore, but she's the villain. It's her fault for everything. She should have just been a good little Diamond and stayed fucking put, right? Who cares what she did as Rose Quartz was for the good when Pink Diamond was the incarnate of evil, right? The one thing that I will give a little flack on is Spinel. That was upsetting and she did act rashly telling Spinel to stay when she could have brought Spinel with her, but I understand why she didn't since she wanted to be taken seriously at the time.

Pink deserved so much more than what she got. Pink was a victim, but in the end, they made her out to be the monster.

Miraculous

I want to cover Miraculous as a whole as there are many different types of abuse that go on within this show that are typically swept under the rug unless it comes to truly "irredeemable" characters. So, let's start this:

The Bourgeois Family: This is such a messy ass family. Chloe is outright blamed for the abuse that she suffers from having shitty ass fucking parents. Audrey we know is no saint. She is literally the girlboss businesswoman that ain't got time for her family. Andre is slightly better, but still instilled negative morals in Chloe and while recognizing it in himself, failed to see what he did to Chloe as his fault. Instead, Chloe is seen as the problem to everything. That she just picked up on those habits and sought to make people miserable as a result. Chloe is a victim, but also an abuser. She projects how she's treated onto others as a coping mechanism and a catharsis. Zoe might be a victim because who knows exactly what Audrey did, but she does seem rather well adjusted, so I don't know. Clarity on Zoe: I don't think she's an abuser, I moreso touched on her being abused having lived with Audrey, but it throws me off as she's very well adjusted, so it makes me think that her father was a good one or, just as likely, Audrey had very little involvement in Zoe's upbringing.

The Fathom Family: This is... interesting. So, we see how Felix saw Colt and that yes, Colt abused Felix. That was addressed, though Amelie does enable Felix a little and was a little blind to the horrible acts that Felix had committed. So, no big thing on the Fathoms, but it's still there, but was acknowledged.

The Agreste Family: Holy fuck, someone call CPS, because this boy needs to get out of there. Gabriel very obviously hits every single key points of an abuser. Nathalie does enable the abuse a little in the start, but at the same time, she kinda needs a job. And the money must be good enough and add to boot she can live there too. I also don't appreciate how there are times where Adrien reacts in a way you'd expect a victim of abuse to react, but gets damned for it. Like in the New York special when he fucks up and Ladybug yells at him, he would give up his Miraculous because he feels like absolute shit and horrible for failing. Or agreeing with his father that he should have never gone there? These are all symptoms of abuse and yet he's damned for those moments. He is a fucking victim like Chloe.

The Tsurugi Family: Can someone say, helicopter parent? Now, this in of itself is a kinda thing? I believe? I know it's something of stereotype that Asian parents can be overbearing and overprotective. Kinda like Ming from Turning Red, which was pulled from the director's own experiences growing up. So, this is a little hard to judge. It is still abuse no matter how you paint it, but again, I don't feel like I'm the best person to talk about it. So, I'm going to leave this one here.

Marinette: I hate to add fuel to the fire, but here we go. Marinette is a stalking. Stalking. Is. Abuse! I don't care how much the show paints it as a joke, it isn't. A lot of us know this, but I want to stress that stalking is a form of abuse. And it's honestly terrifying that Adrien falls in love with his Yandere (she is, fight me) stalker. I get that she was a victim of bullying, but like, we get one episode on this trauma because of Kim (more thanks to Chloe) but how is the result stalking? I get wanting to know everything about a person before really considering them as a partner, but how does that equal stalking? It's just deeply unsettling and I cannot personally justify shipping Adrienette due to this.

Chloe: I have to fair, Chloe, despite being a victim, is also an abuser. Bullying is never right. And in that same episode we see Marinette's trauma, we see the hell that Chloe put Marinette through. I don't fucking care what baggage you carry, that shit ain't right in any sense. I was honestly appalled by how far Chloe went to isolate, alienate, and torture Marinette. Like, holy fuck, how is Marinette not more of a mess? Like Marinette, a victim can become an abuser.

The only one in Miraculous that gets something of a punishment is Chloe, which is upsetting. Marinette gets the boy she's been stalking. Felix and Andre get a half-assed redemption. Audrey and Tomoe don't change. Zoe exists. Gabriel gets his wish and rewrites reality. Nathalie is Nathalie.

Elsa

Say what you want, but Elsa was a victim of abuse. She locked away, told to hide her powers, to constantly: conceal, don't feel, don't let it show. She suffered from terrible anxiety and depression due to her powers and the danger they possessed. I mean, she did almost accidentally kill her sister when they were kids.

Say what you will about material made outside the movie, but I did read the Dangerous Secrets book that goes into Elsa's parents backstory. We do get to see them struggle to keep her powers a secret from the town since tensions were still high and the people didn't trust magic. And having the heir to the throne born with magic is very dangerous. It touches on their struggle to raise Elsa, keep her secret, and how it nearly tore the family apart. They searched for years for answers to help their daughter while Agnarr raised her how he was.

This I can find a little excusable. There is no manual to raise children. We kinda have to pull from our own experiences of what to do and not do. Agnarr lost his father at a young age and was king at a young age. He carried his father's mantra of "conceal, don't feel, don't let it show" with him and it genuinely helped him where it damned Elsa.

To that degree, I can forgive Agnarr and Iduna seeing their side of things. They genuinely tried, had no fucking clue what they were doing, and were put between a rock and a hard place. However, the means don't justify the ends and Elsa was damned for the type of abuse she suffered.

So, it really is no wonder why Elsa's first instinct is to run. It's to hide away. To isolate herself as she always had been. She's safer, and everyone else for that matter, if she's kept far away from them. It's why Let it Go is such a cathartic song. She is free (though still chained). She doesn't have to worry about them (not knowing what she did.) She is queen of her own kingdom (even if she abandoned her old one). She was free, but to a point. Her arc doesn't come to some completion until the second movie with Show Yourself. The line "You're the one you've been waiting for," is absolutely true and heartbreaking. That was the moment that Elsa was finally free.

Cinderella

Last one and one of the biggest ones. This irks me a lot. Especially the Disney one. Cinderella was abused for years, humiliated, and isolated. Forced to be a maid in her own household. And yet she's to blame? I'm sorry, how?

How was any of that her fault? She was trapped in a terrible situation with no where to go. Don't forget, she was a child when that happened so there are years of conditioning and abuse. Even through it all, Cinderella was kind, loving, and bold. She never gave up until the moment she could have a dream come true, to go to the ball, only to have it destroyed by her stepfamily.

And, what? We blame her for not saving herself and neededing a man to do it? First of all, you're giving that bitch boy too much credit. He provided an escape, but he didn't save her. In all honesty, you should be giving credit to the mice and birds. They really saved Cinderella, who then saved herself when she presented her other slipper. And so what if she needed help? Breaking free from an abuser is the hardest thing to do and I've met only a handful of people that freed themselves. A lot of people usually need help. So, fuck off she should have saved herself. Fuck off she should have been strong enough to break free. Abuse is abuse. And when you suffer that shit from fucking childhood, that is deeply ingrained in your subconscious. You are fucked for life. And if you weren't, here's a cookie.

Abuse is abuse. We offer redemption to the abusers, but condemn the abused in the process. We need to break this cycle and it starts with us. Writers and artists, it's our job to break these cycles. To create pieces that are true expressions of our experiences and the truths behind them. Adding a touch of reality that the older generation are trying to blind us and gaslight us for. It starts with all of us.

This has been a L0tus talk. Have a lovely day.

[florsial]

any thoughts on walburga? 🤗

Ask was so exciting I had to properly get ready for the day just so I could answer while eating breakfast. Thank you <3

Anyways! I'm sorry but so much of her thoughts just stem from her relationship to Sirius and Regulus. IM SO SORRYYYY

I feel like I should clarify. I'm not, in anyway universe, going to defend her.

The most important thing to me is that I believe the entire Black family did love each other, but they were all fucked over as kids so it never translated properly to the next generation. I definitely think a major cause of Walburga and her relationship with her children stems from postpartum depression that just never got talked about within the family. And I don't think she ever felt forced into her marriage, I think out of everyone in the family, she and Orion got along best (best: they weren't actively trying to do damage to each other). There was kind of an understanding between them that leads to them ignoring each other more so than yk screaming and hurting each other. I do believe it was because they were the closest related ones that were married.

I think with Sirius, it was a feeling of, "Well this doesn't feel as nice as I thought" and she just wasn't given a chance to properly bond before he was sent to China to live with Orion's parents. I do believe she tried, but by the time he was heading into Hogwarts, she just couldn't be around him without being frustrated at everything he was doing, his voice was annoying, and every time he did something there was always the thought of "The audacity of him" and all those feelings leaked into her lessons she would have to teach him which lead to there being more pressure placed in Sirius. But he's her son so she's always going to have this: "I love you, but I don't like you" mindset with him. Walburga would die for Sirius if she could, but she would never talk to Sirius without berating him and harming him in some way. Even in canon, she was pretty sad about him leaving so there was some love between them, it just got fucked over.

Unlike with Sirius, she had Regulus for a little longer before he was taken to China, so there was a bit of a relationship that was formed. Regulus is her golden child. I think in a trans-Regulus situation, there is a sense of "Someone just like me" from Walburga and she loves him for it. But in a cis Regulus situation, I definitely think it would be like a "mama's boy" type of thing where she kinda projects her "ideal husband" onto him (aka emotional incest) (it's disgusting but I can't unsee it honestly). Either way, Walburga would be so much more open to Regulus and there would definitely be an emotional parentification situation which plays into why Regulus wouldn't want to leave the family for the longest time. She was always so much sweeter to Regulus because he listened to her and he made the effort to not fight back against anything because, to Regulus, Walburga was suffering from loneliness, she was lonely and miserable, and her childhood was a mess on it own (once again generational trauma). She makes it clear that she does love both Sirius and Regulus, but only Regulus would've ever hear it. And from Regulus' neglected mind, love would be a good excuse for everything and anything.

She and Orion were never physically abusive. Just neglectful and scary when angry (but her actions are balanced out in Regulus' head). She had a hard time expressing herself, which was why it's so important to Regulus when she does talk. She's lonely. She's a horrible mother but loves her children. She misses her brothers but hates how Cygnus has turned into their father and how Alphard didn't give two shits about their family (not true, he just knew when something was a lost cause) (I like to think Walburga and Alphard parallel Sirius and Regulus a lot). She had a chance to break the cycle but didn't and it'll haunt her for the rest of her days. She'll spend the rest of her life in Grimmauld wondering what went wrong while ignoring the clear answer. She'll take her last breath and feel robbed of her happy ending and the fruits of her suffering. Also, I do want to add: that she's fully aware she's a terrible mother. It's a highlight of what makes her a terrible person, she's fully aware and doesn't change!

Also, she's definitely the type of mother to brush her kid's hair so far back, slick with no gel type of thing with those painful ass hair ties that have charms on the ends that you would wrap around the ponytail and smack your nails so HARD ITS FUCKING HURTS OMG. I just know when she was doing Regulus and Sirius' hair they were crying out on the inside.

[turniplemonade]

i feel like people just don’t get heart break high in the way they’re supposed to? idk like i see people reducing a lot of characters down to single things. i came into s2 expecting certain characters to be evil or horribly annoying because that’s what everyone was saying. for example rowan, sasha or zoe but honestly they didn’t meet any of those expectations for me personally.

yes sasha has some problems and is extremely overcompensating in her attempt to be inclusive and progressive but i feel like this is just something she will learn how to be better at with age? i mean she is a caricature of a chronically online twitter user but i really don’t think anything she did was bad enough for her actress to get that much hate. she definitely needs to learn from her mistakes and get out of her current mindset. especially in how she treated quinni in s1

zoe was not that annoying really. she had opposing opinions to the main cast and was a little rude but i couldn’t care less honestly and also because she’s the ONLY plus size character it really makes me wonder why she is getting so much backlash🙄. i don’t think anything she did is that much worse than some of the fuck ups the main group do.

i see a lot of takes that rowan is “psycho” and that he was just using malakai to get back at amerie and yea we don’t know his motives for sure but it is a really negative view point for a character that’s been canonically proven to suffer from heavy grief and mental illness. he was seeing the world skewed and eventually did realise amerie isn’t to blame for the death of his brother. i don’t think he ever intended to let her and harper die. you could see that he was caught up in his emotions and needed talking down and serious help. i’m not excusing him leaving the birds for amerie but i think his character needs to be treated with empathy and understanding.

i think what amerie said at the end when she was talking to rowan sums it up. they’re just teenagers and a lot of bad things have happened to them. sorry this silly/sometimes serious aussie show has consumed my thoughts

[yandere-daze]

Congrats on reaching 2k! You absolutley deserve it :D

Could I request a Shu and Mika headcanon on how they would try and make the reader forgive them in the imposter self aware au?

Thank you! I assume you probably just made a typo and put 2 instead of 3 there jfsn

And yes, I´m always happy to write for Valkyire, you know me too well ☺️

gn reader

tw yandere, obsession, mention of bad previous treatment of the reader, mention of murder, self-deprecation ( Mika), self-dollification ( Mika), mention of verbal abuse, unhealthy mindsets ( both), overworking ( Shu)

How would Mika try to make the player forgive him in the imposter self-aware AU?

With how far Mika is willing to go for the people he loves, he was probably pretty nasty to you when you first were transported into the game and everyone thought that you were responsible for the disappearance of their beloved player.

Mika gets attached so easily to the point that it´s kind of scary so that obviously means he´s also super obsessed with the player, who spends so much time taking care of him and looking out for him. He´s so starved for love that he soaked up every little bit of attention he was getting from the player, even if he didn´t feel worthy of it

But then one day, the player simply left him and you appeared instead? Mika wouldn´t call himself the smartest person out there but he can figure out just fine that you must be responsible and it´s an understatement when I say that he isn´t very pleased

Honestly? Good for you for even surviving because there´s no doubt in my mind that Mika would resort to killing you out of anger and desperation because you´re the “reason” the player left him

Other than that very extreme scenario he also isn´t all that nice to you, which is kind of rare to see from him. But how can he be nice to someone like you that took away the most important person in his life? How dare you?!

Which is exactly why he´s shell-shocked when he finally finds out that you actually are the player and he´s been so cruel to you all this time. Immediately gets on his knees and bows his head while breaking out into sobs, apologizing profusely for treating you so cruelly and saying all of these mean things as he clings to your legs

He truly is so sorry! How can he ever make up for this grave mistake?

Honestly almost throws in the towel at first as he doesn´t think that there is any way to make up for what he did. From the very beginning, he already believed that he wasn´t worthy of being in your presence, of receiving your kindness and warmth. He was dirty and would only taint your saintly body

But now? Oh, it´s simply hopeless! How dare someone like him, who is completely beneath you, treat you like this? He truly has done something completely unacceptable and he´s unsure of what to do, he just knows that he has to atone for his sins somehow

Mika is so scared that you´re going to abandon him now, throwing him away like the piece of trash he is. And he understands why you would, he really does, which is why he´s all the more desperate now. He feels that he has to prove to you that he still has his uses, that he´s your pliable doll completely devoted to you and willing to do anything you ask of him

So his way of making it up to you is basically becoming your servant, willing to complete whatever task you ask of him because he thinks that if he proves to be useful, you might find it in your heart to at least tolerate his presence, even if you can´t forgive him.

And as long as he gets to stay by your side, Mika is more than happy to let you control him as you please, all while obsessively thanking you for granting him mercy

How would Shu try to make the player forgive him in the imposter self-aware AU?

While not physically violent or downright murderous like Mika, Shu definitely wasn´t kind to you either, to say the least. He´s already pretty rude and snappish to the other idols he holds no grudge for so just imagine the amount of verbal abuse you must have suffered at his hands when he saw you as the reason why his muse left him behind

At first, Shu might have assumed that the reason you left was that his efforts weren´t enough to impress you, which led to him throwing himself back into work to try and make something new that would please you, but the more time passes, the more he thinks that it´s strangely convenient timing for you to appear right around the time the player disappeared

While he was gruff to you before, now he outright takes some sort of pleasure in talking you down as it only seems fitting for what you have caused. And he just gets worse the more you try to be friendly to him, asking you how you dare show your face in front of him. How he finds you reprehensible

Naturally, there´s a nagging feeling of guilt hidden deep within him when the truth finally comes to light and he realizes that he´s done you a great disservice. All this time, you were his muse, the light of his life, and yet he chased you away when you had greeted him with open arms of your own volition. Oh, how he wished to slap his past self now!

You were the most divine creature walking this earth, blessed by the heavens itself, and yet he said all these horrible things to you

He wants to make it up to you to get back in your good graces but he doesn´t really know how to proceed. Shu has a lot of difficulties with being honest and conveying his true feelings to someone because deep down he is still scarred by his childhood and the rejection he felt due to his family never supporting him in his passions. He has long since closed off his heart and so only with a great deal of effort from both sides is he able to open up

But now that you most likely despise you for treating you so horribly, Shu is all the more reluctant to approach you, fearing that you might flinch away as soon as he extends a hand towards you.

He has many discussions with Mademoiselle where he spills all of his worries to her and she tries her best to comfort him all while giving him some advice. She had always been there for him and that´s also true now.

Mademoiselle tells Shu that she´s more than happy to talk to you on his behalf if he doesn´t feel ready to do so just yet. She reasons that it might help break down the barriers that he had created between you. She´s also just very excited to have a proper chat with you!

Meanwhile, Shu goes back to what he knows best to try and make you forgive him: creating wonderful and awe-inspiring outfits.

Though he´s horrible with words, Shu hopes that his feelings will get through to you with this outfit he´s making just for you. He spends days upon days working on the outfit until the late night hours when it´s already gotten dark outside. He´s barely even taking care of himself, instead tirelessly working as if his life depended on it

And well, to him it did. Having his darling forgive him is the only thing he wants. He truly doesn´t know what he would do if you would still reject him after all of this

Maybe this is why he´s even more of a perfectionist than he usually is, nearly ripping out his own hair when he sees even the slightest imperfection that no one else aside from him would even notice. No, this has to be absolutely perfect for you and he won´t rest until it is!

It´s like he´s possessed, never even giving himself a break until he is finally satisfied with the final outcome

Of course, the outfit fits you absolutely perfectly in the end and you can´t help but wonder wherever Shu got your exact measurements from

[fluffywings13]

I'm not Leaving you. I'm here. Right here.

A small bit from a fic I'm working on.

“Shh child, it’s okay. It’s okay, little one, it’s alright. I’m not leaving you. I’m never going to leave you, Yuuji.” For a child who’s been abandoned by the world in the span of mere months, lost everything in a far too literal sense, watched as his world was forever altered and crumbled. Itadori Yuuji finally breaking was an event that was long expected but never enough to plan for the fallout that would come of it and was there ever a fall out. “Hush, child, settle your tears and mind.”

They all knew the day Sukuna regained enough of his Power to take his form back as he was originally before his downfall was drawing ever nearer with every finger they’d found and he ingested. The sense of his cursed energy continually growing in potency day by day was an increasingly worrying notion that the separation between Curse and Vessel was going to come to fruition far sooner than originally anticipated.

War had been on the Horizon.

Not a single soul in the equation considered the impact there would be when Sukuna parted ways from one Itadori Yuuji, never was the thought humored on any mind that he’d shatter at the loss of the only Constant he’s had in the last months that seemingly changed with every waking moment, it was not a humored idea because no one ever thought to expect the boy to want Sukuna to remain at his side.

“Why….Why–Everyone keeps leaving me! Dad left! Mom–Kenjaku–whatever left! Gramps left! Now you! Everyone keeps leaving! Why does everyone keep leaving me!”

….

Now the question remained, little Itadori responded to absolutely no one outside of the very being that was the cause for a vast majority of his suffering, curled around the large being’s front with a pair of arms under his rump to keep him there. Yuuji is found to be sound asleep, as if to be caught so vulnerable in the arms of one Sukuna; King Of Curses the notion is one that had never been thought to be entertained.

What were they to do now?

“If I move even a sliver to set him down, the brat’s going to awaken, and considering what steps were required of me to get him this way I’ll continue my role in this unexpected next course of action standing here. Continue with the conversations.” Nobody misses the way the Curse rubs a massive hand down the back of the youth sleeping against him and Sukuna glares. “I don’t repeat myself. Discuss.”

“It's safe to say that no one here expected this reaction from the boy. Considering how problematic their relationship was initially it is a mind boggling aspect that the child would become so distraught at the thought of losing the Curse.” The Principal speaks for the Sorcerers as a group because he does not doubt the others abilities to offend the aforementioned Curse and while Sukuna seemed to be of the mindset to avoid making any unnecessary movements as to keep from waking Itadori as he finally procures what it surely the best sleep he's gotten in a long time it also stands to say that Sukuna still has abilities of his own that he's kept maintained in their secrecy close to the chest and finding out just what carnage he could rain upon them whilst still holding the boy in his arms just as fast asleep as he is now is not something he wishes to find enlightenment in that aspect. “But at the same moment, in the same train of thought, I can understand Itadori's seeming Imprintation type attachment he's formed with Sukuna. The boy's lost his entire family, everything he's ever truly known, and for the last months Sukuna himself has truly been the only real stable constant he's had this entire time.”

Ever protective of his students and seeing no humor in the situation presently at hand. Gojo Satoru is understandably unusually serious at the moment. “You can't honestly be suggesting what I think you're saying, right? Tell me I'm reading the room wrong.” Yuuji stirs where he's drolling only slightly on the King Of Curses shoulder, smacking his lips as one does when suddenly arroused from what had been a deep content sleep, he doesn't so much as outwardly flinch when Sukuna glares at him murderously before diverting his attentions to settling the boy back into his much needed slumber. The Limitless User does however feel guilty for disturbing the poor kiddo into nearly waking from a nice deep sleep he so very much needed. “Trusting Sukuna to take care of little Yuuji without shared parenting at the very least.”

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

Baldurs Gate 3 mutuals scroll away now. Just scroll past this I don't want y'all to be mad at me because this post is NOT ABOUT YOU! But anyways I think the BG3 fandom really really suffers from the "XYZ is my favorite character and nobody else should talk about them because it makes me uncomfortable because they're MINE" syndrome in a way that's somehow even more embarrassing than those Animal Crossing New Horizons fans, because it's not even like the BG3 characters are limited? Like you all have them on your own computers and you can do whatever you want with them, you don't have to get mad about what other people are doing with them on their computers?

obviously this isn't an isolated problem, a lot of fandoms struggle with the "My opinion on XYZ is the only correct opinion and everyone else is wrong" mindsets, which is just, like, not how art works. Like you don't get to go to the art museum and listen to somebody else's interpretation and then go "Well actually you're factually incorrect, MY interpretation is the right one."

But I specifically see this "Astarion is my comfort character and it makes me uncomfortable when other people like him" shit all the fucking time and that's really sort of silly to me? 1) he's not real, 2) the way other people interpret his character doesn't effect you at all, and 3) they're not stopping you from having your own interpretations.

Like I'm sorry but when you complain nonstop about "Ascended Astarion fans" you do sound fucking insane because you're desperately defending the virtue of a fictional character, PIXELS!, and said character's personality is heavily dependent on how the story is played anyways, so yeah fucking obviously you're not going to have the same perception of that character as everyone else in your fandom, you're not even all experiencing the game the same way!

But like, I see people get so up in arms about this and it's like holy fuck babe take a deep breath. It is not that serious. The world is not ending because people are doing what they've historically always done and thirsting after a hot gothic vampire because he's kind of mean to them. It's okay. You'll be fine. You can literally just stop engaging with the fandom if it upsets you that bad. Honestly you probably should, because getting that upset over something that has zero real bearing on reality is kind of wild. Maybe talk to your therapist about it idk.

[mako-neexu]

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i'm afraid to call people out but it makes me kind of uncomfortable whenever someone refers to guda / Fujimaru Ritsuka as a 'we' in a sense that us, players are included. i know people do yume...ship? i think that is what it is called. but they mean no harm. and even if its not that kind of case, it just makes me uncomfortable... but i don't want to be rude or tell people off... because its all fictional, after all so everyone is free to do what they want

So when someone says "Oberon cares for us!" my mind would simply convert it to "Hmmm... In a...... way? you could say that. It's mostly Fujimaru Ritsuka though" but my actual reply would be "Yes, that's correct!"

I've said it before, but I don't self-insert to ritsuka. I'm just one of the players and audiences who like the stories. but no way do i see myself in 'Fujimaru Ritsuka' because they are a separate character from me, entirely...

Aside from eternal guda camera head curse, I do have posts where i use a '2nd person pov' pronoun but i am referring to Fujimaru Ritsuka 100% of the time.

So i guess some people also interpret that as reffering to themselves... interpretations are fine but sometimes when i converse i feel more comfortable if people refer that players are separate from the character that is Fujimaru Ritsuka.

because, after all, they are their own character written with their own traits and certain behaviors.

Honestly if i were to self insert, it would be a random ass easily killed chaldea staff member with my own mindset praying for guda's happiness and suffering forever haha

there's also the issue of pronouns... in the end, im really picky huh? since, i do prefer guda referred as "they" or in plural sense of "gudas" to indicate both genders because it includes both. i dont like it when one is left out.... but in a sense of fanfic ( and fan works/doujin/manga etc), i dont mind the gender... its just that when people talked about Id chapter (or anything canon), they referred to guda only as a 'he' or only as a 'she'... so whenever i see it, i do a blocking spree...

seriously, im a picky person!😭 im sorry but these are my feelings...

[zukosdualdao]

Im glad to read the takes of a fellow zuko stan :)

Honestly, it feels like people just hate on him way too much lately. The posts ive seen on twitter, on tik tok, on tumblr... Do people just not like him anymore? Why did everyone turn against him so suddenly? I've been hoping it's something temporary, just a trend, but. I don't know anymore. People mock his disability, spit on his trauma, wish death on him and interpret everything he says or does in the worst possible way. I saw someone crying about how entitled he was because he took aang's seat when watching the play just the other day lmao. Another person wrote about how mysoginistic he was because he didn't remember katara's name when asking about kya's death to sokka? There are those who even call him a colonizer on the same level as iroh lmao. It seems their justifications for all the salt they throw his way are along the lines of "he's been loved for too long, aang stans have suffered way more, people just watched the show again and realized how bad he actually was, he's catching strays since his fans keep setting him up, his fans paint him as perfect and erase every bad thing he's done" etc etc. I'm all for criticism and deeper character analysis, but this is just said in bad faith. I also think it has a bit to do with how different engagement has become in fandom spaces recently (things people support in fiction need to be morally correct) and well, zuko was the perfect target. He's done bad things, sides with the villains for a good portion of the series, redeems himself but there are things he still has to work on... I don't know, it's been getting to me. There are many other harsh things ive read said about him (like implying how every single member of the gaang hates even after redeeming himself), but i honestly don't have the energy to delve into each and every one. His arc was poorly executed and his development was badly written now, apparently. I kind of just ranted here, i apologize. Im very happy to read the posts of someone who genuinely likes him and doesnt throw him under the bus to defend or elevate other characters...

hi! i'm glad you're enjoying my blog <3 and no need to apologize for the rant, i'm always happy to talk about zuko!

about to theorize a bit as to why it seems like maybe zuko has become a more contentious character, but it should be noted i have not been exceptionally, actively involved in the fandom very long. i loved atla as a kid, have retained fond memories, have witnessed some discourse from the fringes over the years, but only recently has it overtaken my brain to the point of making a whole blog about it. lol. so, like, grain of salt, etc.

i think a big part of it is what you said - in the last few years of fandom in particular, it feels like there has been a huge upswing in purity culture, moralizing liking/not liking certain ships or characters, and an overall increase in very black-and-white thinking. there's also an emphasis on "holding people accountable" (good in theory), often without specifying what, exactly, that looks like (less good). the idea then becomes that if you've done harmful things, there's no way you can ever make up for them and should just, like, hate yourself for all eternity and also die, probably, which is not actually helpful to anyone.

so, i think for those who ascribe to that mindset, zuko is a prime candidate for them to criticize. and while there's nothing wrong with criticizing a character or their arc or writing if you truly have a problem with it, as you've said, a lot of the time, criticisms against zuko don't seem to be made in very good faith. after all, a big part of zuko's arc is having to unlearn some very black-and-white thinking. also, zuko is not a real person. he is a character, and therefore a narrative tool, and if we want him to be 'held accountable', we need look no further than the story itself, in which he is probably the character the narrative holds the most accountable for his actions due to his prior status as a villain.

(it reminds me a bit, actually, of another favorite character of mine: alec in the tv series shadowhunters. he starts out the story already in a heroic role, unlike zuko, but a big part of his narrative is unlearning some prejudiced cultural mindsets and challenging not only his previous ideologies, but his conception of himself and the people in his life as well. as a result, alec can look sometimes more obviously flawed than the other main cast, but the point is that the narrative asks him to examine those flaws and change and introspect and grow in a way that it doesn't always ask of other characters when they are showcasing their own flaws. which does make me thing about zuko vs. aang in the atla narrative.)

the other thing i think is contributing to zuko's more contentious status in the fandom is how long atla's been in the cultural consciousness, and how common it is for things that used to be popular to cycle through to people starting to criticize or actively hate it to people saying "no, actually, it's still pretty good, you just don't want to like a popular thing" (this is me rn), to maybe eventually getting popular again/at least in certain subsects of the audience. zuko was probably one of the most talked-about aspects of atla for a long time, and while i can understand how that could get frustrating (because there are some other really great characters and aspects of the story!), that's not, like, for no reason. people connected with and admired his story for a reason, and many still do, and (in my humble opinion) that is because it is one of the most thought-out, intentional, and nuanced character arcs of the show.

the ableism, i think, really gets to me because like... even if every criticism from the people who hate him were 100% accurate and said in good faith (they're not, but let's pretend for a minute)... that still wouldn't be an excuse for ableism against a character with a prominent facial difference (or making fun of abuse survivors for the permanent injuries they sustain from abuse.) if zuko had never redeemed himself and stayed a villain, it would still be wrong to talk about his scar and abuse the way some of his detractors do. and the show agrees with me! you know how i know? the only two characters to ever make fun of zuko's scar are villains in the narrative: zhao and azula. ("make fun of" might not be quite right for zhao, since what he said - "you have the scar to prove it" - is far more matter-of-fact than azula imitating him by covering her eye or "make sure they get your good side", but he's absolutely being a huge jerk about it.) other characters react to zuko's scar in all sorts of different ways, even when he's still in a villain/antagonist/anti-hero role: zuko's crew is horrified to learn how he got the scar, song sees a point of connection and tries to reach out to him, but, while i think well-intentioned, she breaks a major boundary by trying to touch his scar when he hasn't conveyed he's okay with that, jet makes assumptions about his background because of it, lee, the kid from zuko alone, asks with curious, childish naivete how he got it, only for his father to reprimand him for asking, aang reacts with annoyance/boredom to azula's ableist joke, and katara trips over her words to correct him when zuko thinks she's essentially calling him "scary to look at". not all of these interactions are positive, but the characters (all of whom are written as pretty sympathetic, even if also flawed) aren't outright trying to make fun of him for it, and the narrative never implies he deserves to be treated as less than because of it, even before his redemption.

anyway. if people don't believe in characters' (and, hell, irl people's) capacity for growth and change and don't want to have nuanced discussions about how trauma can impact these things, i mean... that's their prerogative, but i don't understand why they enjoy the show, because those are big parts of it (and not just wrt zuko.)

i know it can be frustrating, anon— trust me, i get very frustrated. but i promise you, there are plenty of people out there who a) still love zuko and his story and b) are capable of and willing to talk about things with nuance and in good faith. i'm happy to be part of that corner of fandom, and i bet you can manage to carve out a space where more people like that exist, too! <3