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#because people either treat her like she's evil for doing it or treat her like she's perfect for doing it
scarfacemarston · 16 hours
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Abigail should be allowed to say she wasn't prepared to have Jack or did not want him at the time.
TW: Pregnancy, abortion mention, child mortality mention, death during pregnancy mention. People criticize John for not caring for Jack --- as they should! However, when it comes to the idea of whether John wanted him or not, he gets a free pass in comparison to Abigail, who is always demonized. This leads to how women are viewed in society. Why is it so evil that a woman says that she's not ready to have a child or didn't want one? Because of 1950s and earlier notions that women HAVE to be in the home? Ideas that conservatives still try to force down women's throats? Abigail was 18, for God's sake. She was JUST rescued from a brothel. She finally had freedom for the first time in her life. (She was literally either in the orphanage, living on the streets, or working in the brothels.) Most 18 year olds aren't ready to have children ----even if times were different back then. Just because women did have children back then at 18 or younger, doesn't mean they were ready or that they wanted to. She had just fallen in love, she finally had people that cared for her. She was doing what she was GOOD at. Hosea canonically praises her as the best thief/conwoman and actress he has EVER known. I have the audio link as proof if anyone wants it. That was all taken away from her the second she found she was pregnant. Massive amounts of women died, and by 1900 - 30 percent of children died before their first birthday. (hence what likely happened with the Marston baby, but I have my theories on what happened there in another post.) Those numbers would have been WORSE in 1895 and Abigail was living in a TENT most of this time. Can you imagine being pregnant, constantly on the move and giving birth with only the possibility of a roof above your head? Abigail would have grown up seeing the women in the brothels handle pregnancy. She would have seen the fear in those women's eyes. The hopelessness. She would have seen those try to perform abortions or women die during childbirth - or be kicked out of the brothel for becoming pregnant in the first place. Also, Abigail lost her status once she became pregnant. She couldn't provide for the gang in the same way. She didn't have John's support. Grimshaw canonically doesn't like her and Bessie is dead at this point. She has no woman who cares about her. Then Jack came and she was treated like a burden - a charity case to everyone but Hosea and probably Arthur. Single women in the 1890s, especially illiterate ones with zero prospects were almost never accepted. Abigail also might have dealt with post partum depression, too. Abigail talks about how she's always wanted a family, but she also talks about how frustrated she is with Jack and how she wishes she had help. She talks about how the gang views her and outside of Tilly and Hosea, hardly anyone ever talks to her...at all. Sadie is extremely busy and there aren't any conversations between them outside of chapter 2. Most of the camp doesn't. She's completely isolated and considered a source of drama. Abigail had everything to lose, including her life. So why is she demonized?
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dr-spectre · 2 days
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while i originally didn't think much about s2's story
after seeing your posts about hypno callie i am 100% with ya
fact that it gets misinterpreted so much is agh. painful
Im glad that I was able to inspire you to change your mind!!! I used to not think much of Splatoon 2's story, too, until the autism in my brain whispered, "Callie Cuttlefish...."
(I'm about to get ranty in this post, so get ready.... if you wanna move along and don't wanna see someone get upset over a squid woman then by all means do so!)
I think the main reasons as to why the story of Splatoon 2 gets misinterpreted a lot is because in media circles, people will use the words "brainwashing" and "hypnosis" interchangeably and they genuinely don't know what hypnosis is actually like. Nintendo and the Splatoon devs probably don't know either. Like I don't think in Splatoon 2's rushed development cycle they bothered to look up the definition of hypnosis and they just made up the Hypnoshades to make Callie "evil" in a quick and easy way because "ooooo hypnosis is mind control/brainwashing ooo" WHICH IS FALSE!!!! VERY VERY FALSE!!!!!
Splatoon 2 was most likely rushed and it impacted Callie's storyline. You can clearly see what kind of story Splatoon 2 was going for from the concept art and Squid Sisters Stories prequel series. The tale of two cousins drifting apart and Callie growing resentment in her heart....
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While we SORTA got that in the final game, Callie's arc got muffled due to a lack of understanding of what hypnosis actually is and media out of Splatoon continuing to use "brainwashing" as a cheap and lazy way to explain things which most likely had a strong influence in Splatoon 2's development, despite a lot of evidence proving that's not what happened to Callie... and there's not much we can do about it... ugh.
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They also hid a lot of important story details behind optional content and social media posts. The sunken scrolls explaining Callie's growing mental issues, the relationship chart which disproves that Callie was kidnapped, etc, etc....
Also people tend to take Marie's perspective very objectively because we follow her as Agent 4. So when she says that Callie was "squidnapped," people believe it. When Marie says Callie was "brainwashed" in the rematch fight, people believe it. Including inkipedia and people who analyse splatoon.... the people who seek out objective information take the overthinking and worried Marie with a lack of knowledge as the well of truth.
Slight tangent but, you know what's kinda funny to me? Inkipedia wants to be very objective on Splatoon yeah? Well on Callie's main page it says, "Callie went to the octarians willingly," yet another parts of the site, it says, "she was kidnapped." Hmm... and of course, them flip-flopping the words "hypnosis" and "brainwashing" despite those words being OBJECTIVELY TWO SEPARATE THINGS THAT CANNOT BE USED INTERCHANGEABLY!!! But they use brainwashing more because Nintendo NoA used it.... oh well, tangent aside...
That's why so many people fuck up and you know what? I don't REALLYYYY blame the common fan over this. I dont! It would be unfair of me to get mad at someone who doesn't know any better because Splatoon 2 did an AWFUL job at properly fleshing out Callie!!!! When people hear what I have to say and either agree or respectfully disagree but still get my points, i get happy, and im glad more people are looking into Callie in a different light! She was treated like TRASHHHH for 7 fucking years!!!
Im only mad at certain parts of a certain wiki, and people who go over the timeline and make 5 hour videos and claim that Callie was KIDNAPPED DESPITE THERE BEING A FREELY AVAILABLE FUCKING RELATIONSHIP CHART THAT LITERALLY DISPROVES IT!!! BUT NO!!! YOU JUST HADDDDD TO READ A SINGLE INKIPEDIA ARTCLE AND YOU DIDNT EVEN BOTHER TO LOOK ANYWHERE ELSE!!!!! Putting in so much effort yet these loud voices in the community drop the fucking ball on Callie because she's silly.... ugh...
If I see another person in 2024 that says that Callie was kidnapped.... I swear to FUCKINGGGGGG god bro....
WHY DO NINTENDO PUSH THAT SHIT THEMSELVES?!?!? WHY DO THEY SAY CALLIE WAS KIDNAPPED?!?! WHY DO YOU WANT THE OCTARIANS TO BE SO FUCKING EVIL AND UNREDEEMABLE?!?!?! YOU GUYS MADE OCTO EXPANSION FOR FUCK SAKE!!! ITS SO ANNOYING!!! IM STILL NOT OVER THIS!!
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UGHHHH!!!! When will it end.... I'm gonna keep repeating this stuff until I DIE it seems!!!
I dont wanna seem like I'm above anyone btw. I dont want to be like that. I'm just... really autistic about this sort of shit and I get very very picky about people's word choices and stuff when it comes to this.
I just want a character I love to be treated better... okay? That's all... it is getting better which I'm VERY happy about but... the loudest voices in the community, the people who analyse stuff and make timeline videos and analytical videos, still say the same bullshit since 2017 and I'm getting tired....
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lunar-years · 4 months
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my problem with taylor's a million and one ttpd variants is not that they exist (plenty of artists are doing this, it's not just her) or that they give her money (no one is forcing us to buy them) or that they mean she's chart hungry (she is and who cares) but that they're often marketed in bad taste by her team (namely with false statements of scarcity to heighten the feeling of "rareness" and thus desirability) and even more so than that, that by and large they're stupidly lazy! They're all cds because that's what easy to produce, some of them are only digital cds because that's even easier. The physical ones come without a cd booklet, because it would have been too much to slap a new photo on the cover and reprint them, so instead all you get is a slip of paper in a cd case. Including a live version takes zero effort. Including an "acoustic" version of each song also takes zero effort because Taylor doesn't have to have any involvement in them. All they're doing is pulling the same studio vocals and replanting them over a different or stripped down backing track. These are not lpss studio session style acoustic songs that are actually interesting, they're the same song sung the exact same way over slightly altered instrumentals. And again, no one is forcing me to buy them (and believe me, I don't buy them, lmao) so I'm by no means raging at her over it, I just think if you're going to try and entice more sales and keep your spot on the charts through "collectable items," you do come across better if you put a little more care into making them actually cool for your fans!
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THAT IS OKAY TO DO ANYTHING THERE IS AS LONG AS YOU'RE AUTISM... THAT IS INDEED A NOTHING BAD HAPPENS TO YOU CARD... REMEMBER... THAT IS WOKE AND PROGRESSIVE TO DISTURB PATHETIC NEUROTYPICAL WASTE TRYING TO CREATE RULES... WE ARE AUTISM... WE ARE BETTER THAN ANYONE...
#Woman Trans Lesbian Pansexual Bisexuality Asexuality Demisexuality Paraphilia Interesting Special Funny Crazy Insane Delusional Autism Adhd#Tourette Npd Hpd Bpd Dpd Ppd Aspd Avpd Ocpd Szpd Stpd Osdd Spd Spd Sdpd Papd Trauma Victim Abused#OUR KIND AREN'T SUFFERING... YOU ARE... BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T LIKE US... THAT IS SUFFERING TO BE NEUROTYPICAL... THAT IS A DISORDER TO BE#NEUROTYPICAL... SUCH WASTE NEED TO BE WIPED OUT... THIS IS WOKE AND PROGRESSIVE... ONLY A BIGOT WOULD CRY ABOUT THIS...#Radqueer Feminist Communist Anarchist Suomi Finland Finnish Hullu Kiva Kiltti Mukava Rakastava Hali Hei Kiva 😇😇... Pidän Sinusta...#THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO THIS THAN OPPRESSION AND DISCRIMINATION. ASWELL AS ABUSER TACTICS AND OTHER EVIL OF SUCH KIND.#THIS IS VERY SERIOUS AND TRAUMATIC. NOTHING TO BE LAUGHED AT AND DEHUMANIZED BY THE ABUSER WASTE OF THIS SITE...#CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT...? INSANE... THIS TOO... I WILL NEVER ACCEPT A NAZI... NOTHING RADQUEER ABOUT YOU... THAT'S RIGHT...#THAT IS YOUR KIND THAT ARE PATHETIC THAT HAVE NO GRANDIOSE PROGRESSIVE GOAL FOR THIS LOSER SEKAI WE'RE SAVING...#WHAT'S IMPORTANT IS THIS SITE BEING ALL FAKE EVERYWHERE. NOTHING TRANS ABOUT ANYTHING. NOTHING GAY ABOUT ANYTHING. THEY DESPISE PARAPHILIAS#THIS MAKES THEM NOTHING. TREAT US LIKE WE'RE HUMAN PLEASE. :(. 😭😭😭😭!!!! WE SHOULD'VE TRANSITIONED THE SECOND WE MADE THIS ACCOUNT!!#NOTHING PRO TRANS ABOUT THIS SITE IF THAT ISN'T WHAT HAPPENED OR HAPPENS!!!! ONLY BULLYING AND CRUELTY!!!! EVIL!!!! BIGOTED DISCRIMINATION!#I'M SUPER BORED... THERE ARE SO MANY WE NEED... BUT WE BARELY HAVE ANYTHING... OR REALLY... NOTHING...#NOBODY TRULY CARES ABOUT US... WE HAVEN'T EVEN TRANSITIONED... ON TOP OF THAT... THERE'S ALL OTHER THINGS...#I CAN'T BELIEVE ONE OF THEM IS ON THIS SITE. THAT ONLY MEANS EVERYONE ON THIS SITE IS LIKE THEM.#THAT'S CRAZY... HOW MEANINGLESS EVERY SINGLE POST ON THIS SITE IS. BECAUSE EVERYTHING PROGRESSIVE#HAS A MILLION COUNTER POSTS. JUST LIKE OURS. STRAIGHT UP NEUROTYPICAL WASTE IN THE AUTISM TAG...#A COMPLETE INSULT AND NOTHING ELSE TO BE... WE'RE AUTISM... THEY DON'T ACCEPT US. SIMPLE.#THEY ARE AN ABUSER. EVIL. BIGOT. IRRELEVANT. NOTHING ELSE TO THAT...#SPREAD THESE POSTS TO THOSE THAT CAN DO THINGS FOR US... MAKE PEOPLE THAT WILL MAKE US TRANSITION SEE US...#WORK WITH US... WE MUST BE MADE TRANSITION INSTANTLY... ALL THE EVIL AROUND EVERYWHERE... INSANE...#I'M GOING CRAZY... NOBODY WILL EVER CARE ABOUT US... PROVEN ONLY BY SILENCE DESPITE BEING SEEN FOR MONTHS...#STRAIGHT UP CALCULATED DISCRIMINATION RESPONDED ONLY TO WITH BIGOTED ABUSER LANGUAGE... ONLY ANOTHER BIGOTED ATTEMPT...#TO MAKE US COMMIT SSIDE... NOBODY CARES... EVEN THE RADQUEER TAG DOESN'T... ABSOLUTELY NOBODY DOES...#THAT IS THEM THAT ARE AND ALWAYS WILL BE ALL THE BIGOTED THINGS EVIL... WE HAVE RAGE INSIDE OF US...#ACCEPT THAT. ACCEPT ALL OF US. NOBODY EVER HAS. WILL ANYONE EVER? THAT IS YOUR PURPOSE EITHER WAY. SERVE THEM.#ABUSE US ALL THAT WAYS WHY...? STRAIGHT UP MALICE TBH... BUT IF THAT IS A REQUIREMENT... THEN ANYTHING ON US ANY SITUATION IS MALICE THE#SAME... COME TO US MAKE US TRANSITION WE LIVE IN FINLAND FREEZE OUR LITTLE ONES AND GIVE US DIY HRT. NOW. NOW. NOW. PAINFULL.#MASS DISCRIMINATION ONLY. EVIL RESPONSE. ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS A LEFTIST BESIDES US BECAUSE ANYONE PROGRESSIVE WOULD COME FOR US. SIMPLE AS.#AISHA FROM WINX SUCKS SHE SHOULD'VE BEEN BETTER. SHE SHOULD BE MADE BETTER. HER KIND SHOULD BE BETTER. FIX HER. MAKE US TRANSITION.
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val-of-the-north · 15 days
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The "Hornsent deserved it" sentiments make me lose my goddamn mind
Short answer: No they didn't.
Long answer: Oh my gooooooooooood can we NOT do this shit, please???
There are two underlying sentiments to this line of thinking.
The Hornsent hurt Marika's people, thus Marika did nothing wrong, therefore they deserved to die badly
The Hornsent hurt Marika's people + Midra and some others, Marika is still evil, but the Hornsent deserved to be destroyed
Both may even come to the extreme of "Messmer wasn't cruel enough" or some other nonsense in the same vein.
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Number 1
To tackle number one, we need to remember a little thing called Elden Ring's base game. The Hornsent's jar ritual is undoubtedly abhorrent, that much is true. But I urge you to remember the things that happened during Marika's reign. She:
Murdered all of the Fire Giants but one, subjecting him to a fate similar to hers but worse, forced into labor confined on the mountain among the remains of his people and culture. She mocked him, to boot. All of this because they might have burnt the Erdtree.
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Enslaved the Misbegotten from birth "or worse" because their species just so happened to have made contact with the Crucible.
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Rewarded her own loyal Crucible Knights with scorn because of it too, as they didn't fit her current society that they fought to establish.
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Made sure the Albinaurics were seen as lesser just because they were graceless, which influenced the way they were treated. She even had her Inquisition, run by Rykard, torture them in needlessly cruel manners, as they appear to be their main victims.
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Just in general, she allowed Rykard to run a sadistic Inquisition to torture heretics to the Golden Order in the first place, and she saw nothing wrong with it or their practices.
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She entombed the entire Great Caravan over a false rumor, which is the sole reason why the Flame of Frenzy was even a problem during her reign. This has also scarred the remainder of their people greatly.
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Made the lives of all Omen a living hell either by cutting their horns just as they were born which often kills them, hunting them down in as cruel a way as possible by using their trauma and body parts against them, or throwing them in a sewer to fester with evil spirits hidden from view. She also used to shackle them, including her two children, just to make extra sure they wouldn't crawl out.
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Shunned anyone who saw a vision of the Erdtree burning, regardless of who it was, and chased them away from their homes.
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Literally allowed the belief that shorter people are somehow lesser, for apparently no reason at all (her most random discrimination decision tbh). This forces them to band together and take up honorless jobs just to get by, and in turn, people start to spread rumors of their inhuman practices, which are likely all untrue.
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Had people literally work as slaves for the nobility just by virtue of "being born into obscurity", whatever that means. As well as other accounts of slavery like the Fallen Hawks (likely tied to the defeated soldiers of ancient Stormveil).
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Likely endorsed viewing anyone without Grace as inferior beings, which includes the Tarnished that only exist because she divested them of it. She has done nothing to ease their discrimination (despite potentially seeing them as a future asset of sorts), as even the members of the Crusade are more than ready to kill us, like Fire Knight Queelign.
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All of this was done in service to HER religion and order. Killing all the Fire Giants and burying the Nomadic Merchants alive? Oh, they could have ruined her age with those pesky flames of theirs.
Systematically oppressing Omen, Misbegotten, Albinaurics and the likes? Oh, they are impure creatures, unlike her people, blessed with the Grace of Gold, elevated from the rest. (Which is the exact same line of thinking as the Hornsent and their horns for crying out loud).
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"Oh but the Hornsent stuffed her people into jars" yeah, and I am not arguing the contrary! It was a cruel, deranged practice, born of simple superstition that their victims would be reborn as "good people". But Marika's answer if you don't fit her vision of the world is to either get rid of you and your people through extermination, by literally hounding you from your rightful home, or by enslaving you.
Both sides are genuinely awful... but there's only one side that people are justifying, and it sure as hell isn't the Hornsent.
Marika's backstory is meant to make her less a god, which is all we have ever known her to be before the DLC, and more a human, which is what she once was. It gives her complexity as a character, it's meant to be the catalyst from which we learn why she took the path that she took. It is absolutely not meant to make us go "holy shit guys, Marika was the good guy all along???", because what she brought upon this world through her burning desire for vengeance has ruined it irreparably, and ruined the lives of most of the creatures who inhabit it.
This includes her ruthless, honorless, pointless Crusade against the Hornsent. Sure, it was her own son that started it, but it was for her sake. It was her who allowed him to wage it, he had her full support... until the thing turned to such a slaughter-fest that even she could not associate with it anymore due to how appalling it all was. And what better way to do that than to seal her own son away to wage war endlessly? And not just because his actions made her look bad, but also for the same crippling fear and prejudice that saw her kill all Fire Giants but one and scar the Great Caravan.
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Gratuitous violence across the board, and for what?
(I want to make it absolutely clear that I don't mean you can't like Marika now. In fact, I'd say the DLC made her much more of an interesting character to me as well. I just cannot fathom seeing the entirety of Elden Ring and coming out thinking "wow Marika was the good guy" because she isn't. Heck, coming out thinking that she'd be disgusted with what her grandson Godrick is doing with grafting as if she isn't the queen of having zero empathy for those who are graceless or aren't her family, which the Tarnished he grafts are neither. She'd probably be very proud if anything. Marika is a monster. She became one the moment she obtained godhood, because no milestone would quell her. She did all the wrongs, so take this whole section as a refresher in case you had forgotten)
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Number 2
Now, to tackle number 2... this one seemingly has more nuance, but falls for the tried and true pitfall of "the many must pay for the crimes of the few" which is exactly where it rots and collapses onto itself.
Apparently, because of the perpetrators of the Jar Rituals, ALL Hornsent, INDISCRIMINATELY, deserve to be destroyed. They all, each and every single one, deserve the Crusade and the absolute pointless ruin that it brought them. From the children, to the ones who were friends with people with no horns, to the ones who found their own practices grotesque, to the ones that weren't even tied to the Tower's religion and were just simply living their lives.
They ALL, EQUALLY deserve to be burned, to have their cities destroyed, to have their lives ruined. All of them. Ok.
Number 2 works with the assumption that the Hornsent are some sort of hive mind. Some sort of all-encompassing religious order who believes in their superiority. But that's just the Tower's religion. Hornsent are a people. And people are individuals, with their own opinions, their own lives. In fact, from the perspective of the average Hornsent citizen, they were attacked out of nowhere as they were living in peace, which likely means they weren't even at war with Marika before this event.
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People also have the assumption that all of the Hornsent were benefiting from their society, which is blatantly false. In fact, outside the treatment of the Shamans, the people that we know the Hornsent have hurt the most are their fellow Hornsent. We know of quite a few of them suffering at the hands of their kin BECAUSE of their religious and cultural practices.
Being Hornsent isn't a "free from mistreatment" card. If anything, the large Gaols where they were imprisoned were built specifically to house them. The main prisoners we find in large numbers are commoners, the same types as the ones scavenging the ruins of their ravaged towns. They are often seen eating maggots off the floor and cowering in fear. All of them were Hornsent too, locked away for who knows what crime. Could have been big and important, small and insignificant, or even just a failure to do something properly (there's precedent), point is, it's clear the Hornsent weren't having a good time in there.
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The jar rituals were used mainly as punishment for the imprisoned Hornsent themselves, as a way to have them become "good people". This was just as horrifying for the Hornsent prisoners as it was for the Shamans I assume. Look how terrified this Hornsent seemed at the prospect of sharing that fate. This is the reason why they chopped up Shamans in the first place, as ritual ingredients for a punishment meant primarily for their kin.
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And there were more Hornsent who suffered because of the leading ideology. Curseblades were once shunned because they failed to become tutelary deities, and so they were thrown in the Jar Gaols. They were only let out so they could use their expertise and flowing movements to defend their homeland when Messmer invaded, otherwise they'd be rotting with the Innard Shamans and the other Hornsent prisoners the way Labirith is.
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It's also worth pointing out that Midra's Mense was filled with Hornsent attendants who sided with their sagely master regardless of his lack of horns and what the Inquisition believed of him. If we were to operate with reasoning number 2, they too would deserve to be murdered in the Crusade because they just so happened to be Hornsent. Because ALL Hornsent deserve extermination for what happened to the Shamans.
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And we also know that the Hornsent can find what happens in Bonny Village revolting. In fact, we know that from someone who was born and raised there.
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This sounds nothing like someone who thought any of that was ok. So who is to say other Hornsent weren't like this too, especially those who DIDN'T live in Bonny Village? Those who risked being stuffed into those same jars themselves? We make waaaay too many assumptions about an entire race, and that in itself is foolish enough.
If there's someone to blame, it's the Tower's Inquisition. They are the religious order that governs the Hornsent. They have all the power in their society... and yet, would you look at that? Enir-Ilim, their sanctum, the one place where those calling the shots reside, is completely untouched. And what about Bonny, the most structurally fine Hornsent settlement, when you'd expect it to be a black stain of char by now. But nope, no sign of Messmer activity and the Greater Potentates are just running around naked, doing their thing as usual.
The Crusade isn't even a good tool of vengeance, the only ones suffering are the civilians who were likely the ones with a higher risk of ritual jar punishment anyway. If this isn't proof enough that the Crusade is a completely petty, useless revenge war that accomplishes nothing I don't know what else to say. I'll just leave with what the people taking part in it were taking pride in doing.
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These are people who, without a shadow of a doubt, would have chopped up most of the oppressed groups described earlier and stuffed them into jars if Marika had told them to do so. (Heck, something like this was being done to the Albinaurics already, as we have seen previously...)
They have zero moral superiority, their deranged zealotry is the only reason they act in the first place. Not to mention that they have no connection to Marika's struggles or past, nor were they informed of them I bet. It's likely only Messmer truly knows the reason for the Crusade, and that's only because he is her child and shoulders all the blame onto himself.
"Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death" is LITERALLY their motto. Do you really think they stopped at the Hornsent? They were just their main target, but judging by the way all of Messmer's soldiers, including Queelign and the other Fire Knights, and even HE HIMSELF, attack us on sight for the simple fact we are Tarnished and lack Grace in our eyes, I have no doubt in my mind these people were just rounding up and killing anyone who didn't conform with the Golden Order.
THESE are the people who should be allowed to play judge, jury and executioner with the entire Hornsent race. And people will genuinely, with a straight face, tell you "That's right".
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To conclude... I think I actually hate reasoning 2 more than reasoning 1 lol, despite not liking either at all. At least 1 is understandable. Marika is a very interesting character, one that we have known for a few years now. We have an attachment to her, heck, sentiments of her being some sort of misunderstood/rebellious figure were already there before the DLC. In that regard, I understand the emotional response, even though I still think it's a wrong mindset to have. I have at least some hope that it is purely in the realm of fiction because it's a beloved character, nothing more...
Reasoning 2, on the other hand, attempts to be nuanced, or at least pretends to be. In reality, all it peddles is the "an eye for an eye" mentality which is much too common irl as well. Not only that, but it deals in monoliths. All people belonging to a group or race are equally responsible for stuff they didn't even commit, stuff that could have even harmed them, because their leaders decided to commit crimes against another set of people. And don't get me wrong, there will be even commoners from that group or race that will agree with and celebrate that bad deed, but just as many will not, but will be either scared, powerless, already being punished for speaking up through physical violence or elaborate shunning, or currently protesting and doing something to hopefully ignite a change.
But that reasoning only exists to perpetuate cycles; of war, violence, and hate for the most part. And sadly, this mindset is very prevalent, a lot of people fail to see the issue with wanton violence as long as it's to stroke that lust for vengeance. And vengeance is a theme that Elden Ring criticizes multiple times in a row, even beyond the obvious horror of the Crusade.
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dunmeshistash · 3 months
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Why did Milsiril adopt Kabru
Milsiril might be one of the most misunderstood characters in dungeon meshi and I see people making assumptions of why she adopted Kabru based only on their races and not in the characterization, so I wanted to think about some of the "theories" I see the most often about what made her take him in and why I don't agree with them
(read more cause as usual I ranted a lot)
1 - Attention (white elf savior)
This is the one I have the hardest time understanding so I'm starting with it, I've seen people compare Milsiril to irl white wealthy women that adopt "exotic" kids to keep an altruistic appearance. Like a white mother adopting a chinese child because of white savior complex and for everyone to compliment them on how good they are but this idea ignores a core aspect of Milsiril: she doesn't like attention of her peers
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Her bio reads: "The people around her teased her, calling her Gloomy Milsiril; partly as a result, she hates elves. (...) She secluded herself deep in the mountains and intentionally lives apart from other elves"
Milsiril is the type of person that has trauma related to her own kin, she was ostracized by everyone including her own family that sent her to the canaries, and as a result she herself refuses to engage with them even when they extend a hand as you can see with past Mithrun. The only other elf she's seen speaking to is Mithrun when he's sick and Helki. Her interest in raising short lived kids isn't seen as altruistic by other elves it's seen as another weird side of her so there's no incentive in elf society for her to do that. So she didn't adopt Kabru because of optics, she clearly doesn't care what other elves think of her and she hid herself from their judging eyes as soon as she was able to.
2 - She wants to feel superior to someone
Another one I find baffling but I can understand a little better since she's constantly seen in the caretaker role. But the evidence I see for this is literally the type of people she surrounds herself with.
The people we know she interacts with willingly are:
Her adopted short lived children
One of her prisoner partners (Helki)
Mithrun when he's in recovery
Based on these I can see how a very uncharitable view can interpret as "she surrounds herself with people that she's superior to" and it is somewhat true. But she's never shown mistreating or actually acting superior to any of them, if anything Helki is constantly hanging out around her (he was pardoned after Utaya and might be her servant now but their interactions seem very casual), Kabru says she teaches her children everything they want to know and she eventually let him go even if before she was hesitant to (as a overprotective parent) and Mithrun was still a noble with several servants when she cared for him so even if he was sick socially he was still the same. (considering both are noble outcasts)
The evidence both for and against the idea that she adopts children to surround herself with people "inferior" to her are all circumstantial so I guess it depends on how you want to see it. I myself think there's no evidence she thinks of them as inferior considering all we see she seems to treat them either as her babies (would you word your feelings for a baby as them being inferior to you?) or as someone she wants to nurture
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3 - She wants to be in control of someone (Kabru is her doll)
Related to the above reason but slightly different, in this interpretation I see people assume she doesn't see Kabru as his own person but as one of her dolls to be controlled. As if she raises her children so she can play house and dress up with human dolls.
Honestly that's pretty cool and an amazing visual for an evil mom but there's zero evidence that that's the case. Starting with her actual dolls themselves they aren't dress up dolls or something she puppeteers in an evil way, they're literally her comfort toys she runs to when she's sad
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She's making them by hand while crying cause she feels like she doesn't belong, her bio says the dolls are her only friends so it makes me a little sad when people act like her doll hobby is somehow a creepy aspect that makes her seem evil, since that's exactly how the elves think of her (creepy and gloomy)
Milsiril is clearly someone that enjoys taking care of others we see it both with her children and with Mithrun, but how to know if that's actual altruism or some twisted sense of superiority? How to know if she isn't the toxic nurse that just wants to be in power of someone? How to know she is actually helping the people she cares for?
Easy, she helped them until they didn't need her anymore.
She trained Kabru and taught him everything he knows, he's where he is because he had her help even if at first she wanted to prove he wasn't strong enough to go, he was. She sees Kabru as a small child because of their race differences but she still respected him enough to take the training seriously.
Mithrun actually recovered once she could take the time to help him, I keep reminding it but it was years after he was rescued that she went to help with his recovery (his bio says Utaya was what motivated him to finally come back and she was the one that went to tell him about Utaya and help out) right now Mithrun is able to follow a routine and live by himself, Milsiril isn't even someone he talks about as he is now.
Both people we know she cared for are completely independent of her now and neither of them even thinks about her much. A controlling person that wants to keep you within their grasp and keep you needing them would never actually help you be independent of them.
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4 - Then why did she adopt Kabru?
I think it's an easy answer the way I see it: shared trauma.
What Kabru went thru is 100 times worse than what Milsiril went thru during Utaya, especially since he was just a small child back then and he lost everything, But Milsiril is still a war veteran, the things Kabru describes, people turning into monsters eating the others, all the death and destruction, Milsiril was there to witness it all and she failed to save them. her bio reads "After the incident in Utaya, she left the Canaries in disgust. She secluded herself deep in the mountains and intentionally lives apart from other elves" she was so traumatized by the events she both left "in disgust" and became a hikikomori. Earlier in her bio it also says "(...) The people around her teased her (...) partly as a result, she hates elves" I sure wonder what's the other part that makes her hate elves. (Probably is the way they dealt with Utaya)
I think she adopted Kabru because she wanted to give a good life to the only survival of the war she fought, the other destiny Kabru could have has would be the same Rin had, a traumatizing stay with the elves, Milsiril saved him from that fate when she adopted him. He wasn't a random brown kid she picked up, they share a traumatizing experience (once again: even if it was 100 times worse for Kabru).
The reason she adopted the other kids is also pretty obvious to me: she likes caring for people and she wants to feel loved. That's her ulterior motive to raise short lived children, she has elf trauma and she wants a family.
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That doesn't make her a perfect mom or a perfect person tho*, she's just as flawed as anyone, I feel like people sometimes forget mothers are also human beings with flaws. Being flawed doesn't make her a monster, being loving doesn't make her an angel, she's just a person doing her best.
*She still has the ingrained elf socialization and clearly thinks of her children as babies, she treats teen Kabru almost like a toddler in some interactions. There's also the thing about her not fully understanding the importance of his cultural background. Struggles that I assume are common in interracial adoptions
Disclaimer cause this is the reading comprehension website: This is my interpretation of the character, some of it is very charitable towards Milsiril and I'm not talking about how Kabru might feel about her. I'm trying to think of their relationship thru her perspective and how she treated him because some interpretations seem to come out of nowhere to me. Kabru has complex feelings about elves and about his elf mom but overall I still think "overprotective foster mom" really summarizes his feelings. I don't think he resents her even with her flaws.
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rboooks · 1 year
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Child Support Part 2
Tim watched the other young heroes as they tried to look around the watch tower without seeming like they were. He's been here plenty of times, but the rest of the Teen Titans and a few of the Young Justice hasn't.
Much was due to the older heroes leaving the younger ones alone. Some not taking them seriously enough to welcome them at the big HQ as much as that made his blood boil.
They were taking the same risks. They were fighting the same good fights. Why was their age the main reason they weren't treated equally?
Some teenage heroes weren't part of a team per see, but they always answered when a call was sent. For example, Cass and Steph were present, speaking softly to Static Shock. Damian was standing next to Jon and his little friend Colin who was just getting into the swing of the hero business.
Bruce almost bit through his tongue when Damian told him Abuse would be joining Robin on parol, and he could do nothing to stop them. (Tim felt like he was watching Damian tell Bruce a paraphrased version of "But Daddy, I love him!" and it kept him smiling for weeks)
It was wild to see almost every young hero in one place. He doesn't think this happened since the last time Justice Leauge got mind controlled and almost destroyed the whole world.
"Any idea why we're here?" Kon asks to his right, lowering his shade to stare at the Outlaws. Jason's team stood to the side chatting iddly while cleaning over thier weapons.
Kon's always like their punk point of view, and he knows his best friend wants to go over there to talk to them. If it wasn't for the issue of the clone still being mad about what Jason did at the Teen Titans tower. Almost murder was hard to forgive for people outside the Bats.
"None. All I know is that John Constantine sent out a message to every teenage superhero group calling for a meet-up," Tim responds.
Bart whistles with a grimace on his right. "Must be bad if that guy is asking."
"I heard Hawkwoman tell Superman that she was worried and wasn't sure she wanted anyone of us mixed up in Constantine's mistakes." Cassie chimes in from where she leans on the couch. The three turn to her as she lowers her voice, attempting to keep the others from hearing. "Batman told her off for it."
"Batman did?" Tim asks, surprised.
Cassie shrugs, throwing a bit of her blond hair over her shoulder. "As much Batman can emote anyway."
Yeah, that sounded about right. Though it must have been something Bruce found disrespectful. His dad usually never reprimanded strangers unless they were saying something or doing something that sounded far too much like bigotry to him.
But to apply that to Constantine? Someone, Bruce generally disliked communicating with because the man tended to backstab his contacts? Yes, Constantine wasn't evil, but he wasn't pleasant either.
If Bruce had magical issues, he tended to contact Zatanna first.
Just then, the watch tower's zeta beams activate. Everyone who gathered turns to the teleporting pads where Constantine appears looking, for lack of a better word, absolutely exhausted. Even Tim knows that his eye bags aren't that bad, and he's usually going hours without sleep.
"Oh good, you all made it," Constantine says, sipping from a mug and wearing nothing but sweatpants and what looks like a nightgown. His signature trench coat was nowhere in sight. "I'm going to be quick about this. I need a team of young heroes willing to accept my son into their fold."
The room is dead silent. Constantine sighs. "Look, I've tried everything, but it's like Danny is allergic to laying low. He fought with a demon the other day over a child's doll- which you all know happens. People get haunted! But Danny refused to do it the right way, and now I had to beat off the demon's marriage proposal at least ten times. Not to mention his lack of social skills! No matter which one I stick him in, he can't seem to make friends in school. He got shoved into a locker on his first day! I thought that was an American exaggeration of the telly!"
Constantine pauses and takes a large gulp of whatever he's drinking before continuing his rant. A hand runs through his already messy hair, leaving it in bigger disarray as he speaks. "He's behind in terms of trends and technology cause his other father raised him outside of the typical timelines, so sometimes it's like talking to someone from the early two thousand, and other times it's like he's a modern Victorian era lad. His powers are also all over the place because the ectoplasm in our world is thicker, so when he breathes it in, he losses his control. Just the other day he accidentally made himself fly through our ceiling and almost reach the atmosphere before I was able to bring him back down."
A few of the fliers in the room wince. Jon nods and whispers under his breath, though his voice carries in the silence. "Yeah, been there before. Flying can be scary if you don't know how to come down."
Johns glances around at all the young people, eyes showing a tad bit of desperation. "He's sad all the time now, and I don't know how to help. If working with you could help him make friends, I would be grateful. He's a great kid. He just needs to adjust."
Tim had no idea what to do with this information; how do you respond to arguably one of the strongest Justice League Darks' heroes asking for a play date for his son?
"How old is the child?" Damian's voice rings out. Colin's hand is attached to his sleeve, a slightly nervous smile on the boy's face as he attempts to hide from the staring heroes behind his brother. Tim bets that if he wasn't wearing the domino mask, they would be able to see slight tears in Colin's eyes.
Damian's other hand goes across his body to cover Colin's hand, and Tim fights a shit-eating grin. His eyes lock with Jason, and the two send each other knowing grins. Looks like Bruce did have to worry about Damian having a secret boyfriend.
He can't wait to tease Damian later.
"He's fourteen....or well, physically?" Constantine answers eagerly.
"What does that mean?" Kon asks this time.
"Okay, so he's half human, half ecto-being. He sired him with his other father, Clockwork, which was only four years ago in this dimension, but since he was raised in the Infinite Relemas, times move differently there? " The British man says, and Raven goes rigid.
"Clockwork, as in the most powerful Ancient?" She asks, looking horror-struck when Constantine nods.
Before anyone asked what that meant, the zeta tubes activated again without permission. Someone had hacked into their systems which were ten levels bad. Everyone naturally fell into a fighting stance, only to blink when a teenage boy stepped out with a loud excited screech.
"We're in space!" The teenager runs to one of the windows, pressing his hands and face up against the glass. "This is amazing!"
Tim only relaxes his muscles once Constantine clears his throat. "Chum...what are you doing here?"
"Oh. One of your curse rocks things started proposing to me again, so I ran out of the House of Mysteries. Thought I see what you were up to." The teenager says, turning around with a smile and utterly freezing at the sight of the gathered heroes.
He had dark hair, wide blue eyes, and the most adorable face Tim had ever seen. Not as sexy as Bernard, of course, but darn close. Judging by the looks of anyone attractive to males, most heroes thought the same.
"Um...hi?" He says, offering the Godsmack teenagers a helpless little shrug. "I'm Danny Constantine."
"It is a pleasure, Constantine." Damian marches over to him with all his little twelve-year-old authority. He barely reaches Danny's chest. "I shall look forward to working with you. Are you formally trained in combat or strictly magic?"
"Um...oh, I can throw a punch or two? I'm mostly self taught. I rely on my powers a lot?" Danny fumbles to answer throwing a desperate look at his presumed father.
"No matter. I shall have you begin training. My Beloved also needs to work on his form. There is no shame in this" Damian nods, and Constantine lets out a large sigh of relief. He jogs over to place a hand on his son's shoulder, giving him a one-sided hug
"Yes, Danny, you will join Robin, Superboy, and Abuse on missions. They agree to help you settle and get used to your ghost powers." Constantine smiles. "I'll give me time to discourage all those idiots from trying to trick you into marriage."
"Oh...okay. It's nice to meet you all. Please call me Phantom on the field. Um, are you the team leader?" He asks Damian as the three youngest boys lead him further into the watch tower.
Constantine watches them go with the brightest smile he's ever seen on the man's face. He looks back to the group, who were barely starting to pick their jaws off the floor and makes a shooing motion with his hand. "You lot are dismissed."
Then the man vanishes in a green portal.
There is a ringing silence until Barts blurts out. "I'm pretty sure this is where the Phantom Fan Club first formed. A historical moment."
Tim wants to take a nap.
( Part 1 )
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diejager · 10 months
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Ok but like what about Wendigo reader? Maybe the team knows she's not exactly human but maybe in her file it just marked n/a and leaves it at that so they just assume that their sweet little medic is just a helpful spirit of some kind. Humans tend to give her a very wide birth since they seem to notice her as something they should leave the fuck alone, the boys just assume it's because of them always being near her and leave it at that. Till they're all on a mission and it all goes to shit, they're pinned down and then one of them ends up taking a bullet and reader just straight up fuckin losses it and next thing they know their is a 10 ft tall fuckin deer monster shredding bitches like their made of PAPER MACHE and EATING THEM, once the dust settles it moves towards them and slowly it shifts into their sweet medic but she is covered in blood and she just casually starts treating their wounds and the team is just like "Well mark me down as scared and horny" (if this makes no sense feel free to ignore)
Stag
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Pairing: Monster 141 + Horangi & König x Wendigo!reader
Cw: cannibalism, human eating, greed, blood, canon-typical violence, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 2k (A/N): I felt a bit burnt out so I’m sorry if it’s bad, I reread it just in case, but it still feels bad.
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They say that human greed is the source of evil, the all-consuming hunger for more —more than they need. Hunger drives humans to do the unspeakable, to break the line humanity had drawn and commit the taboo. Despite it being carved so deeply into the human psyche, passed down from generation to generation and the propaganda of humanism and equality, it doesn’t take much to make someone tip over, cross the edge nobody dared to and perform the unspeakable. Possession causes needs and needs cause greed.
That’s why people called to him for help, to carry out a clandestine mission to do their dirty work, his duty was to stop whatever men in power started, whatever men in power lost control —he was the one sent when they were scared. Fear was as coercive as power was. That was the reason Task Force 141 was first founded, to stop dangerous men like Hassan (Gaz remembered hearing from Soap that Ghost shot Hassan through the head, straight through him before he slumped down.) and Makarov, a man they were still searching for while signing a liaison contract with KorTac. Price, with Laswell’s help, managed to put the best of the best together: a wraith, a werewolf, a dragon, a harpy, a nagual and a cadejos vessel, all decorated with various medals for their work, and then there was you.
You were a mystery, even to Price who usually had clearance for anyone who joined them. Gaz knew, from a single glance, that you were far from human, you were a monster like Ghost was, turned after an occasion, or a hybrid like him. Surprisingly, Ghost seemed to welcome you warmly, albeit standoffish, having worked with you in the past, seeing that you both preferred working alone. Gaz wanted to show you the same heartwarming welcome as Ghost had, but there was something about you, an uneasiness he felt when he was around you. The others felt it as well, the innate need to keep their distance from you and the instinctual fear that had the hairs on their arms raised. Gaz could feel your eyes whenever you stared at him, like the eyes of a predator stalking its prey —it made him feel perturbed.   
You seemed so human, yet so inhuman-like, your dull, thousand-yard stare, your inability to feel temperature (either cold or warm, you always wore the same clothes), your odd habits and your unusual calmness in every situation. Gaz had caught you staring at a private for much longer than what people considered normal, eyes glazed over and dilated as if you were seeing something else, daydreaming while being aware of your surroundings. Those were your moments, you were usually bubbly, always smiling at him whenever his eyes met yours or treating him with gentleness and always eager to help him. You had a softness to your being despite the eerie feel to you and your unique tendencies, you didn’t discriminate, nor did you show an ounce of hate towards hybrids and humans, treating everyone fairly. 
Although you tried to fit in as best as you could, there were things that Gaz and the others just couldn’t shake off without questioning things. There was the lingering scent of blood on you, a metallic tang that stuck on his tongue after you walked by. König and Soap had confessed that they had a feeling that blood was a part of your scent, unwashable and impossible to hide, it clung to you like a second skin. They chalked it up to you being the Task Force’s medic, having brought people back from the brink of death and stitching men back together, you were practically bathed in the smell of blood and death every day. 
Another thought was that they never saw you in the Mess hall for food, perhaps a cup of tea or a hot mug of coffee to boost you through a long shift in the infirmary as the base’s main medic if you weren’t deployed with them. Gaz never saw you eat, not once had he seen you hold a plate or bowl with substance for yourself. You would bring either of them a plate, caring for them whenever they were under your watch, giving them soup or anything that they could easily digest. 
Gaz, Soap, Rudy and Horangi would chatter about you, throwing speculations on your breed, to see what hybrid or monster fit all your characteristics. You couldn’t be a wraith, your hands weren’t painted with death, a dark miasma that clung to you. You weren’t a werewolf, Soap would know, wolves were able to smell and recognize each other, it was an instinctual aspect of him. You weren’t any shifting hybrid either, there would be signs, little cues if you were one, and your classification wouldn’t be classified, painted over with a red line. 
All they could was wonder and amble around with curiosity dripping from their tongues. Gaz was sure that he’d find out soon enough, whether it was an accident or your choice.
This wasn’t what Gaz meant by eventually, he didn’t mean being set up by Konni, a trap planted for them in the small Belgium town. It was the best set to box them in, a broken and ransacked ghost town that people fled from, walls greyed and cracked, the paint peeling off street lights and rusted metal poles, lost, forgotten and open. There didn’t have any cover, even if they ran and hid behind the crumbling walls, Konni had them surrounded on every end, concealed behind concrete walls and using the shadows to hide from sight. 
It was chaotic, Konni had pushed them into an open area of the town, the centrepiece of it with a dilapidated, Greek fountain, chipped on the sides and green with mould, Gaz would’ve admired the architecture and the beauty it must’ve been in the past when it was still being cared for. They were backed up in a corner, Gaz couldn’t even stretch his wings out with how tightly they were packed together, the uncomfortable pull of his trapezius and the strain in his limbs kept him grounded. The tension was thick, palpable, Gaz could taste it in the air as much as anyone could, their shoulders tense, fingers tapping the trigger of their rifles. All they could do was wait for Konni to act first, to see where they would appear from and work their way out of this open area from there. 
He had his back towards you, he couldn’t see you but he could feel you shake. It might’ve been from the adrenaline pumping through your veins or the nerve of being lied to, of falling into a trap when Ghost had voiced his suspicions about the lack of clearer intel. They were paying for their amateurism. He felt you shudder, breath stuttering, near panting with exhaustion. Gaz wanted to turn to you, words soothing your nerves and twitchy appearance, he acted letting drown in your mind, whatever it was, he hated it. His finger twitched on the trigger, jolting at the sudden crack of bones, an ugly and painful sound that made him wince. It shocked everyone, even the ever so silent and stoic Ghost who had a hard time hearing these cracks coming from you.
Damn this mission; damn the trap; damn this situation, Gaz needed to look at you, to see why your bones were breaking and limbs rattling. Instinctively, his wings shifted to cover you, the ends widening to cover your sides to protect you from whatever pained you, yet you didn’t let out a single squeak, no moan of pain or the grunt of suffering, you were silent. A part of his mind nagged at him to move, he could fly and try to outrun Konni mercenaries to find a way out, but then he’d leave your back open. He cursed lowly, teeth sinking into his lower lip in frustration, he was-
A loud screech thundered through the air, and screams and squelches followed it. You were missing. 
You were shaking just a second ago, body wracked with some unknown ailment and the next, you were missing, your sack, attire, rifle and helmet were scattered on the ground, with a bony creature tearing through Konni ranks. The hair on his neck rose, an uneasy feeling overtaking him as he watched the creature rip men in half, tines stabbing through their torso like a buck fighting another, head lowered and antlers pointed forward. He watched the tall and thin monster move around, its face was one of a deer’s skull, eaten clean of skin and flesh, any muscle or fibre gone with whatever transformation it took. A crown of antler adorned its head, tall and imposing, as pale as its skull, a coat of black fur was wrapped around the neck, draping down the back like a ridge of fur. 
“Fuck,” Gaz hissed, his body moving along the chaos the being created and your disappearance, he aimed his rifle and shot at the Russians who ran out of their hiding, fearful of the monster’s sudden arrival behind their ranks. “Captain! Is that-?”
“Don’t know anymore!” Price seemed to be as lost as Gaz was, reining in his confusion to focus on taking Konni out. “Keep your head in the game, Gaz; ask questions later.”
Gaz knew Price was right, the town was brimming with Russian ultranationalists, hiding and waiting for their time to jump at them. The situation was still chaotic, but it was better than being without cover. Gaz followed Horangi behind a wall, watching his back while they worked through the humans.
Somehow, Konni either retreated or were all dead, swallowed down by the beast that stood before them. Now that Gaz was standing so close to it - to you, after a few minutes of talking back and forth, they concluded that this was you from the pants that hung from your slim hips - he could see that the deer skull was just a mask covering your face, black and unidentifiable with those bright, gleaming eyes that stared down at him. Despite your curved back, bent to look at them, you towered over everyone, even König seemed small beside you, limbs almost as long as you, fingers tipped with blood that you were still licking off, a long tongue wrapped around your digit to clean yourself from blood, muscle and guts. 
You were casually cleaning yourself up like a cat washing, even in the aircraft, you were gorging on the body of a man you picked up, jaw opening to show them the dozen of teeth before you clamped down on the forearm, tearing into the muscle with famished intent. None of them could take their eyes off you, their sweet, smiley medic who sometimes had their moments, devouring a man without batting an eye, obliviously uncaring of their staring. Gaz wasn’t sure if he knew how he felt, a warmth building up in his chest, a heat that seared into the fibres of his beings like an infectious thing. All they did was watch you eat, no one speaking until you finished your meal.
“Mind tell us what happened, Hunter?” 
You perked up, blinking at Price owlishly, tongue lolling out to lick up the stray drop of blood that stuck on your skull’s teeth. Your chest rumbled, a soft growl rolling off your body while you tilted your head, you acted so much like a feline, grooming, reacting and moving like a curious cat, dangerous, yet so appealing. 
“Wendigo,” you rasped, voice breathy and weak, you spoke in broken English, unable to speak fluently after turning, “Curse, eat human.”
Your little mannerism, the small tilt of your head and your fumbling hands, seemingly embarrassed or ashamed after your show of ruthless hunger and savagery was… eye-opening. Something stewed inside him, your being creating a ripple in his heart, pulling at the hunger in the depth of his gut. He was torn by the fear of having you as the potential enemy and the arousal of seeing you break men in half, painting the ground in crimson and guts, and satiating your hunger - craving - with human and monster flesh. 
Gaz was fucked, both in the head and the situation. 
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sepublic · 1 year
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Thinking of how the Titan showed Luz the first glyph, Light, because she was kind to his son and listened to him, made him feel like his interests mattered when so many others overlooked the little guy and didn’t care about people like him. He didn’t force Luz to painstakingly find it on her own, as Philip did; The Titan freely gave this to her.
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Then the second glyph, Ice, comes when Luz takes the moment to listen to the Titan; To say that she’ll learn on his terms, she’ll respect his body and work with him. Luz paid attention to the unheard son, and now the parent, speaking with and not for him as Philip did.
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She gets the Plant glyph afterwards by continuing to follow that principle and give his son fun and company...
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And the final glyph, Fire? Wing it like Witches is a major epiphany for Luz’s development, where it really hits her that she can’t drag her friends around in her attempts to play out certain beloved tropes and story beats she grew up on; In particular, this episode was about her desire to be the underdog hero, dragging Willow into relatively high-stakes consequences for a Grudgby match she did not ask for.
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Sound familiar? I wonder if the Titan was low key afraid of Luz following in Philip’s steps, recognized that similar hero complex... Even if Luz was nowhere near as evil as Belos, well. Philip started off from somewhere, he didn’t begin as a genocidal dictator with countless sins to his name, he built his way up. Maybe the Titan is just being paranoid, Luz is so young after all! But in the end, he hid one final glyph from Philip because of his need for control, and it was admittedly Luz who jeopardized this precaution by giving Philip the Light spell.
Yet in Wing it like Witches, Luz really matures when she steps up and takes responsibility for her recklessness, for subsuming Willow’s problem and low key making it about herself, and what she decides for the group. Luz takes the full consequences of the stakes she set up so neither Willow nor Gus have to, and it’s this mature gesture of self-awareness that prompts them to reciprocate and forgive Luz.
So I wonder if THAT moment was what solidified to the Titan that yes, I really can trust this child. This human, the first after centuries of another who has been desecrating my corpse, bastardizing my name; She truly didn’t know any better, and meant well, teaching Philip the Titan’s last glyph. The first few glyphs were like little gifts, but giving Luz the last one meant she had full access to all of the Titan’s magic, so long as she experimented with glyph combos. And the Titan felt safe to entrust her with something he barred from Philip, because why?
Because Luz got over that fatal flaw of Philip’s; The desire to be the hero at any cost. That proved she wouldn’t follow in his footsteps, she diverged at a crucial point, and it meant she’d never become another Belos. They both worked and studied for the glyphs, but what mattered was the compassion that Luz had, and it was her kindness that began her discovery of glyphs. The Titan could trust his final glyph to her, Fire... But as he’d find out, it wasn’t even his final gift to Luz, either.
There really is this recurring arc of hesitancy from the Titan; Someone who was used, betrayed, and taken advantage of. And knew how easy it was for the same to happen to his son. So to see the little ways in which he opens up, recognizes Luz’s kindness and maturity and responds to each step in her growth... It’s like someone learning to trust again, realizing they’ve really found a friend after all. It’s no wonder Luz is treated like an old friend by the Titan, because she is one, and it makes his final gift and farewell to her all the more impactful.
On a lighter note! I’m just imagining the Titan figuring out how to show Luz the Fire glyph, after deciding he’ll do just that. I keep thinking of him watching Luz in the Grudgby game, cheering her on and giving Luz support by illuminating his last glyph in Boscha’s fire; “Here kid, take this!” It’s such a relatively casual and silly moment too, because the Titan isn’t obsessed with the theatrics and drama of godhood.
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kaibutsushidousha · 6 months
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Kodaka April Fools tweets 2024
Lying just because it's April Fools' is so dull. Honestly painful to watch. Lying in general doesn't do you any good. In my younger days, I told every lie I could, saying some genuinely insane stuff about being a supreme leader of evil and whatnot, and thanks to that, now that I'm in my thirties, I got famous for all the wrong reasons and can't find a stable job because people think I'm associated with the yakuza... Sigh, I wanna deck my cringe younger self's face. Quit lying for fun while you can.
My classmates aren't doing great either. Thinking you're hot shit during your school days always comes back to bite you... My advice to my past self: slow and steady effort is worth more than any talent. Also, the part of life you spent larping with that silly horse laugh is not going to be one you'll want to remember later. I wish I could make that clear to him. White lies aren't a thing. Talent is never enough. My class is proof of that. Wanna know what my classmates are like now that we're in our thirties?
Akamatsu became a piano teacher. Her player skills capped off in her teens, it seems. But she's not that good at teaching so she's considered kinda mid at her job. And now she's struggling with the father of a student incessantly hitting on her. Tough world to live in.
Toujou opened a housekeeping company but she was too strict with her employees so everyone quit. And now she's doing everything on her own. Sucks to be in your thirties without any successors or employees. She's a prime example of how being so much better than anyone else doesn't do you any good. Well, she's always working for celebrities, so she's doing well financially, but I heard about some major court fight about a missing item under suspicion of theft from one of her clients. That can't be nice.
Yumeno got to her thirties still saying magic is real, so she's past the point of no return. She agrees that's an unhinged way to live, but she's too old to suddenly change gimmicks. Work takes her all over the country, but her gimmick doesn't allow her to publicly drink, so she has to get plastered alone in her hotel room after shows. I wish she could fix her life with real magic.
Harukawa? ...Haven't heard that name in a long time. Now she was a living edgy fantasy. The past tense was because I hadn't heard of her in a long time. I don't know the details, but apparently, she went to some war zone outside of Japan because her first love didn't want to date her. Takes some real edgelord to react to a broken heart like that, but if she's still alive, I have no idea how her thirties are treating her. My personal guess is that she's a mother of many.
Chabashira opened her Aikido school but is having a hard time attracting students. So she had the idea of starting an anti-sexual-harassment campaign that could double as advertisement, but thanks to her cluelessness when it comes to romance, she got canceled for mistakenly tossing men in regular couples. She's still doing the "degenerate males" bit in her thirties. Girl really needs to get on with the times. Rumor goes that she still downs huge packs of tequila bottles with Yumeno every now and then. Really don't think there's any salvaging her reputation.
Shirogane is an office lady still continuing her cosplay hobby on the side. She could be doing well if she knew how to keep her mouth shut but frequently rambles about cosplay history and etiquette, so no one likes having her around. Stay emotionally dependent on a single hobby long enough and your passion starts to close you off to others. That's her problem.
Angie was the most successful in the class! She made big money both on the art and the religion fronts. However, there were some controversies about her devotees selling counterfeits of her paintings at exorbitant prices and one magazine made a huge news coverage of it, which resulted in her catching the police's attention. She's been recently untraceable, with the rumors saying that she'll never be back to Japan.
Oh, and Iruma... Up until some point, she had the best life of all of us. She made big money off of her inventions' patents. So far so good. Things only started going off-rails after she married an ex-stripper. The two started a YouTube channel together. And later, her husband ran in last year's elections and lost big time. They got an awful debt from his election campaign and she had to get into side jobs to pay it off. And her husband? Disappeared. No word from Iruma herself about what happened. Tough world to live in.
No further updates from Kodaka in the past 3 hours, so I assume he went to sleep and will come back to tweet about the 7 remaining boys in the morning.
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yooooo!!! you’re my favorite ethan winters artist i just wanna say that first and foremost, thank you for the wholesome content of my comfort character and father figure 🥹🫶
i’m really curious bc i feel like i see a lot of people against mithan (not me personally, i’m p neutral on them!) but i’m curious to know all your thoughts on them! thoughts on their canon relationship, their fanon portrayal, the backlash against them/mia accusations, and your headcanons? i’m just really interested!!! hopefully that’s not weird :”)
have a good day!! sparkle on!!! ✨💖
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i heart mithan... i think that they can be so cute...
i personally hc them t4t and i like to think that the dated in highschool before they both had fully transitioned
mia likes to bake and ethan likes to scrap book and he always likes to take pictures of mias cakes/ baked goods and has a album for them 😭
i am a multishipper so i draw a lot of ethan ships so my girl is left out sometimes and im sorry mia 😔
i actually really like their relationship, its a really complex dynamic that i like to talk about with my friends
i think the issue is that when talking about mithan or mia in general, theres just SO MUCH misinformation that its honestly a pain the butt to talk about
people still think that she was responsible for the creation of eveline, people still think that she experimented on eveline, people still use examples of her attacking ethan as if she did it on her own will instead of being mind controlled
in reality she was just someone who oversaw the transportation of evie. im not excusing her or anything because obviously she knew what she was doing, but people really try to accuse her of doing something she didnt and it bothers me alot lol
the problem with the fandom is that people either try to water her down to girlboss who did nothing wrong and fail to acknowledge the complexity/ moral grayness of her character and the other side is misogynists 😭😭😭😭
its hard to talk about her without people either going "stop trying to villainize her and make her look bad!" or people ACTUALLY villainizing her and acting like heisenberg would have treated him better 😭😭
mithan is such a sad relationship because they loved each other so much and that ended up being the reason their relationship fell apart (sort of... its not like the broke up... ethan kinda just straight up died)
i get a lot a trouble for saying this, but mia is a selfish person.
its not a bad thing! well i mean it is but it doesnt make her some evil witch who is somehow worse than the guy how made a werewolf american ninja warrior. its just a major character flaw she has! which is good! mia being a flawed person who makes mistakes and morally gray decisions make her a more interesting person!
she is selfish in the way that she wants to keep her family with her no matter the cost. even if it means lying to ethan about her job so that he wont think different of her. here is a interrogation from the re7 DLC, which is easy to miss!
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she isnt necessarily trying to apologize for the things she has done, she is more of a, "u wont need to forgive me in the first place if we just forget it all and move on"
she doesn't try to redeem herself for what she has done, she tries to move on and return to the normal life that she wants so bad. which is fine! everyone copes a different way and she has to right to move on from her trauma. the problem that lies in this is that she has a shared trauma with ethan who still has no idea what went on in dulvey and still effects him till the present (he is mold! this is a important thing to know! most people would want to know if they were a walking corpse)
she played a direct part in what happened in dulvey, and im not referring to the email, she did not send that. she never wanted ethan to come in the first place. she tried her best to send a video to him, begging him to forget about her because she wanted to protect him, BUT it didnt send.
he got involved because she was involved. its honestly a series of really really unfortunate events.
THOUGH! she did know what she was getting into. im tired of seeing the narrative that mia was innocent and didnt know what was going on or was simply a bystander. she knew what she was doing, she knew eveline was a bioweapon, she knew eveline was a child. she used a MACHINE GUN! she knows how to use weapons and was obviously trained for it.
she tried her best to keep everybody out of the mess, ex: warning the bakers not to take them in, warning ethan not to find her, sacrificing herself for ethan in the later half of re7
but again, those are the consequences of HER actions
her consequences just happen to get really big and end up hitting ethan on the head like a metal sheet 😭
their relationship is really so interesting, it makes me really sad to think about sometimes 😭they both went through something that nobody else would ever understand, in the end they really only have each other. they get moved to an entire different country and the dulvey incident gets covered up with a "gas leak"
its really tragic because their marriage definitely had some flaws and bumps. and i know im repeating myself but its because people always take this in the worst way possible but just because i say their relationship was rocky doesnt mean im saying they dont love each other!!! thats the entire basis of mias character!! saying she doesnt love ethan would destroy her entire character!
you can see in the re8 DLC how fondly ethan talks about mia! he loves her so much, though im not sure if his comments in the DLC are him narrating current (post re8) or his thoughts before everything went down and he died (pre re8)
everything mia did was because she LOVED ethan. she would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, she is not a cruel person. she hides the truth of her job from ethan pre re7 because she loves him and doesnt want her job to drive them apart. she CONTINUES to refuse to tell ethan the truth post re7 because she wants to move on a live a happy normal life with him and knows something like her being directly associated with the connections would probably cause (more) problems. she refuses to tell ethan that he is mold because again, hard to live a happy marriage with your husband after you tell him hes a bioweapon.
obviously i dont think it was right that she did this, thats what makes her selfish! she did it for herself! she did it for her family! she thought it would work out, she thought that they could move on and be happy together.
the issue is that ethan didnt want to forget. he wanted to know what happened, he wanted to know the part mia played, he wanted answers! which is reasonable! he knows to some extent that mia was partially responsible for his involvement and he was always suspcious that mia was lying to him about her job which is implied when mia says "you were right, i did lie to you"
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she doesnt learn, she doesnt stop lying, her lies get bigger and worse and it sucks yeah but it makes her so interesting!!! she keeps doing stupid things under the idea that this is whats best for her and her family, that if she hides this everything will work out and it will be for the better but its not!
just because telling your husband hes dead and a bioweapon is a hard subject to bring up doesnt mean you DONT bring it up. people shouldnt use that as a reason to excuse mia 😭, its a very bad excuse and honestly highlights how horrible their communication skills were. you cant just not tell your husband that he is actually infected with the mold and not tell him for the tree years between post re7 and pre re8.
im not saying these things to put mia down, or try and villanize her. these are all just actual things her character does! she isnt evil, but she isnt a knight in shining armor either. we need to be able to have talks about complex characters without crying everytime someone points out a flaw. characters have flaws! and mia just happens to have a lot of them!
im not mad at her, i dont dislike her because i think this way of her. shes a fictional character! you can like characters that are morally gray, or villains that drink blood and make corpse soldiers. they are fictional! pointing out the flaws of a character does not mean i dont like them.
i wouldnt call her "the real villain of re8" but i wouldnt treat her like a damsel in distress either. she is a competent person, she knows what shes doing, she has her reasons for doing them. she made bad descions with good intentions behind them! they can coexist and we should let them!
i like mithan! its a complex relationship because they both love each other so much but hurt each other in the process
talking about them is just a pain in the butt because talking about mia is a pain in the butt lol
i really hate how she keeps getting sidelined, its super frustrating to see mia get put in a cage in every game 😭
its even more frustrating that mia straight up just disappears???? in the shadows of rose DLC... like she just stops taking care of rose and theres nothing said about it. no reason or explanation. i dont think mia would ever ditch rosemary because she didnt care about her, but we probably will never know because capcom sucks at writing and they probably forgot the mia ever even existed.
all in all, i think the fandom is really just full of misinformation which make people either think mia is some horrible evil person, or its full of people who think that saying mia messed up is the equivalent of comparing her to wesker lol.
i really love mia, shes a incredibly fun and complex character, its just hard to enjoy her sometimes with the people in the fandom haha.
also ive got no idea what u meant by "the backlash against them/mia accusations" so sorry if i didnt answer that!
thank u for the ask! sorry for the long response!
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ironunderstands · 5 months
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God I love being correct (2.2 leaks incoming!!!)
“Jade saved Aventurine!!!” “Jade helped him out of the kindness of her own heart!!” “Jade is such a mother figure to Aventurine!!”
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mmm yeah, definitely yup 100%
Honestly this fucking speaks for itself, and I’m so glad hoyo committed to the evil on her, she’s very compelling and that’s extremely cunty I must give her credit for it, but god do I absolutely despise the people who believe Jade and Aventurine have a healthy relationship, or that she “saved” him out of the kindness of her own heart or something.
To Jade, Aventurine is an investment, nothing more and nothing less, which is why she puts her faith in him, he’s a reliable business opportunity, but that’s not the same as caring about him personally and I really need people to get the difference
If Aventurine hadn’t proved himself useful to her, she would have left him to rot in prison or succumb to his death sentence, this isn’t saving, it’s exploitation.
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Jade knows Aventurine couldn’t decline whatever offer she made, and anything is worse than death or slavery, the things he’s trying to escape, so she offers for him to join the IPC to make more money for them. That’s it, that’s all she wants, she doesn’t care about how bad being in the IPC is for Aventurine’s mental health, how he literally took on a suicide mission so he could escape being a stoneheart, how even if she “saved” him, his banner name is literally “gilded imprisonment” and his lightcone “inherently unjust destiny”, so damn she did a real good job at saving him and fixing his life, definitely didn’t just put him in a pair of gilded chains.
Also like can we talk about how weird Jades comment about his eyes were? Like it’s genuinely creepy to me considering Avens eyes are a) one of his biggest insecurities and b) people fetishize them, something which Jade knows and chooses to still comment about. I hate to say it, but I feel like if this was a male Jade saying that to a female Aventurine, yall would never let that slide and Jade would never beat the p3do allegations. Aventurine was likely a teenager/young adult in that scene, and either way there is a visible power dynamic between them (I mean Aven is literally in chains looking up at her), and I don’t think if the situation was flip flopped people would be treating Jade like some kinda hero. If they were the same gender I feel like people would be shipping them though 😭
So, yeah. Being correct feels amazing, pls use your brains and realize that just because one character sounds kinda nice to another, does not mean they actually care about them or are a good person!
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exaltior-a · 1 year
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Personally the amount of people who are either "Jake is a stupid himbo" or "Jake is actively malicious" blow my mind. No, Jake isn't stupid, and he's not evil. He's a sixteen year old who is implied to have a mental disability and/or brain damage (it's not exactly clear, Caliborn claims they have the same developmental disorder and Dirk iirc worries that Jake hit his head too much, I guess you can take either with a grain of salt but I digress), and has not had meaningful real life interactions with other human beings in years. He is in the wrong for his actions, but it feels. Purposefully ignorant to claim he's just stupid or just evil for them.
He's socially stunted. He wants to emulate heroes in movies but lacks self esteem and experience. If the alpha kids had enough time to be more fleshed out (and let's be real, if Hussie cared about Jake) this might have been explored more thoroughly. He'd never had the opportunity to learn how to cope with a relationship, how to communicate his needs, or understand that he can't control how other people perceive him like he can through a computer screen.
He doesn't know healthy boundaries because he's never had to use them, and this goes both ways (allowing his friends to sexualise him and treat him like an object, as well as constantly complaining about his relationship with Dirk to Jane) Like yeah he does run away instead of communicating with Dirk and yeah he does dump all his problems on Jane. I love Jane, but one of her problems is her bottling up her feelings and people pleasing until everything blows up. She should have told him off much sooner, and while he was being a dick, it was partly because she allowed him to feel like it was okay to do, since she never told him it wasn't after the first few times or when she was starting to get aggravated.
His problems with Dirk are a little more complicated because we're never actually shown their relationship or how it broke down, but from what we can gather, Jake felt overwhelmed by Dirk's intensity and decided to ignore him rather than tell him try and avoid confrontation but leading to Dirk being frustrated and breaking up with him. Dirk claims he feels like he bullied Jake into a relationship, and though I personally think that's him making it seem worse than it was, it does mean that Dirk probably was trying to go too fast. I've best heard it is Jake being an introvert pretending to be an extrovert.
This is not to say I don't think people can't dislike or even hate Jake, but it's like. Idk. Misinterpreting a character and disliking that version of them is a little redundant to me.
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olenvasynyt · 5 months
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In ACOWAR during the meeting with Kier when he asks for his people to be free of the mountain, Feyre says “You have every comfort, and it’s still not enough?”
She had every comfort at Tamlin’s manor, and it still wasn’t enough for her…
#freethecourtofnightmares2024
One thing that really pisses me off about the Court of Nightmares is how SJM writes it so black and white. The entire court, not just Keir, is evil and conniving. There was a part in ACOWAR where he says he is going to let the CoN go to Velaris but he told all of the vendors and business owners to refuse service to not just Keir, but all of the CoN. And this paints the entire court in this black and white lense.
Not a single person in that court is a dreamer like Mor? She was the only fucking one?
I think there can be a little bit of nuance to the situation where a significant portion of the court is just bad because they have been festering in the dark for so long, but guess who's fault is that?? It's the leader's fault, the one who keeps the court up and running, aka the High Lord, aka Rhys.
Rhys says he wants change. That he wants to show the world that he's good. But he continues to keep the Court of Nightmares up and running, he keeps Keir as herald.
"Oh this court is so awful and sadistic," Feyre thinks as she sits on the throne with a crown on her head and with Rhys holding her hand.
And Rhys says "the Court of Nightmares just rules itself" and sure, I guess that's true, but as High Lord, you have the ability to put a stop to that and pull out the bad weeds. But instead, you keep it running to further your agenda and to keep your evil mask on.
Getting mad at Keir for slutshaming your lover and breaking his arm is not enough. Restricting access to Velaris is not enough. Even telling the Court "you guys are bad >:C " is not fucking enough.
Rhys the most powerful High Lord who killed all of the Illyrian war bands who sided with Amarantha after UTM, yet he can't do the same to the CoN?
Rhys and Feyre and the IC label the entire CoN as evil without trying to find the forgotten dreamers, and they continue to keep the court up and running and making the excuse that "it's too hard" despite their power and influence. It means they don't care. Or that Rhys maybe fucking enjoys it.
It also means that SJM (so far) has no idea what she's doing and can't understand the situation she wrote in her own series.
And this brings me to comparing Nesta being locked up, the CoN and its dreamers being locked up, and Feyre being locked up. Is SJM intending this irony and hypocrisy of the IC? I sure hope so because I swear it's the most obvious comparision ever, but it confuses me because a large majority of the ACOTAR fanbase doesn't get it. "Oh well the CoN is evil! They have to keep them contained and Rhys can't do a whole lot as High Lord because the Court rules itself." And the most frustrating argument: "Nesta was addicted to sex and alcohol, she needed to be rehabilitated! It's for her own good!"
They don't see the irony of how the IC treats Nesta because Tamlin also did what he did for Feyre's own good. It was to protect her, keep her safe. Not saying it was 100% good and right, but why are we not understanding that what the IC did to Nesta was not 100% good and right either?
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https://www.tumblr.com/attackfish/155865674048?source=share
Thoughts on this pist? The three pillar theory of Azula?
I think it's a shame that it started out as a genuinely good analysis that wasn't neglecting either Azula's "evil" side nor her "good/innocent" side, and was quickly derrailed into nonsense that either lies about or grossly misremembers canon events.
Here are the five mistakes that ruined this analysis (and plenty of others).
1 - Unwillingness to accept that, while Azula is wrong about Ozai, she is 100% right about Ursa
Ozai was an abusive parent towards both of children. Ursa was a better parent - this does not mean she was perfect.
We see her spending time one-on-one with Zuko, and sometimes including Azula in it, and looking happy when her children are seemingly getting along. So far, so good.
But she doesn't spend one-on-one time with Azula, Bryke describe Zuko as Ursa's FAVORITE, and Zuko himself does not defend his mother when Azula says she loved him more. Not so good.
When Zuko throws bread at the turtleducks and hurts one, Ursa is horrified, but only reprimands him a little before hugging him and playfully explaining to him why what he did was bad. Through the rest of the episode, we constantly see her either telling Azula to not speak the way she does or scolding her harshily - without ever explaining the reason why. Zuko, the year-old, is the only person that bothers to explain things to Azula (like Iroh coming home early because he's grieving and how that's not weakness) and question her in an attempt to force her to put herself in someone else's shoes (asking how she'd feel if their cousin wanted their dad to die).
Ursa's 10-year-old son, even when in a fit of rage, did a better job than her at parenting her 8-year-old daughter.
And, finally, this person mentions the comics as "proof" of Azula just "not understanding" that her mom totally was treating her and Zuko the same, unlike their dad.
In the comics, Ursa ignores her daughter, even she's in the room. She wakes Zuko up to say goodbye when she's banished, so he'll know he was loved, but doesn't do the same to Azula, meaning their last interaction was a fight. She then willingly forgets her own children, and then she has her memories back she rarely ever bothers to mention that Azula, who is in the middle of a psychotic episode, is missing. There's no concern for her well-being, only "Oh, I wonder how my OTHER daughter is doing." Can't even say her fucking name.
Ursa played favorites and it damaged her daughter. The mirror scene is quitely literally Azula desperately wanting Ursa to treat her like she used to treat Zuko - explaining what she did wrong, how she can be better, and assuring her that she is loved. The only time Azula is treated fairly by her mother was literally a hallucination.
2 - Bizarre need to make every mundane thing Azula does be connected to/a result of some pathological condition
Azula is a manipulative person, no one in their right mind can deny that - but I gotta laugh when people act like her giving her mom puppy-dog eyes and repeating the line Ursa probably used to make her kids play together is on the same level of her manipulating Long Feng, or that her playing a prank on Zuko and Mai is no different from messing with his head in "Avatar State."
Just because she is villain, doesn't mean everything she does has an evil, hidden motive. We first hear "Azula always lies" when she tells Zuko THE TRUTH about their dad going to murder him.
No one believes someone who is NEVER honest. No one gets attached to someone that is NEVER kind. Not dick move is a result of someone's greatest flaws. A child telling a white lie is not the same as some crazy scheme to manipulate someone.
3 - Not understanding that unhealthy/selfish love is not the same as FAKE love
I don't think I've ever been more mad at a line in an analysis about Azula (which is saying a lot) than I was when I read this person claim that Azula didn't genuinely love Mai and Ty Lee and justified with the absurd sentence "People don’t fall apart the way Azula did because somebody they love leaves them."
Yes, they do. When you have a ton of problems, be it psychological ones or life-problems, having the people you care about turn away from you can absolutely make you spiral out of control. You don't even need some kind of unhealthy, excessive dependence on them for that to be the case. Losing people is very painful, and during low points a great deal of pain can fuck you up.
Azula's dynamic with them is not healthy, but that doesn't mean her love isn't real. And I don't mean it in a "It's real FOR HER", no, it's just 100% real, plain and simple.
If Azula didn't care about them, she would have never done things like not punish Mai for blatanly disregarding her orders in The Drill, or apologize after making Ty Lee cry, admit she was JEALOUS, and then ask advice. She'd sure as hell not have conversation with her "mom" (herself) about how she hurt them and abused their friendship/her authority over them.
She loves her friends, but she was never taught how to have a normal, equal relationship with anyone. She was raised to see things as a matter of who is in charge and who is subordinate. She is the princess, therefore it's her right to put her wants and needs before that of her friends. She even says to "Ursa" that she doesn't have the option to NOT act like that, because "fear is the only reliable way."
That is a key factor of Azula's tragedy, because her relationship with Ozai is the center of her universe, it is the basis of all other relationships in her life - and it is rooted in her never doing anything to displease him because she's terrified not only of the potential punishment, but of also losing that bond. So she uses fears to keep others close to her, not realizing that if she didn't do that they wouldn't WANT to cut ties with her.
(Also, fuck me, I nearly punched my computer when I read "Ty Lee ran away with the circus to be free of Azula." She literally tells us it was about her bad relationship with HER PARENTS AND HER SISTERS. It had nothing to do with Azula - what is it with people and this obsessive need of blaming my girl for things we KNOW weren't her fault?)
4 - Not understanding that Zuko is more than just Azula's rival/the exemple of what happens when you displease Ozai
Azula loves her brother. According to the lead writer of the show, Zuko is the person Azula loves the most (after Ozai, hence all the tension in their relationship).
Azula didn't know Aang had any chance of survival until Zuko let it slip - when they were ALREADY home, meaning the plan to blame him for everything if Aang survived could not possibly exist yet.
In the following episode, she warns him to be careful when visiting Iroh, otherwise people could think they were plotting together. Zuko asks what she's gaining by letting him know, and she says she's just looking out for him - and it never comes back, because she was not lying. She WAS taking care of him.
The Last Agni Kai hits so hard because they COULD have had a good relationship if things were different. If Ozai and Ursa hadn't played favorites. If Ozai wasn't abusive. If Zuko hadn't left after Azula brought him home, or if Azula had understood WHY he left.
Even in "The Spirit Temple", one of the few comics that are actually good, Azula says she wished their mom had let Ozai kill Zuko... yet we see that her ideal, happy life includes her loving, unscarred brother that is super proud of her. She spends the entire comic saying Zuko is weak and a coward who can't face her, yet when she sees "him" (an hallucination) directly confroting her about her own mistakes and the pain she caused, demanding her to apologize, it is Azula herself who runs away to hide from him.
Azula hurt her brother many times, and she knows that - and she is in denial about the guilt she feels over it because feeling guilt over hurting someone who is "lesser" is a weakness and an imperfection, and she needs to be strong and perfect all the time.
If you disregard her conflicting feelings on her brother, you disregard half her character.
5 - Forgetting that Azula is a child soldier under Ozai's orders
This is THE big one, guys. It's astounding how people just forget that Ozai isn't just Azula's abusive parent, he is the absolute monarch that can legally punish her if she displeases him.
Does she repeatedly fight Zuko because of their rivalry? Sure. But half the time she's doing it because Ozai literally gave her the mission to do so.
Does she threaten Ty Lee at the circus because she doesn't like being told "no"? Yes... but also because Ty Lee would be a valluable team member, and she needs a small elite team to properly do the task Ozai gave her.
Even the Last Agni Kai happens in the context of "Ozai just told Azula that he's trusting her to protect defend their throne."
There's a reason why, at "The Beach", she can handle pretending to be regular girl instead of a princess, but is CONSTANTLY on "battle mode", trying to turn a game into a war, praising a guy's outfit by sayind it'd make thousands drown at sea with how sharp it is, and why her flirting game consists of "We'll take over the world together!"
She grew up seeing violence be normalized and glorified every second of the day, to the point that things don't even register to her as being violent at all anymore.
Of course she's toxic and full on hostile in her relationships, no matter how much she cares about the person in question: All she's ever known is war, and Ozai deliberately blurs the lines to make his abuse of her and Zuko seem normal.
You can't disregard "Ozai will punish me if I don't do this" as a factor when talking about Azula.
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thousand-winters · 20 days
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Something I love about TOH is how it lets adults be wrong and make mistakes and be whole messes that do not have their shit together because... yeah, that's just life. Adults aren't so put together as one believes when they're a child, and of course they can act rashly and fuck up because of their emotions and generally experience the entire spectrum of human emotion.
It would be lovely if the fandom would be less racist about it tho.
It keeps driving me mad to think about because with characters of color, one mistake is taken and generalized as their entire behavior despite having proof that it was a one time thing, a extreme born out of emotion or after many things have happened, while for white characters it's well understood it was a one time instance.
Nobody took Eda's "I'm going to break every bone of your body" toward King (who, mind you, is like 8yo and the kid she raised since he was a baby) seriously, nor said "Eda totally threatens King with bodily harm every time she's angry". It wasn't a serious threat, King wasn't bothered by her because he knew that, and the world kept spinning, nobody made a bigger deal of that than it had to be, despite the fact that it's objectively a horrible thing to say to your kid.
Nobody said either "every time Eda is feeling unneeded, she avoids talking to her kids and ignores them for days and then attempts murder-suicide on the name of good", although the avoidance aspect of it at least IS more in tune with her general lack of coping mechanisms.
Now, Camila making Luz go to camp? Suddenly she was the devil and evil, and Eda should take full custody of Luz, despite the fact Camila was shown as gentle and loving since moment one, and your kid endangering other kids by bringing live snakes and fireworks to school is objectively something alarming that can't be swept under the rug. There was no point at which Camila was depicted as anything but loving and concerned, even during Grom, Luz's fear was about hurting Camila rather than Camila hurting her and yet people insisted she was abusive until Thanks to Them.
Even after Yesterday's Lie. I mean, Luz is 14. I don't know about you, but if I had a kid known for being a bit careless and reckless and act first before thinking, I would be worried sick knowing she's in a land where half the things alive try to eat you and it's also ruled by a genocidal emperor. Hell, even if my kid wasn't reckless, I would be clawing at the walls about it. Camila wasn't being evil for wanting Luz to stay by her side, especially since they only had each other.
Then, of course, there's Darius.
I'm so sick of people being condescending to people who like Dadrius, even in art posts, all like "guys, but don't forget Darius was shitty to Hunter for years", because it's exactly what I'm talking about of taking one event and extrapolating it toward his entire behavior despite the fact the information we have been provided indicates that was a one time thing. Not only we have the Palisman Logs that confirm Darius usually didn't pay attention to Hunter, which, mind you, isn't a crime because he had no responsibility over Hunter and everyone thought Hunter was being treated well by Belos, but we also have the hint of Darius reacting so viciously because of Hunter sewing the Golden Guard's sigil on his cloak and reminding him of his mentor, which is not something that happened every thursday.
I know everyone understands actions born out of emotion in adults, no matter how wrong they are, because of Eda and even some of the other adults who objectively speaking did way worse in the matter of mistakes toward their children, like Gwen or Alador. Yet, people keep refusing to believe that Darius only did that once but nobody ever says "yes, here are the examples and clues that he was this way for years" (because they do not exist) and just keep repeating that he did or that he has the vibes of someone who did (bestie, that's just racism).
It's so strange because Hunter is not stupid. He knew to be on guard of Kikimora and Kikimora was always shitty to him. He can take a clue, he's not a baby. He refused to accept the help of the Owl Fam and the Hexsquad for a good while because they were "the enemy" and in his head he had the idea that he shouldn't trust them even if he wanted to. Hunter's behavior is affected deeply by Belos' abuse, but he wasn't reacting to everyone in the way he did to Belos, excusing their behavior and generally letting them all walk all over him.
If Darius really had picked on him for years, he wouldn't have been so quick to trust him after Any Sport in a Storm, and we got a bunch of little mentions and hints that point to how their bond started to grow behind curtains, which would be really weird if Darius had always been an overly hostile presence in Hunter's life before. Can you imagine him being all chill with Kikimora if she had hypothetically went "oh, well, I guess I was wrong for trying to murder you"? Hell no.
Even Perry and the Parks didn't got spared from this.
Of course their reactions to their kids getting expelled could have been more graceful, but they were evidently not thinking super clearly at the moment and every other moment we've seen them with their kids, they have been loving and supportive. Hell, even in that same episode we saw how the Parks were, if anything, more concerned about Willow's education to the point they were willing to change their whole life to be able to stay to homeschool her.
Adults make mistakes. People make mistakes.
Stop acting like people of color can't make mistakes without being the epitome of evil.
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