#because this:

[onewomancitadel]

The other problem with 'my fave did nothing wrong' is that characters can do wrong in one sense and do the right thing in another.

If Cinder hadn't have gone after the Winter Maiden power, the direct consequence of that would've been Winter using the Maiden meat puppet machine that is obviously a terrible no-good bad thing, and Penny wouldn't have been the Winter Maiden. Cinder's a necessary agent to stop that, in a perverse way you might even say she's essentially part of righting the cycle of the Maiden powers. Actually - yes. I completely buy that, because she sets in motion the urgency of the Maiden power musical chairs game, and she is, in that messed up way of hers, responsible for Amber and everything that follows thereafter, but all of it is necessary pain and destruction to set the cycle of the Maiden powers becoming corrupted, right - which in turn represents the Ozlem wound at the heart of the story!

Which is obviously fabulous, because she's the one with a fucked up perception of them already. Realising the redemption of the power through her own perspective etc. is genius.

Even Fria's death (and demonstration of power) is not something that is framed as a purely negative event, in fact it's a natural good death - she lived her life fully through the triple-goddess cycle of Maiden, Mother, Crone - and isn't left in the Maiden meat puppet machine. So there is clearly some mixed sense of goodness and badness emerging here.

But it's 'wrong' in the sense that Cinder's own motivation for going after the power is misplaced, and it's 'wrong' in the sense she's not meant to have it, and it's 'wrong' in the sense that she's acting under the guise of villainy (in contrast to Ironwood's apparent heroism... Ironwood is a 'hero' doing moral badness - Cinder is a 'villain' doing moral goodness).

You can see how eliding an action in the story into either good or bad actually means you can't really talk about it in the sense that it's actually intended. But equally you've got that problem is that if a character claims to be good (verbally or is considered a hero) everything they do is good, and if they claim to be bad (verbally or is considered a villain) everything they do is bad, which is where I think this type of narrative complexity suffers, because a lot of people will decide to judge the moral actions based on their perceived characteristics and fitting their narrative actions to that. So it's not even just about stan culture but something underlying fitting a character trait to their actual narrative actions. To be totally fair - protagonist-centred morality is totally a thing, and in some cases it works and in a lot of cases it doesn't. That it's actively (and probably a little too obviously) explored with Ironwood is interesting to me.

But 'my fave did nothing wrong' is a natural response if you're on the defense about your fave and in addition to that if you're already uncomfortable with moral complexity but want to enjoy a naughty villain who's not too naughty it's easy to slide into. That's why there are such urgent boundaries drawn between Cinder and Emerald, Cinder and Winter, Cinder and Raven, etc., characters considered to be receiving redemption arcs but are a little too similar to Cinder in terms of narrative potential for redemption, and why comparing them is automatically made to be untouchable territory. That or it's just a case of unlikability, because they're not all the same emotional archetypes.

But to me moral complexity is most interesting, especially in characters who are set up for a redemption arc that recontextualise the moral dynamics and goals of the story - in Cinder's redemption arc, nonviolence, redemption, healing, forgiveness, are naturally embedded into it, and it sets up the final answers to the story, so finding where she is doing 'good' things that are considered 'bad' (especially if they embody Fall Maiden ideals of Choice) when later she will be a 'bad person' who transforms into something beyond good and bad, someone who will redeem herself, is very interesting to me. Which is why I don't want to play that game of saying she did nothing wrong.

Most importantly, a redemption arc happens as a consequence of badness; can't redeem someone if they were never bad.

[valtsv]

stuck between "psychological horror statement" and "objectively the funniest thing you could say to your real flesh and blood dad" in the father's day card aisle

[bumblingbabooshka]

Vulcan teen on Vulcan [tiktok] saying "I have just lost track of my father in the grocery store." The camera turns to show the viewers the grocery store in which almost every single older middle-aged man has a bowlcut and long robes. Camera turns back to show the teen's face which is expressionless and yet communicates all it needs to.

[faeriekit]

"This fic was ai generated—" Cool, so lemme block you real quick

[great-and-small]

I was walking on a rather remote beach when I came upon this Whip eel drying up in the sun. These are intertidal eels that can actually handle themselves out of water for a bit, but it’s not normal for them to be fully exposed in direct sunlight like this. The tide was at least six hours from coming in and I felt like this eel was in distress, so I made the decision to dig him out and return to the ocean. His body was too delicate to be simply pulled from the hole without injury, so I got to digging.

This endeavor took about 40 minutes as the eel was quite long and difficult to excavate. Also had to continually refill my temporary eel pond to keep him from drying out entirely while I worked.

If you are an eel aficionado like myself, please enjoy this silly little video of the relocation process set to some jaunty royalty-free disco music.

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

I think one of the kindest things you can do for people with various mental health struggles is just... let people back into your life after they've been absent for a while.

Making friends as an adult is so fucking hard already and isolating yourself from other people is a very common symptom of depression, anxiety, burnout, ocd, trauma, grief, etc. Which means that someone will do the hard work of recovery/healing and resurface back into a world where their previous friends have written them off because they stopped showing up.

So if you know someone where you're like "yeah we could have been better friends but they fell off the map a bit" and that person suddenly reaches out, or starts showing up to events even though you kind of forgot they were still in the group chat... well they may have been Going Through It and you don't actually have to punish them for their absence you can just be glad that they're back.

[pyroinfusedtiger]

Posting this everywhere til im not obsessed with it anymore

[everythingwasnormalhere]

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out

[thesefallenembers]

the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.

if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.

[girldraki]

[scribefindegil]

Everyone is so weird about people who cry easily. Fellas, is it evil and manipulative to *checks notes* have an involuntary stress response?

[hellishqueer]

we ask that the defense not say "me when i lie" while the witness testifies

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

EDIT: reblogs are STAYING OFF. op was right and correct and i have never regretted making a post as much as this one. if you want to reblog my art you can reblog something else from my blog. or commission me, lord knows i deserve financial compensation for the nightmare this post has put me through

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[theblob1958]

people are saying do it scared, but you also gotta do it alone. you'll miss out on so much you want to do if you wait til someone will do it with you. do it scared and do it alone.