#but in fiction... HE CAN BE REDEEMED LMAO

[hobidreams]

I love the fact that TES yoongi has been cooked by readers in the recent months. As someone who read that series years ago, I hate him so much and y/n deserves better.

To TES yoon,

Fuck you !!! You deserve the worst. Even joseon yoongi would agree you are full of shit. Off with your head 💀

💀💀💀 he's SUPPOSED to be awful at the start!! it's enemies to lovers!!! whereas MLT never had that tag lmao.

honestly he was just incredibly selfish and rough around the edges..... when i wrote him it was important to me that he felt realistic so i made that tough choice to have him lash out after he's defended by mc. he just didn't know how to process his emotions :( but he's since learned!!!! I WILL DEFEND TES YOONGI UNTIL MY LAST BREATH LMAO hes my little baby

[maingh0st]

The hate Taryn gets is way too exaggerated and disproportionate. It’s just straight up misogyny at this point, in my opinion. The fandom needs to get over it.

I could literally write a treatise about Taryn-hate at this point lmao. I’m going to share some thoughts (this actually got quite long), but I want to include a big ole disclaimer: at the end of the day, everybody gets to engage in fandom in the ways they want. everyone is free to love or hate whichever characters they want, for the reasons that feel valid and real to them. that being said, the treatment of Taryn specifically is really troubling and bizarre to me. 

I think it’s worth pointing out that when we say Taryn-hate seems misogynistic, that means a lot more than just “people who hate Taryn hate her because she’s a girl.” in my opinion, fandom misogyny toward her often gets couched in broader terms. some examples of what I mean by this are:

(1) Taryn does things that are bad and I don’t like that - uhhhh okay. everybody in these books does shitty things, so let’s think about why specifically the actions of Taryn (a 17-18 year old girl being manipulated by multiple men in her life) fall into the category of unredeemable for you. the reason we might point to this being misogynistic is because it’s a double standard that doesn’t apply to other characters—we’re willing to forgive Cardan his cruelty, or centuries-old Madoc for the trauma he's inflicted and his ongoing need for bloodshed, but Taryn is just a stupid, evil girl for trying to secure her place in Elfhame through the levers of power that are available to her. she can never be forgiven nor redeemed no matter how loyal she is to Jude moving forward. why is that? what sin of hers are so particularly evil to warrant this response? and we have to answer these questions in the context of Elfhame & its moral code, not in the context of our own world.

(2) I could never see myself acting in the way Taryn does and therefore I don’t like her - okay? I can never see myself acting like Madoc, or even like Vivi (don’t get me started on Vivi & the fact that she gets passes Taryn never does), but that doesn’t mean I can’t have empathy for them. I understand that we experience the books through Jude’s perspective, so we’re automatically more prone to rooting for her—and to be clear, I love Jude! but fiction challenges us to experience the world through other perspectives, and it’s my opinion that Taryn acts in a way that is completely consistent and understandable with her experience of Elfhame. “I’m not like you,” she tells Jude. “I want to belong here. Defying them makes everything worse. You never asked me before you went against Prince Cardan—you didn’t care what it brought down on either of our heads.” 

while Jude’s defiance is held up as girlboss behavior (by me, too! I love a “get worse” arc), Taryn’s more traditionally feminine approach to finding her place in Elfhame is reviled (@slightlyrebelliouswriter23 has a great post on the fawn response to trauma & on passivity). more on this point below. 

(3) Taryn isn’t a “girl’s girl” - I am begging fandom to think critically about why Taryn betrays Jude & what that says not just about Elfhame, but about our world. these girls live in a world that affords them little power and agency. we meet them on the cusp of adulthood, and they’re both hyper-aware that they need to secure their place in Elfhame. Jude refers to knighthood as “earning” her place and is uninterested in marriage, but Taryn seems aware that she’s more likely to secure her place through the latter option (and also expresses the fear that Jude is going to leave her behind). it’s an oversimplification, but a useful one for the sake of this conversation, to point out that Jude chooses a more traditionally masculine approach, while Taryn chooses a more traditionally feminine one.

the tragedy is that this world—and particularly the men in their lives—pit them against one another. Locke offers Taryn the thing she wants most, requires a vow of her secrecy, and then begins flirting with Jude (and that's not even to mention him being a gancanagh!). at a point in her story where Madoc and Oriana are the only family who are still around for Taryn, Madoc capitalizes on Taryn’s ignorance (and also her awareness that she's never been the favorite daughter) & uses her to betray Jude. I almost never see these complexities brought up in conversations about Taryn, which is just gross to me, and echoes the ways that patriarchal power structures pit women against each other in the real world. 

I’ve seen people argue that while Jude’s approach is also flawed, she at least doesn’t betray Taryn. and like… kind of? she certainly doesn’t betray Taryn as directly as Taryn betrays her—but some of that just strikes me as dumb luck. consider what might’ve happened if Dain hadn’t died at the end of book one. what lengths might he have asked Jude to go to in order to prove her loyalty to him? or if we rewind even further—it’s honestly just dumb luck that someone didn’t harm or kill Taryn (Valerian, for example, could've chosen the wrong window). Jude’s antagonism of Cardan & his friends had a direct effect on Taryn’s life, and even though Taryn begged her to stop, she bullheadedly charged on. the difference is that Jude’s risky decisions ultimately work out for her, while Taryn has to face the consequences of hers not panning out the way she wanted them to. 

this isn't exhaustive, and there’s so much more I could say, but this is already so long. so in conclusion, the reason all this matters to me personally is twofold: 

at its best, fiction teaches us empathy. part of why I love tfota is because it takes characters & dynamics that are really messy & helps you, the reader, understand where everyone is coming from & why. the fact that we love Madoc is a testament to fiction’s ability to do this. so why is a teenage girl treated like the true villain of this story? what about her makes us incapable of empathy? why, in the mind of the fandom, is she not allowed forgiveness (or even just a chance at redemption) for the harm she's caused, while other characters are? I see people stanning Nicasia, who actively tortured Jude (over a boy, no less!!) ffs

fandom misogyny reflects our world. why are people eager to forgive toxic male love interests, yet hold the bar impossibly high for girls? why is there such a narrow set of choices & behaviors that we consider acceptable for female characters? Holly wrote a story about two young women carving out places for themselves in a world hostile to them, hurting each other in the process, and ultimately deciding to forgive, love, and root for one another—and fandom has taken that complex narrative and pitted them against one another, upholding one as the girlboss who can do no wrong while treating the other as scum. misogyny thrives on women treating each other like the problem, so if this is our attitude toward a fictional story where we’re afforded direct looks into characters’ thoughts, how much worse are we going to be in the real world, faced with real, imperfect women?

anyways, in conclusion: you're entitled to dislike taryn, but if you feel such vitriol toward her that you're literally making hate posts (or commenting under fanart of her!! holy shit), I invite you to interrogate where that hate actually comes from. fin.

[hsvh-hp]

You know I agree with you that fanon paints Lucius as a much worse father than he was and I don't like that either, but do you not think indoctrinating your child into a genocidal cult + coldly demanding that he be the best in class and publicly humiliating him about that ("if [my son's] grades don't pick up, a thief or a plunderer] may indeed be all he is fit for") is bad parenting?

Like I'm not saying "he is a bad parent" or "he is a good parent", I'm very hesitant to label parents (real or fictional) in such a one-dimensional way because parent-child relationships are so incredibly complicated. But at the same time it is very important to me to acknowledge even little things parents can do that can really have a negative impact on children. And indeed in Draco's case they do, leading him to want to be a Death Eater, to seek validation from Voldemort (when he disarms Dumbledore he talks about wanting to be the Dark Lord's favourite, he doesn't want help from Snape because he has a need to prove himself etc) and contributing to his general insecurity and need to be better than everyone & getting upset when he's not, because if he's not the best all the time then he feels really bad.

One big reason I dislike the fanon tendency to make every morally questionable parent an extremely physically abusive monster is precisely because that erases the representation of how the smaller, psychologically/emotionally damaging things they do can still be traumatising.

It goes without saying that there’s nuance. I would never say nor claim that Lucius did nothing wrong or didn’t make mistakes. By mere virtue of holding bigoted beliefs, he signaled to Draco that there were things he could do or be that might undermine his father’s love. To me, it doesn’t even matter if Lucius is otherwise perfect as a father. That small thing, in a kid as needy for love and validation as Draco is, would be enough to have him always on edge and anxiously performing his role as the perfect son to the best of his ability.

My earlier frustration was a pushback against the need to inflate Lucius’ less-great moments into overtly obvious abuse (we are very much in agreement there), as fanon seems to love to do without a hint of introspection or greater analysis. I’m so bored of complicated behaviour being filed away into a thought-terminating box called ‘abuse’, where a sole instance of someone being a grumpy, imperfect dad (the Borgin & Burke’s scene) is all that’s required to put a character on the same level as men who actually do beat their sons. It’s not given a greater thought.

For instance, you bring up Draco’s indoctrination into the Death Eaters, and his eagerness to join. This is a very interesting conundrum for Lucius to me because Voldemort is back for an entire year before Draco signs up. Lucius is in Azkaban at the time, unable to exert any influence over Draco’s decision, and Voldemort explicitly brings Draco into the fold as a form of punishment for Lucius. We have no access to Lucius’ head as readers, but he had an entire year afterward to sit and think about how he failed Draco. He’s a smart guy. I’m sure he could put it together that his bigotry came very close to costing his son his life. Considering the Malfoys sit alongside the winners of the war in the Great Hall, it speaks to me of some greater narrative reflection on Lucius’ part to have earned himself a place there.

The point is, I’ve never seen that Lucius in fic before. I crave that Lucius, who can realize his mistakes and grow or change as a result (and is brave enough not to let the lateness of its arrival dictate the terms). It’s very important to me that growth not be something exclusive to a certain age (16 and under? 18? I’ve seen people argue that Draco was no longer redeemable at 12 LMAO). So yeah, feeling alone in this sentiment occasionally bubbles up and I forget to articulate all the nuance of the subject when engaging with it. ��\_(ツ)_/¯

[melrosing]

It's crazy how often sexism leads to terrible media opinions. It's girly to have a compelling and emotional narrative with character arcs. Fangirls interpret the narrative as being deep and meaningful so we have to push back on that. People really think like that it's insane. Toxic masculinity is coming for Jaime from all goddamn sides he can't get away

yeah I do genuinely think that's a significant part of it, like I've seen enough times the whole 'redemption narrative' being blamed specifically on jaime fangirls which is just laughable, given the author has talked in interview about redemption as a theme in Jaime's story, and about his personal belief that redemption should be possible for everyone (his catholic ass showing)

and on some level sure, it's natural there will be different opinions in the room as to whether Jaime can be redeemed or not, GRRM anticipates that himself when he talks about redemption as a theme in that Rolling Stone interview. but then, there are things I don't necessarily want to happen in asoiaf, but if it's patently clear that that's where the narrative is headed.... well then that's that?? cope??

but yeah I think there's a specific antagonism towards 'redemption jaime' cos like 'oh you just want to fix the hot boy' and it's just??? so condescending lmao, like everything fans have to say about the story and its themes are reduced to vapid fantasies because you know the girlies can't think straight when it's a hot fictional dude. istg if hot fictional dudes were all I wanted there tend to be better sources than a song of ice and fuckin fire

[theheirofthesharingan]

Anti Itachi people are weird and I honestly don't understand them. I saw some ppl say Itachi doesn't deserve sympathy because he killed Gaara, joined Akatsuki and tortured Kakashi.... outside of abusing sasuke. So they don't get why he's so popular among fans. 🙄

People really just single out Itachi so randomly among the many characters to shit on because of morality and then crib about their favorite characters as if their favourites are saints. What is it that they feel entitled to hate on Itachi because of his morality and then defend people who did worse than him? Gaara himself is one fine example.

Who'd tell them morality isn't a binary or one-dimensional concept in a fictional world where child-soldiers are common and kids are subjected to being a victim of it and causing it from a very young age.

He killed Gaara

Okay? Gaara killed people for fun. He and his siblings attacked Konoha, killing people. What this fandom believes in is that the lives that Itachi took — no matter who that is — are more important than the lives that other characters took. Which is why Madara, Obito, Pain, Gaara etc., shouldn't be seen as villains and they act all pissy because Itachi isn't seen as a villain.

Here, people, I'll yell it out for you: conscience. Itachi was burdened by his conscience and never justified his crimes. It's literally canon. He wouldn't go out of his way to kidnap a child, manipulate him so the said child could fulfill his dreams after he was dead. He wouldn't unnecessarily attack an unsuspecting village with innocent population and murder them because he hated the world and was heartbroken that his childhood crush who didn't like him back was dead because she chose to. He also wouldn't make the world worse than it already is because he thinks his pain is worse than others.

Endurance, admission of one's mistakes, regrets/guilts etc., are some of the many redeeming qualities Itachi has. Of course people can see that and love him for them.

joined Akatsuki

Unbelievabl that people think this is a bad thing, lmao. On one hand they simp for Obito, Pain, and Madara who are the main ideologues of this extreme philosophy which works on nothing other than violence, then simultaneously have the audacity to be upset why is Itachi a part of this group. Make it make some sense, people. I can't see past your hypocrisy.

and tortured Kakashi... outside of abusing sasuke

Look, there's no justification for any of what he did to either Sasuke or Kakashi or anyone else. But when he came to the village, he had a reputation to uphold, that too that of a criminal who had single-handedly murdered the entire clan that was supposed to be the strongest of its time. He avoided fighting Asuma and Kurenai. He only took on Kakashi because Kakashi was the only one with Sharingan (and Mangekyo Sharingan). Idk if something in an Uchiha's brain goes off when they sense Mangekyo in someone else, or Itachi just did it to keep up his façade. But Kakashi did start to use his MS after his encounter with Itachi.

Either way, Itachi coming to the village, then avoiding fighting the mediocre jounins, taking on only the strongest one, inflicting enough pain to paralyse (in this case coma), but not killing him... That's what one would expect from a "dangerous criminal" like Itachi. Kakashi straight up wonders why Itachi didn't just kill him.

In regards to Sasuke - Itachi didn't plan to meet Sasuke. It doesn't excuse his actions afterwards, but the narrative that he's irredeemable and his love must be questioned as a result is pure unadulterated bullshit. If he wanted to hurt Sasuke he would have done it at that dango shop. When it was only going to take less than a second, then why not do it right away? The only people present there couldn't even touch him with Kisame by his side.

Gai and others also wondered why Itachi was taking so long to kidnap Naruto when he knew what Naruto looked like. Simple. He wanted to get out of the village. He didn't want to come across Sasuke. Traumatizing him again was the last thing he'd want to do.

they don't get why he's so popular among fans

Good thing is, those who love Itachi doesn't exactly need permissions or certificates from the people who don't like him. It's as simple as that. They don't have to get it. We don't care.

[kirkwallguy]

the percy jacksonification of dragon age is so reallll like this is not what dragon age is about is it. i think what would make things better (and to redeem the story after what ir became since inquisiton) is that solas isn't fen'harel and fen'harel's place in the story is same as the other elven gods; dalish stories. they're not super duper mages who owned slaves and deemed themselves as gods but just what they meant to be; mythological figures in dalish stories and belief.

solas could just be what original solas is pretending to be. a really apostate (who's apparently a city elf) mage. and to spice things up, has a tension with the pride demons (i was really expecting veilguard to at least touch on that. or maybe they did but i missed it whilst i watched it) and man that would change a lot of things. his character, his knowledge, dialogues, interactions, his opinions on the dalish. his future. im kind of like mourning this idea of solas cuz he will never exist in the story lmao

so, the story of inquisition would start and continue on a different road. no personificated elven gods stories, but focus on what makes dragon age, dragon age. and by god let the elven pantheon be where they're meant to be; to belong in tale-like stories and in dalish worships in the game. the only thing that is interesting that is more than that is mythal-flemeth at least

im just sitting here with a big ass "why" on my face for end trespasser events.

it really is percy jacksonification LOL, solas/mythal is like hades and persephone to me. compelling the first time you hear the myth but then you find out the person telling it writes fanfic about them and is working on a modern retelling and it gets weird. then again i have this same issue with a lot of fantasy media lol, making gods or 'higher beings' tangible characters is the most boring thing you can do with fictional religion imo

their biggest mistake really was making solas an Actual God, it feels like a twist that was floated in the writer's room that everyone was kind of into and then they just kept bending the story around it without really looking at what they were doing. because if you say "hey, what if the people who have been historically oppressed for their religion and aren't allowed to worship it in some human cities are actually wrong about their gods and they're just evil slaver ancient mages (these people are also currently oppressed by evil slaver human mages) <3" it sounds like you're being evil on purpose. and i know it was a room full of white canadians doing this but surely someone would have been able to realise that it sounds bad right.

and god yeah. demons and spirits that feed on / perform strong emotions are SOOOO underutilised in dai and dav. imagine if solas was a pride demon! the very first big thing we fight in inquisition AND in veilguard! then they could have their hubris storyline and eat it too! but no instead we get uhhmmm...compassion is there to further varric and solas' character arcs and spite is there to do a silly voice and maybe make lucanis sad at some point. AURGH. where is justice can someone bring him home to me.

[zukosdualdao]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[machineheraldandy]

New Miguel comic: Conchata

This is talking about the abuse Miguel/Gabriel went through and my unhappiness with the writing of conchata

As we all know the first issue of the 2024 spiderman 2099 comics has come out, there are 5 in total but only the 1st is out, the first one is about downtown. No I am not calling “barrio” having a zombie infestation and conchata gets bitten, conchata accidentally shows how bad the writers are at writing Latino characters by having Miguel call her “mom” and “Connie” Connie which Tyler calls her as a way to do a micro aggression. He calls Miguel “Mike”, and conchata “Connie” to erase their Hispanic roots, so why is Miguel calling her that, and to take into consideration, he’d more likely call her “ma” he is a proud Mexican man, he wears his heritage with pride, (literally as his suit is a dead of the dead suit), why is the first thing we see erasure, through conchata.

The next thing is her mentioning “barrio” the writing terrible “barrio man” stupid, they wanted to try and connect Miguel to his roots by using a random Spanish word, when they could have connected him to his roots by getting him to call conchata “conchata” or “ma” very easy.

Next up is the fact conchata basically blames Miguel for Gabriel’s death, she does regret what she says afterwards as it was the “infestation” making her speak but it was obviously her inner thoughts. Leading to a bigger issue. by the end of the comic Miguel forgives her for it and tells her it was just the infestation, but can we really believe that? Obviously conchata felt there was truth behind her words and she was upset Miguel had to hear them as she wanted to keep them inside. To me it was like the inner thoughts coming out of a drunk person as they have no self control, losing the control to keep the truths hidden as you lose the off button

Conchata is abusive, I’m not going to act like she’d a good mother to either Gabriel or Miguel, Gabriel faced abuse, mostly from George, but we aren’t going to pretend that conchata wouldn’t have been disgusting towards him as well in any way, and then of course Miguel, she physically abuses him, neglects him, and hates him, and the marvel industry has an obsession with redeeming her

As someone that was abused I can say abusers can be redeems in some situations, I had an abusive family member that is now my most loved and cared for family member, because they redeemed…themself…and put in the work..they got therapy…they admitted to their wrongs, they changed their ways, and removed people from their life that made them bad, does conchata do this? No lmao

We are expected to watch conchata get redeems when Miguel is putting in all the effort, abuse victims are not the ones that should put in effort, why? Because it justifies the abusers actions, doesn’t get them to learn, and lets them continue that behaviour on. Realistically Miguel putting in the effort, is showing a way abuse victims get stuck in cycles of abuse, and we are meant to believe everything is okay and that it is a good thing, it is not, it is a harmful message, and one many young fans who are just getting into spiderman will see, and can possibly start to believe this is okay, as fiction can and will alter the brain specially of younger people.

You could argue “well she is putting in effort now!” From the way the comic ends but

Miguel waits hours to see conchata, he tries to save her, he is patient with her, by the end he decided to do her jobs so she can figure herself out, a way of doing the work for her literally; and he’s too forgiving, he is still an abuse victim, and in a way this is signs that he will be abused again. And I have to mention the “too forgiving” bit, who is too forgiving? GABRIEL. And he does that as a BAD coping mechanism, he is a people pleaser due to trauma, he copes in the wrong way of trying to please people to the point of being overly forgiving because he is a victim of abuse, marvel is indirectly writing Miguel to start having Gabriel’s toxic coping mechanisms.

Yes it says she will learn to live with herself. But it says nothing about learning to become a better mother, learning to change, learning to become better.

Tho as much as I hate her and the writing, I love the art so much, this is absolutely stunning

[mrsnancywheeler]

Ok I know NOTHING abt DJATS other than a few blogs I follow (mainly you😭) and the occasional edit of it that’ll pop up for me and let me just tell you looking in on yall from the outside is absolutely WILD lmao. Like what is the appeal of a walking red flag named Billy of all things (5 year old boy name btw) like I’m genuinely asking (Sam claflin isn’t a valid answer to this) bc yall are going feral for the motherfucker so I assume he must have some redeeming qualities???

(This is EXTREMELY lighthearted and I really can’t judge bc I’ve had more than my fair share of questionable fictional crushes but I just had to say smthing bc I see so much abt him and every time I’m like. Him 🤨? Bc from what I understand he is not worth it lmaoooo)

sam claflin isn't actually my answer bc I had a crush on book billy dunne, and personally i think my attraction comes from the fact that at my worst and usual self I relate a lot to daisy and when I'm at my best and most rational self I relate a lot to camila both of whom love billy.

it's to me something to do with passion and the work ethic, he's a leader, he's ambitious, and he's terrified of his emotions, but lets them guide him in the worst way. for me he's like a warning of all the things I shouldn't have, the things I want but would destroy me to be with if I was at my worst which is where I am now, so similar to daisy, and it would ruin me, but I'd feel more seen. and billy dunne is a warning to never let myself actually be with someone like that, but I can explore it through him and writing about him, the highs and mostly lows of it all.

and also um he sings, he's in a band, that's hot, sam claflin was a definite plus (bold of you to assume I wouldn't go feral even if he had no qualities I was down for, I once wrote about american horror story characters)

he's my man and idk yeah, I think that's it, I have daddy issues and low standards so that is that

[transmutationisms]

Hello Kendall babygirl anon here again. My follow up question I guess is I wonder what you think of Kendall’s other notable traits/proclivities and how they tie into what you describe as his immediate emotional vulnerability. Like his servility / his need for purpose / his interest in suffering if and when he can identify its purpose and how that might relate to his tendency to display his emotions more readily than his siblings.

Side note re. your tags: you don’t read as a Ken hater to me just bc you actually seem to get him lmao. The ppl babying him are not understanding him the same way so it doesn’t feel as real to me but obviously I’m not here to be a cop about to the validity of people’s love for a fictional character. It’s all valid. Just interesting to see the dichotomy!

ohh see this is a fun way to crack open ken's head imo. yeah i do think his way of displaying emotions is related to his other characteristics. obviously, logan always saw his emotionality as weakness. i'd disagree with logan's way of understanding people, but i think kendall's way of expressing emotion is definitely connected to his larger constant need for validation, which is fundamentally coming from the fact that he has no stable identity and no intrinsic sense of self-worth. he has a hugely inflated ego, but it's always one pinprick from popping; there's nothing solid under it. he seeks out suffering because he wants it to somehow redeem the total emptiness he feels within himself, and he still hopes that if he suffers enough or in the correct way, it'll give him access to some deeper meaning in life that's always eluded him (raised catholic). whereas someone like shiv has a sense of herself internally, and has reasons to suppress her emotions in front of others, kendall's lack of identity and chronic feelings of emptiness sort of just make everything come bursting out of him (snot, tears, shit, etc). and this all also speaks to the way he'll sometimes swing wildly between wanting to be punished (or punish himself), and wanting to take over waystar and prove he's better than his father. they're both ways of trying to make sense of himself and the world, and to give himself purpose and solidity. he's emotionally incontinent because he's psychologically fragmented and insubstantial.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

personal thoughts on reed900:

i prefer it platonically, but i dont have anything against it romantically, i just think it'd be a little odd since nines is just mean connor and gavin hates connor lmao

Hey it's totally valid to not ship them! Definitely not a requirement, and you're more than welcome to your own opinions on it.

I just find it... Amusing, when people project an idea of who Nines is as canon or as his character. We know nothing about him actually! He doesn't say or do anything in canon but stand there lmao. He could be nicer than Connor. We don't know. Connor is a bitch (affectionate).

And the power of fans to flesh out characters beyond canon is truly a wonder. I think it's fun to just shed the shackles of canon's limits and create, you know? Nines doesn't have a canon personality, so we get to make one. (Nines being an asshole at first is definitely a popular interpretation, but it's not the only interpretation!). And in game, Gavin is a piece of shit, yet people write fics where he's redeemed. Isn't that so cool? That we can identify human beings in fiction, offer them compassion in a fictional setting, and then write about it? That we can create characteristics and personalities for characters we find intriguing, simply because it's fun? I think it's fascinating.

I used to hate Gavin so much and I refused to see Reed900 as anything other than a joke/crack ship. Then I started reading fics and it's definitely not a joke anymore LMAO

[jesse-pinko]

I don't like Walter White. I don't know... he's an objectively well written character but I just don't vibe with him.

Not because he's done so many fucked up things in the show (because most other people have messed up pretty bad, as well).

Walt just didn't pass the vibe check for me, I guess.

I don't find him badass, personally. He can be really cringey sometimes.

I just have to bear with him whenever I start rewatching the show because he's the protagonist. It's weird.

Lmao I am so sorry I keep forgetting to go through my inbox and actually respond to y’all but Yeah Basically!! I think there are actually three main reasons his character rubs me the wrong way and this might sound bad but none of them are bc he’s a murderer (it’s fiction lol) number one I can’t stand having secondhand embarrassment and he’s so cringe he makes me have to pause the show every five minutes to pace around my bedroom for another five minutes so it takes me foreeeeever to get through a rewatch which is annoying and his fault number two he operates less like a drug dealer in terms of his criminality and how he operates and more like a domestic abuser, esp the way he jerks Jesse around but also in just how little effort he makes to keep his family separate from his criminal dealings, he makes a big talk ab professionalism but everything is always personal w him which is why nobody wants to work w him and his family man schtick is ironically a big part of why he’s so despicable. Number three I haaaate condescending ppl and being condescended to it is my least favorite human flaw and I’m not saying you can’t have any redeeming human qualities if you have a bad habit of condescension but I am saying we would not get along lol

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Living Pictures | BODY BACK Update #1

A writing update??? In THIS economy???

Paying homage to my old writing updates, except we're getting 10x more self-indulgent. Let's talk about falling back in love with characters, orbital chapter structures, Harrison's messy redemption, God as memory, and of course, the first chapter of my novella, BODY BACK. With lots of excerpts of course. 😈

Post starts under the cut!

BODY BACK background:

Here's a summary if you missed the chaotic conception of BODY BACK: it's a literary fiction novella that occurs between a duology I wrote a few years ago (book 1 is Moth Work and book 2 is Feeding Habits). The duology follows two men, Lonan and Harrison, who are at the centre of a very complicated relationship.

I talked in depth about this project's conception in THIS post, but the gist is that I re-read Moth Work recently and was so enthralled by Harrison's psychology that I had to extend his story.

This was the first nugget of BB:

[ID: BODY BACK: Harrison's novella in the two months he lived in Las Vegas, 2005 (Oct-Sept, between the events of FH in 2006). Energy: bad decisions, lots of parties, self-destruction but make it glitzy. /end ID]

Logline: It’s 2005 in Las Vegas and 21-year-old Harrison is tired of routines, of gods, of men. On a mission to move past a complicated breakup, he’s about to get recklessly indulgent–and he’s come to the right place.

I'm honestly shocked, but deeply grateful to be writing this project. The last time I wrote a writing update, I'd been deeply struggling with Feeding Habits, and also hated Harrison as a character (shock!). Of course, he was still my baby, but at the time, I just could NOT crack his psychology. It took a full year to really come to terms with where he was in FH, and BB is almost an opportunity to "redo" what I wish I could've given him initially. So BB feels like a redemption for me as much as a redemption for him (albeit... he does zero redeeming in this book lmao).

I think I'm in love... with Harrison

Characterization is complicated for me. I don't think I'm particularly good at it because I have no idea how I characterize. However, BB has been such a wonderful way to fall back in love with Harrison (more than I already admire him as a fictional person in my brain lol). While I've been writing with him becoming a better person in Seventh Virtue, BODY BACK is the opposite of that. He's in his destructive era and knows it. And it's only making me love him more!

In BODY BACK, Harrison is painfully aware of who he is as a person, but simultaneously extremely destabilized in his identity. He understands he's a disaster, but also doesn't know how to be anything else (or what he was before), now that Lonan is no longer in his life. At the end of Moth Work, he willingly walked out of Lonan's life, aware this was what was best for himself. BODY BACK explores what it means to regret the "right" decision. Grey areas, wooohooo!

A smaller note that maybe only means a lot to me, but Harrison & I are the same age in this book! I've never been the same age as one of my protagonists, and maybe I'm being mushy about it, but I feel like I really... get where he is right now. We've always been similar (except he's you know... much cooler than me), but it feels like a real blessing to see him in this state (lmao *fucked up*) while also this age.

Living Pictures

We open BB with "Living Pictures," which is about Harrison perceiving his life as separate from himself, a carefully constructed veneer that he's merely watching.

Thematically, "Living Pictures" is about falsities and also how easily people can fall into--and be trapped by--roles. Harrison also thinks a lot about gods, which is interesting for his psychology because he's an atheist. However, his contemplations of God are deeply rooted in what God means to Lonan, who's an ex-Catholic. I've had a lot of fun exploring these themes also as an ex-Catholic. It's been quite cathartic to recall my memories of God, project them onto Harrison through Lonan, and then have him bastardize them.

The title comes from the literal translation of the phrase "tableau vivant" which appears in the opening paragraph.

Scene A:

Harrison floats fully-clothed in a pool that belongs to a wealthy couple. He is jaded and also thinking about God.

Scene B:

Harrison describes the couple who own the house/pool. The man is a realtor, and the woman stays at home mostly, but walks dogs on the side.

Scene C:

Harrison contemplates his "easy" Las Vegas life since moving in with his mother, Suzanna.

Scene D:

Flashback: Harrison recalls drawing his new sort-of boyfriend, Jeremiah.

Scene E:

Harrison describes his vices (smoking and his ex, Lonan lmao, comparable)

Scene F:

Harrison recalls a recurring dream/nightmare of his aforementioned ex.

Scene G:

Distracted by the dream, Harrison is caught by the couple. The man seems unimpressed by him, though the woman (Sadie), perhaps realizing how young he is, invites him inside for tea.

Scene H:

Harrison observes the couple's "catalogue" home while Sadie makes tea.

The writing process & orbital structures

This first chapter took about two weeks to draft start to finish. Total word count is at about 3k. The scenes are very short, almost like vignettes!

Across MW and FH and BB, I use what I call an "orbital plot structure." I've been using this method for years now for this particular duology.

Essentially, we have a core theme (the "satellite") that every single scene "orbits" around. Here's a horrific drawing of what that visually looks like in my head:

Instead of thinking as these chapters as a three-act structure, I think about them on a deeply thematic level. What is the core of this chapter, and how does every single scene lead back to that core theme?

If this diagram is unreadable, dw, I'll make a video explaining this soon, LOL.

Excerpts

I've shared a number of these, but enjoy this repeated content! Also this is... most of the chapter LOL. I'm going for this extremely shimmery prose style to mimic Harrison's mindset.

Here's the opening scene, which is... the best opening I have ever written LMAO. CW: blasphemy??? So sorry.

Harrison doesn’t need a god. Fully clothed in a stranger’s pool, he pities people who do. So what if he’s alone? The sunless sky is carbonated with stars, another stranger’s backyard smelling like burned cedarwood and marijuana. And he likes it here, star-fished on water that doesn’t belong to him, inventing constellations while someone else’s cigarette hangs from his lip. What god could manage this miracle? Take this drowsy tableau vivant: a man cloaked both by the sky’s navy and his own jacket’s leather, his eyes as wide as spoons. Harrison is fine art and God isn’t. He wins.

Here's a chunk of Scene B:

This isn’t the first time he’s done this. This means a couple of things: 1) challenging God and all his righteousness, and 2) breaking into the pools of wealthy suburbanites. The latter really isn’t that hard. Since mid-September, he’s stalked the houses plotted along Paradise and learned routines. This is even easier—people who fringe their homes with crisp lawns often stick to the same schedule. The pool he floats in belongs to a young couple. The man works real estate according to the signs Harrison’s seen of his face peppered around the neighbourhood. He’s wondered if that’s ever humiliating, to constantly see pixelated versions of yourself everywhere. But that doesn’t matter. His wife walks dogs in her free time, which means always. Last week, Harrison watched her jog with a vizsla, and just yesterday she spent the morning on their gable-roofed veranda brushing a wispy Alaskan malamute.

Here's the entirety of Scene C (CW: suicidal ideation):

Technically, everything in Harrison’s life is easy. He lives in an easy apartment, sleeps on his mother’s easy chesterfield, eats over easy eggs for breakfast, watches easy infomercials every night from midnight to 3:00AM. (Technically, the infomercials aren’t necessarily easy because he watches them in French without subtitles, but it’s entertaining to make up slogans: Cut Away Your Problems with Our Wrapping Paper Cutter! Yeehaw!, so he doesn’t really mind.) And he’s grateful for this, how unassuming his life has become barely a month after Lonan. Perhaps this is how he views things, in two simple parts—not Before Christ, but Before Lonan, which now that he considers it, might be the same thing. Anyway. Before his fawny portrait face, just like Renaissance men in oil on canvas. Before his blunt hands. Before his raven hair, glassy as dark water. Now there’s only one place left to go: after. And how can Harrison complain? His easy mother has insured his easy sedan which means he could get around the city easily if he wanted to. She’s even offered to use her easy money to set him up in his own easy apartment— “Imagine the view!” she’d said as a selling point. And Harrison did. As Suzanna unclogged the kitchen drain, he painted an easy coastline in watercolour and surrendered to the image of his easy, independent life. Easy trees like the date palms pinched against this couple’s home. Easy skies, never a cloud in an easy haven of blue. Easy walk to an organic farmer’s market for easy pancetta if he wants it, or easy cinnamon butter that he has no purpose for, so eats straight from the jar. Easy morning coffee in an easy alternative garden right out his back door, easy sand where there should be golden columbine, easy gravel where there should be soil. And the easy neighbours to greet—them going, “Hello!” and then him going, “Hello!”

Harrison doesn’t like easy. He’d rather walk all the way back to Brooklyn with nothing but an empty backpack and a sleeve of cigarettes, scale a silverish high-rise with his bare hands, struggle onto the vacant roof, stare out at the blinking, vulgar city, then climb onto the building’s railings, let the wind ripple his jacket, his hair, and jump right off.

Here's some of Scene D, ft. Jeremiah:

The cigarettes belong to another man. As Harrison sucks its filter, blowing out remaining plumes of smoke, he’s enthralled by him. Skin velveteen, hair always tediously puffed like dandelions. Jeremiah is more than a man in Harrison’s eyes, the way he speaks like a cross between the frontman of a nineties alternative band and John the Baptist. “You’ve got the soul of a cypress,” he said once, while Harrison sketched the fake rhododendron perched on Jeremiah’s nightstand. He crouched lower over his sketchbook, fingers blackened by a slim rod of charcoal.

This is also from Scene D, ft. Harrison being an Artiste. Screaming at the last line:

Jeremiah quirked a brow, his smile dopey like his glazed eyes, but didn’t move. He could’ve been one of those tawny art mannequins, flat-faced, poseable. But he was so much more than that. As Harrison approached him, setting his sooty hands on his chin, shifting it slightly to the left, pushing his ring finger slightly up so it eclipsed the koi’s eye, his silver signet ring pinging a circle of light onto the opposite wall, Harrison understood Jeremiah wasn’t just a model. More than a man, yes, but not a god either—the creator’s creator, maybe, or perhaps a private natural wonder meant only for this room. Or maybe he was just beautiful, and that was enough too.

Harrison continues to reflect about God (also CW: blasphemy!!!):

In the pool, he doesn’t look at the moon because how cliché would that be? So what if it’s a wide bend in the sky like the parenthesis of cantaloupe his mother ate for breakfast this morning? So what if it looks also like a good bite in a wrist, molars and all? He’s not in this pool to be poetic. He doesn’t care about godly creations, miracles, divine epiphanies. Sure, God said let there be light, but why should Harrison give a fuck? He’s not a romantic. He’s not a dreamer. Not anymore.

This is the entirety of Scene F, which is a direct continuation from the above. I love how the "dreaming" element is immediately brought over.

There��s this one dream though. It hovers over him nightly, a thorny memory warmed by sun. He holds a face like a sculptor holds a brick of clay. This is a face he knows. A face he loves. Soft light dredges both their jaws, firm and ready to rear into the other’s, two animals feeding, or laughing, or breathing. Sometimes, the dreams add birdsong, sometimes a black cat named Beatrice who mews in the corner. Sometimes, the face’s hands become Harrison’s hands, and he searches for his own pinkie to find someone else’s. They don’t need to touch more than this. Even as the sun hazes the room gold, looking is more than enough. Are there mirrors in his eyes? Harrison isn’t always certain. Is he a mirage? He could be—a chromized distant object. He’s a masterpiece in some moments, a man growing into soapstone, buffed marble. Sometimes he’s haloed like Jesus in citrine stained-glass portraits. A saviour, mid-ascension, a shadow of flesh. But sometimes he’s just there, wide-eyed, a simple body. In those cases, Harrison wakes up screaming.

This is from the beginning of Scene G:

Sure, he is a floaty man in this pool, his clothes bloomed around him. He could be petals of blood dispersing in open water, or the unspooling ribbon on a Maypole. His cigarette has burned down nearly to his knuckle, smoke chalk white and feathery like cirrus clouds.

Just going to leave this extremely Lonancore excerpt here:

And then a voice. At first he thinks it might be Lonan’s. One of the last things he’d said: How long will you be gone? Gone. How easily Harrison had stood in that apartment, aware of what he’d do just like he was aware of the mouth Lonan had touched the night before, the palms Lonan had imprinted with his own like Eucharist imprints a tongue before being swallowed.

(????? bruh ???)

This paragraph continues the previous:

And then he’s gasping on water, and there’s the voice again, and it’s not a friable whisper but a shout. “Who the hell are you?” it’s saying over and over again, a godless prayer, except scratch that—when God speaks, he does it with violence.

And the end of Scene G:

Harrison is dragged out of the water by the realtor like he’s a plastic bobber attached to the end of a hook. His cigarette butt smolders in his hand, curlicues of white trimming the tarry night. On the concrete pool deck, he coughs water, the world spitting around him like a skipping VHS. His soaked hair drips into his eyes, down his mouth, half his weight bent on his wrist, his waterlogged jacket heavy like a body on his shoulders.

The man’s got a bony hand hooked around his collar and hides his struggle to let go with more shouting, something about grabbing a home phone, about police, about changing the locks. Really, Harrison should care more, but he’s focused on the man’s drawn face. He looks different than he does in his signs around the neighbourhood, his thin mouth clefted, his hair mousy without its Dippity Do shell. Did his wife fall in love with him, or the glossy image in the ads?

The man is trying to yank him up by the arm, manages to get halfway before Harrison says, “You’re the guy in the ads,” his voice hoarse as he wipes a hand over his slack mouth. And this must be surprising to him because the man immediately loses his grip. Harrison could ask him about that—why expect not to be noticed if your face is everywhere?

“What did you say?” asks the man. What’s his name? Something generic, but with an edge. Trevor Slade. Sean Horton. Brody Spencer. A gingery light pulses behind his head—a lamppost from the street. Harrison pants like one of the woman’s dogs. If he were a dog breed, which one would he be? Mastiff, German shepherd, golden retriever? He’s about to ask when the woman speaks first.

She’s got that same rainy look in her eye from before, a pointed pity that’s soft at the edges like highlight bloom. “Do you want to come inside for some tea?” 

In Scene F, Harrison dangerously flirts with the idea of being punched in the face:

“I like your place,” Harrison says, pinching the ceramic kitten that sits on the coffee table. This isn’t a lie unlike everything else he’s told them—his name is Harold Fraser, and the number Sadie dialed into their home phone is his personal assistant’s, not his mother’s. In here, the walls are tangelo orange, each entryway arched instead of severely right-angled. Suz would like the warm wood, the army of rubbery philodendrons on the windowsills. Harrison cranes his finger up the kitten’s paw, as if shaking its hand. Across its domed belly, translucent letters: JESUS IS STILL THE ANSWER.

“Don’t break that,” says the man, whose name is actually Nash Baker.

Harrison quirks a brow, his mouth twitchy. In five minutes, he’ll need another cigarette. “Family heirloom?”

“Do you take any sugar?” asks Sadie, perhaps at the right time because Nash Baker’s fist is agitating like a fighter fish’s tail through water. Harrison wouldn’t blame him if he did punch him in the face—to be frank, that would be the most interesting thing to happen to him all week.

Harrison relates to Sadie's apparent feelings of being trapped in a picturesque life:

Sadie walks dogs, sure, but what else does she do? A beaded tapestry of a blue heron hangs in the foyer—did she make it? The bird’s eye is onyx black, something unfurling there—maybe the urge to spear a minnow, maybe just deadness. If Sadie didn’t make it, what did she do in this house? Nearly everything is handmade but certainly purchased—the pottered mugs shaped like seasonal fruit that she vigorously plops teabags into, the rust Chobi rug that snags under Harrison’s socks, the ringed vases fluted with dead baby’s breath. How does she know life in this catalogue home? Besides the numbing daily walks with dogs, the repetitive brushings. She’s as fucked as he is, isn’t she? Trapped in this living picture.

And finally, another mildly blasphemous excerpt! We return to the "easy" metaphor from above.

Tomorrow, Harrison will again wake up in Suz’s easy apartment, eat her easy turkey bacon, drink an easy cup of dark roast. He’ll do this for the rest of his life, probably. For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen. Harrison’s got no kingdom. The best he can do is steal Jeremiah’s cigarettes, float in an aquamarine pool that doesn’t belong to him any more than Lonan’s aquamarine eyes ever belonged to him. He’s got no more power than a dead car battery, no glory. That’s right. Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever amen.

Harrison, basically:

And that's it! Chapter two is going to contain the trigger into destruction territory, so look out for update #2!

Rachel

[cookinguptales]

indashadows said: They are both extremely fucked up character, but to the casual viewer (the majority of the people who watch the show) nandor became the most hated, and I mean really hated, like delete nandor from the face of the earth. And I was reading some of the comments on kayvan's ig and this hate is projected to the actual person behind the fictional character, which is terrible. I just hope the writers saw how much damaged nandor character became and redeem him next season.

---------

Sorry, I passed out as soon as I made that post lmao.

That's a pity. I knew that people had reacted, uh, strongly to 4.09, but I didn't realize that it had progressed to the point where people were harassing Kayvan over it. Like he had anything to do with it!

I don't agree with a lot of the writing decisions made in the back half of the season (particularly with Guillermo/Freddie and Marwa, two storylines which felt half-baked to me) but honestly, I feel like Nandor actually improved in some ways. His actual actions did a lot of damage, but I feel like his motivations and his response to the consequences of those actions actually show some character growth.

Actually being able to admit he'd done something wrong, even if he didn't mean to, doing his best to make restitution to Guillermo, even if he fucked it up, and sacrificing something that meant a lot to him to try and make Guillermo happy again... Like those are all things that s1 Nandor would not have done. Even s3 Nandor wouldn't have, honestly. That last step in particular was very out of character for him, and I think shows how much Guillermo's happiness has come to mean to him.

I don't want to Get Too Into It because like I said, I've already written a lot of meta on this subject (and I have to catch a plane in a few hours) but I feel like the Freddie debacle, while written in a way to be intentionally cruel to Guillermo and casually cruel to Marwa, really brought things Nandor and Guillermo had both done wrong to a head. (In fact, if they'd made Guillermo's relationship problems more about his utter inability to tell the truth to his loved ones, not to mention his coping mechanism of manipulating those around him, I think I would have actually enjoyed the episode.)

But in the end, we really did see the way that Guillermo had just gone from one abusive, neglectful, self-involved partner to another -- and at least Nandor was able to show growth by the end of the episode.

idk, I feel like both Guillermo and Nandor made extreme mistakes in the Freddie situation, but the only character I came out actually despising was Freddie. Cheating-ass bitch. lmao

I do think that Nandor is probably going to end up eating shit to some degree in s5. I think things are gonna get worse before they get better and the two of them probably need to scream things out before they can uhhh progress to fucking out their frustrations instead. And it seems from the synopses we've heard that Nandor is not about to have a good time.

But I think that we're about due for a Nandor Pining Era so I wouldn't be surprised if that's some of the anxiety we're about to get.

That said, Nandor does seem to do real stupid shit when he's anxious... so... lmao

[elmaxlys]

Hii! For the favs ask game,

31 for juo, 18 for rika and 50, 48 and 1 for both!! :3

Ooooh thank you so much!! :DD

Juo:

1- Do you project onto this character?

In regards to gender and loving Rika, but otherwise no

31- Are you ashamed of liking this character?

Absolutely not. I used to be sorta ashamed (more like scared to share) of liking Juoka, which is why I didn't talk about them before I became friends with Choco and she encouraged me in preaching my truth lol but Juo alone? Nah.

Maybe because I had prior experience in stanning villains with no redeeming qualities (Donato) 🤔 (and Juo has the redeeming quality of being insanely hot)

48- What’s your favorite physical/design feature for this character?

I COULD GO ON FOR HOURS ABOUT HIS DESIGN

He's soooo!!!! He's everything!!! i fell in love at first sight in the first panel we saw of him!!! It's all good elements put together to create God's (Oba's) perfect creature.. The long hair, the muscles, the jumpsuit, the long-ass eyelashes, the missing eye, the tattoos hhhhhhhh I can't choose only one element!

If I do have to choose, I'm gonna go with the black lightning. It's so Juo, it summarizes his character so well.. Amazing decision 🥰

50- Your fav song, playlist, aesthetic board, fan-fiction, reference pile, personal artwork, analysis post, meme, headcanon, or quote for this character

Ooooh

This playlist - as for One Song in particular, right now I'm going with 18 by Anarbor IF YOU WANNA PISS OFF YOUR PARENTS DATE ME TO SCARE THEM SHOW THEM YOU'RE ALL GROWN UP. IF LONG HAIR AND TATTOOS ARE WHAT ATTRACT YOU BABY THEN YOU'RE IN LUCK

This post <- one day I'll complete it with the Seven Seas TL

Quote + panel:

adding more panels because I can:

Meme:

As for my artwork, right now it's the most recent one

Rika:

1- Do you project onto this character?

Oh yeah. I totally do. Middle children unite. I project so much it sometimes makes me lose sight of canon so it's not ideal and I wish I could put some more distance (I say while using him as my icon) but at the same time he's too much of a part of me and there's too much of me I see in him for me to really try...

As an aside: every time you see me talk about Rika having some grudge against Sniper? It's personal.

18. Do you prefer to see this character suffer or know peace? Angst or comfort? Both?

Both, definitely. Hurt/comfort all the way. It's definitely something he goes through a lot (if not every time) in my fics: I break him down and then make him all better via Juo Love lmao

He needs some rest and I am delighted to provide that for him but boy do I love seeing him break down 🥰

48- What’s your favorite physical/design feature for this character?

Call me Floor 9 because it's THE HAMMER. Dude is out there incorporating any sport he can to fighting with a hammer, he's killing people with Hammer-Kendo and he tried to play Hammer-Baseball, like he's So Real for that, also it's so good like yesss he'll get in your face and get covered in your blood when he kills you, unlike his siblings who fight with guns, he's close and personal with death.

Like it's such a heavy tool and it requires so much control if you don't want to fuck up your entire body trying to swing it and he just. he does it. repeatedly. He does kendo moves with a tool with a complete different balance and a wayyy more important weight than a shinai. Did he use a sledgehammer before? Did he recreationally watch sledgehammer videos like I do? Did he just do the whole calculation in his head the second his hand touched it? Did the "Rika Knows The Future" crack theory strike again? I am In Love with the fact Rika uses a sledgehammer. I used to joke that "Rika x Hammer-chan is OTP" but was I wrong??

50- Your fav song, playlist, aesthetic board, fan-fiction, reference pile, personal artwork, analysis post, meme, headcanon, or quote for this character

Song: I'm gonna go with Second Guessing by Get Scared and Daylight by Shinedown

Quote: rn i gotta go with this

My artwork (I kinda want to redraw it)

I'm also gonna put this here

meme because it's always Loving Rika Hours

as well as the Crack Theory

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Favorite characters asks

[cherienymphe]

I mean the only reason I’M most focused on Kie when it comes to the writers screwing characters up is because she’s my favorite

I also just wish that they had made it so that she and JJ had (more) chemistry from the getgo so that their relationship would be more authentic and we wouldn’t be in this jiara vs riara situation.

And I’m unsure about Riara because I just don’t love it when things cross over into the territory of borderline fan fiction content. Not saying that enemies to lovers should be reserved for fan fiction—believe me, I love that trope as much as the next person—I just think Rafe is so far gone to the point where he probably couldn’t redeem himself with the group and it would be unrealistic if he did. And I love his character but she’s just too good for him, but that’s definitely not a secret. Anyone with eyes can see that. See like this is just too uncanny to TLIKTB 😭 which I loved with my whole heart but don’t want becoming a real thing because it’s a dark fic (as you obviously know since you wrote it lmao) so it would be weird if it came true. OBX writers if you’re seeing this, leave the dark stuff to cherie 💀 obviously they wouldn’t put the whole psycho jj thing in it but I feel like you get what I’m saying (or maybe you don’t, I don’t know). Anyways apologies for the essay

I mean the writers are too cowardly to do anything even bordering on dark so they'd definitely redeem Rafe before ever making them official. As for Jiara, they've had moments going all the way back to season 1 for me so to me it isn't inauthentic but I do wish they'd handled their storyline better in season 3