#do you like dumb but kind men? do you like well done redemption arcs? do you like interesting interpersonal relationships?

[not-actually-human]

shoutout to all my dnd mutuals who have to see me talk about ted lasso once a week. im not sure if you know what im talking about but i appreciate your patience in these trying times

[tonya-the-chicken]

I wrote this post some time ago as a reply to someone and now I somehow want to post it again with some changes lol

TW: mentions of murder, referenced canon abuse and swearing

Let’s talk about redemption arcs and people’s overwhelming desire to punish fictional characters for what they did... Inspired by Endeavor hate ngl... I mostly speak about fictional charcters in this post so pllease, don’t go dumb and understand that fictional characters and irl people should be treated differently

I think sometimes people don`t understand why punishment exists in our society at all. Like, why couldn`t we just forgive? Why punishment is needed? Oh, I would like to talk about behavioural psychology, but it is kinda creepy so instead let`s remember what my teacher of LAWS said(idk what you call it in your bitchass America)

Punishment basically serves two functions:

Preventative (show others and a person that they can’t just get away with their deeds). Like, if you knew that there are no negative consequences, wouldn`t you do it? Wouldn`t you kill the old lady?

Correction and all work with a person in general (for example, you can be forced to go through some psychological help)

Also, I lied there’s one more: compensation. Like, if you stole something, then bring money back, you little shit. Or pay for therapy for your victim

So when we put it into stories and so popular nowadays redemption arcs (which I fucking adore if they are done correctly) we have 4 points out of this 3 cause the first one can be put into two

Character is punished to show others that this is not something you should do (it’s a kinda societal thing and has nothing to do with character in particular. This point in general is not interesting because it doesn’t drives changes in person by itself)

Character is punished so he himself would think twice before doing this shit again (we can’t know if person’s remorse is genuine so it’s better to simply scare them. But I can allow skipping this point if person’s remorse is clealy shown to be genuine and we as readers understand that. That’s probably the big distinction we, as readers, should see: while irl we never know persons true motives, work of fiction can provide them to us clearly)

Character changes and understands what is wrong in what he has done (the part of redemption we all love and enjoy)

Characters work hard to correct or atone for their mistakes

As we can see first two bullets has nothing to do with character development and serve for the purpose of maintaining order. The third one IS a character development and the last one is what makes people actually forgive horrible actions and not go ape shit I guess. But for some of us nothing is enough, isn`t it?

And there is one more shit that is often in redemption arcs and that shit is great and I fucking love it

Explanation of the character’s behaviour, their reasoning and motivation

I truly enjoy reading about WHY characters behave a certain way but people, remember, SAD BACKSTORY IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Same goes to your mental problems and hard life situation. The fact that behaviour can be explained doesn’t mean shit. Like, behaviour also follows certain laws and despite the fact that it’s sometimes hard to understand all the details we still theoretically can explain ANY BEHAVIOUR. Does this mean we can excuse any behaviour? HELL NO

So remember folks, “They had their reasons to do this” means nothing most of the time. “I wanted to try how it feels” is actually a valid reason to kill someone, you know. Of course, if crimes is not severe, reasoning suddenly can be very important like we won`t punish harshly someone who stole bread cause he is starving or cause he has kleptomania (I mean as a literal disorder). But even in that case you must pay back money cause like stealing is bad but eat the rich

let`s talk examples from bnha cause why not

Endeavour

We have Enji oh my baby you have done so much stupid shit you dumbass. Sad backstory even if will be brought up in the future, currently is not a focus of redemption at all. Like, he even doesn`t explain his behaviour too much. “He want to be the strongest, so he decided that even if his genes will make it to the top it will be enough. As a result,  blinded by his goal,   he abused his family”. Basically, it`s all the explanation we have right now. And if Hori stops at it I will be fine with it. Honestly, as much as I want to learn more about Enji’s past if Horikoshi leaves everything at this I would give him nothing but mad respect cause... This kind of shows that your reasoning doesn’t matter that much if you did horrifying things

So 3 points to redeem someone

Enji didn’t suffer any punishment for his actions (nightmares are considered punishment only if you believe in God. Also, too weak, God, try harder... And same goes for High-End). When I think about him being punished I actually worry about society’s reaction cause, like, he is number 1 hero and the fact that he’s an abuser will be, like, very shocking to simple people.Trust in hero will fall harder than my will to live during 2020. And honestly, media would just turn this into a drama possibly hurting other members of his family, like.... Enji being legally punished for his action would be an interesting plotline but in general I am not a fan

We see his genuine remorse and character growth. We all agree that he even is drawn differently now changed and trying to become a better person, yeah? Clumsily at first, but he genuinely works hard to be a better peron, hero and father. I can respecct that

Compensation… Well, you can exactly “correct” trauma so he should pay up for psychologists for each child he probably should follow the path of atonement and try to give them something he robbed them from. Like, go to family dinners with Fuyumi even though every last one of them is a disaster and nobody is happy to be there. Or make everything possible to provide Rei calm life with her children (like building a new house, yes, this is an amazing thing) or at least become *reducted cause I wanna this post to be serious and SFW*... Tbh I have nothing to say, he himself says multiple times that he seeks nothing but atonment, not even forgiveness

So like you better work bitch to make your family happy bastard... [And tbh they seem so much better then when I first wrote this post, I am so proud of you, my garbage fire man]

Overhaul

In no way is he redeemed but somehow people put Overhaul and Endeavor stans in the same category so here he goes

Kai has something Enji doesn’t: very good and detailed explanation, a plan, a smart reasoning. His wrong deeds were basically for a better good he believed in. But we all collectively hate him for what he done to Eri despite his actions having r E A S o n S. Dude has some MOTIVATION. So like yeah bros. It makes him an interesting character and he is an amazing villain but dude deserves to rot in prisons. He shows no remorse and I am gonna bet he won`t even think about somehow helping others. Dude is a shitty person. And I fucking love him

So let’s go for our 3 bullets again

Punishment. Yes, he is punished, he is in jail with both his hands cut off. Would it make people forgive him? Nah

Personal growth. I would like to see it but as far we saw barely no growth... Though maybe being in jail without quirk will make his brain work

Atonement... Dude has a Messiah complex, I ain’t waiting for that anytime soon

So I asked myself if I had two men: one who spent a sentence in jail for child abuse but is more or less the same person and another who wasn’t punished for his abuse but feel genuine remorse and actively try to make things better who will I choose? Of course, I will choose Pikachu

But is it possible to redeem Overhaul? I wonder if there`s a force in this world strong enough to make him become a better person. Welp... I am a sucker for redemptions, justt letting you know

All for One

Oh, he is irredeemable (and this is sexy). Why is he here? Cause, well

Even if he is punished there`s no punishment severe enough to describe how horrifying his deeds are

Even if he is to feel remorse… he has like 500 years or something??? And he didn`t feel anything killing people??? So why would he change today?

Even if he atone for what he’s done… I am to believe he started at least a civil war. You can`t atone for that bitch. You crossed all fucking lines, all fucking lines

AfO is literally the most evvil man in bnha... I don’t want to see him redeemed cause I love characters that are pure evil and I love the despair of realizing you can’t fix what you have done. Though you are free to have a different opinion! Who knows, maybe Horikoshi will make a classy redemption for him and I will scream out of excitement? Cause I am that kind of bitch??? Who knows! I just love to think Doctor Ujiko is gay for him

Anyway, why do people like to make this characters suffer? Like, Endeavor, Minoru, Overhaul, many others? Is this part of the “punishment” to feel like person paid for their deeds? Or do people just like fictional violence and punishing “bad” characters make them feel good about themselves? Who knows

I have no idea what this post is about I want to sleep and I like Enji though if you dislike him this is fine. I hope it was interesting reading this, love you all bye

Don’t kill me for my controversial takes, I am depressed

[oddlyunadventurous]

BOOK REPORT 2020

I’ve always been a sparse reader but 2018 and 19 had me accelerate my reading habits to the point that I think I’ve read the most books this year that I ever had. I suppose I’ll count them all here, just to make sure!! I said something or other about the Moomin books at the end of last year’s Inkt*b*r so, this being the month of traditions, let’s make a new one by tallying up my literary “yays” and “nays” at the end of the season.

Video game text boxes don’t count, online publication articles don’t count, psych/aesthetic papers and 1000 page biosemiotic textbooks don’t count, but they have sure pursued me in my sleep during the year as well. This list is really mostly for my benefit (and no I won’t get a Goodreads account tyvm), so under the cut you’ll find a list of titles in roughly the order I read them, along with short notes. I’ve done longer reviews of these books elsewhere and I need not bore you with them here. 

K. Stanislavski - An Actor Prepares (1936) I started reading this book in 2012, then dropped it because I couldn’t understand it at the time. Kostya attends acting school and gets lessons from The Director. He learns to sleep like his cat.

K. Stanislavski - Building a Character (1949) Supposed to have been published along the first one in a single volume. Kostya continues his lessons. A lot of thoughts on walking, gaits, eloquent speech, phrasing, etc. Both these books are wonderful looks into the author’s artistic life. It’s very heartfelt and down to earth, considering it’s quasi-fiction made to edutain. Very inspiring.

M. Polanyi - The Tacit Dimension (1966)  A book on the origin of knowledge, the integrated performance of skills, the emergence of life and other phenomena in the universe, marginal control between levels of reality, the moral death of the communist regime caused by the unbridled lucidity of the Enlightenment, the responsibilities of science, and thoughts about open societies of the future. This is one of the two shortest books I’ve read in the list, it covers all of this under 130 pages and manages to do it well.

B. Rainov - Eros and Thanatos (1971) A communist propaganda book attacking western mass media and escapist culture. It gets no points for being correct, as the author mostly swiped the truths from french philosophers. Very variable in its intellectual prowess, almost as if it picks its arguments in order to push an agenda. Informative but also infuriating. Also expectedly homophobic.

J. Hoffmeyer - Signs of Meaning in the Universe (1997) A somewhat pop-sciency book about biosemiotics. Forgettable but also humbly written and explicative.

A. Noë - Varieties of Presence (2012) An unimpressive book about sensory perception. Noë’s theory on sensorimotor action is worth considering but the book is poorly edited and mostly spent arguing with peers.

E. Fudge - Quick Cattle & Dying Wishes (2018) A look into a registry of last wills and testaments from the period 1630 - 1650 in Essex. The book is about early modern people’s relationship to their animals and what they meant to them in life, as well as in death. Fudge’s argumentation is sharp and her style is modern. Being a scholarly book it is really overwhelming with the footnotes sometimes, but otherwise satisfying. One gets beautiful glimpses of family relationships, thoughts and feelings that people now dead for 400 years once held.

G. Márquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) The Buendia family get all their sons killed. The Banana Company sucks. People love each other. A lot happens, generally. It is a hundred years, after all. The upper class sucks.

K. Polanyi - The Great Transformation (1944) The Industrial Revolution sucked. England sucks. It reduced all its workers to subhuman wretches. Every single decision made after the empiricists made labour and land fictional commodities has been a band-aid to the essential contradiction that the market economy wants to annihilate its human host. Laissez-faire sucks. It caused WW1. Fuck everything. Fun book.

R. Coyne - Peirce of Architects (2019) Talks about architecture and the ideas of logician/father of pragmatism Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Informative about both. Brisk and not very in-depth, but to its benefit rather than its detriment.

R. Williams - Culture and Society (1958) A survey of the 18th and 19th century England, and the emergence of the concept of “culture” as defence against the horrors that the Industrial Revolution inflicted upon society. Consists of some two dozen outlines of contributors to the romanticist tradition, from Adam Smith, through Ruskin, to Orwell, their beliefs, contributions and literary works. Very eloquent and interesting.

E. Fudge -  Brutal Reasoning (2006) A fantastic book about much: early modern views of the difference between a human and an animal, the Christian discourse of reason, the logical fallacies that lead to its implosion, the advantageous use of dehumanisation by imperialists in other to genocide natives, Montague and Shakespeare, and the ethical hell of animal murder that led Descartes to deem animals as machines so as to allow his buddies to perform live vivisections on dogs without feeling guilty about it (this is the real reason, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise). There is even space for an entire chapter about an intelligent horse who could tell a virgin from a whore and learned Latin at Oxford. This is my favorite book I read this year, so it gets an extra long review.

R. Williams - The Long Revolution (1961) A sequel to Culture and Society that’s worse. The start and end are brilliant but the middle sags. It contains some historical reviews of English cultural elements, like the newspaper industry, the Standard English vernacular and the realist novel of the 19th century, but honestly if the book was just about about the creative state (intro) and Marxism (outro) it would’ve been fine, if not better.

P. Klee - The Thinking Eye (1956 & 1964) Bauhaus boy in 1920s Germany! Love you Klee, xoxo. You really have to read his thoughts to understand his work imho. You can appreciate it just fine on the surface level, but his completely eccentric (though very self-consistently logical and sharp) views on art creation open a new outlook into his primitive approach.

F D.K. Ching - Architecture: Form, Space & Order (1979)  A staple book for architecture students. Or so I hear. Steeped in gestalt psychology. Very good, though not necessarily stuff I don’t know already. Very nice looking pencil illustrations, Ching looks to be an accomplished technical draughtsman.

H. Wölfflin - Principles of Art History (1915) A strong contender for second place in the tier list. The book examines the transition between Classical to Baroque in Italy and Germany (and all the Germany clones, like the Netherlands). It is a systematic, precise aesthetic treatise that reveals much by conceptualizing and grouping characteristic art features in which the two styles differ, then explaining their bearing on their decorative content as well as the outlook on life that they embody. Lovely.

M. Porter -  Windows of the Soul: The Art of Physiognomy in European Culture 1470-1780 (2005) A historiographical treatise about early modern views on physiognomy. The book deals mainly with the extant literature on the subject and tries to gleam what it could mean for the customs at the time - palmistry reading, occultism, persecution of the “gypsies” and the Christian scientific project of attaining meaning. Macro- and microcosms, as above so below, hermeticism, that sort of stuff. It’s an interesting read but it’s too long, the quality of writing varies greatly from chapter to chapter, and it is far too expensive. Wouldn’t recommend it.

S. C.Figueiredo -  Inventing Comics: A New Translation of Rodolphe Töpffer's Reflections on Graphic Storytelling, Media Rhetorics, & Aesthetic Practice (2017) This is the shortest book I read, mainly translating Töpffer’s 1845 "Essay on Physiognomy" along with giving his biography and some other paraphernalia. It’s not worth the price for the content contained within, but  Töpffer is the father of the modern comic book, so I thought I’d learn what his philosophy was. On that front, at least, very interesting! If only I knew French I’d save myself the trouble and read the original, which is now public domain.

D. Bayles - Art & Fear (1985) A useless self-help book. Not entirely bullshit but completely banal from all angles. Shouldn’t even be on this list but I did read it, so...

I. Allende - The House of the Spirits (1982) A child rapist gets a redemption arc. Well, kind of. All women are queens. Men are awful. The poor are wretches and it’s their fault. Oh no, the communists are going to take our land! Pinochet’s concentration camps sucked. Overall a better magical realism book than 100 Years of Solitude, to be honest. Very well written characters.

R. Arnheim -To the Rescue of Art: Twenty-Six Essays (1992) What it says on the tin. Wide range of subjects, from art appreciation, to schizophrenic and autistic child art, to gestalt psychology, to philosophy of science, to Picasso’s Guernica and the fate of abstract art, to reflections on the 20th century and the writer’s life in pre-nazi Germany and America. I love Arnheim, I’ve read many of his books and I’m glad I picked this one up.

R. Arnheim - Film as Art (1957) A book about cinematography, one of his earliest, actually, mostly a personal translation from an original German book he published in 1933. Somewhat outdated, but foundational. Not as informative to me but I don’t regret reading it.

G. E. Lessing - Laocoon; or, On the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766) A book by a greekaboo about a fucking dumb poem and a statue of a naked dad and his two sons getting fucked by snakes. It’s misogynistic and authoritarian in several places, and altogether awfully full of itself. 100 pages of interesting observations stretched over 400 pages of boring Greco-Roman literary discourse.

L. Tolstoy - Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (1852, 1854, 1856) One story serialized in a magazine then later collated in three separate books. Aristocrat boy grows up in pre-revolution Russia. A very, very relatable coming-of-age story. Tolstoy is a lovely writer.

F. Dostoevsky - Poor Folk (1846) An epistolary novel consisting of letters between literally Dobby from Harry Potter and his maybe-niece, whom he wants to fuck. Starts bad, gets better by the end. A bit rough and tumble for Dostoevsky’s first, so I forgive him for wasting my time a little bit. A decent character study of the middle/lower classes, at least.

L. Tolstoy - Family Happiness (1859) An amazing romance novel for the skill employed in writing it. It is very short yet delivers so much emotion. Rather simple narrative at its core, but executed with such bravado one cannot help but be impressed.

F. Dostoevsky - The Double (1846) In which the Author starts swinging. A pathetic, neurodivergent old man gets used and abused by the people around him and nobody cares. Satirical and biting, better than his first.

A. Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking (1945) I last read this when I was 6 years old so I thought I’d refresh my memory. I remember disliking the book then and I can see why. Pippi’s kind of an asshole. Still very enjoyable to read. I know it’s meant for a younger audience’s reading level yet I cannot help comparing it with Tove Jansson’s books and how much better the prose in there is. Sorry.

***

I think that about rounds them up! That’s about 30 books, give or take. For next year I’m hoping to:

Finish Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s bibliographies

Read more econ and marxist writing (low personal priority but i have to, in THIS economy *rolls eyes*)

Finish the Tintin and Moomin comics, as well as Jhonen Vasquez’s collection of edgy humor

Read more about botany and biology in general

Get started on Faulkner’s and William Golding’s bibliographies

Read more children’s books

Search for more Latin American fiction from the Boom

Read more psych/aesthetics/pedagogy literature, which seems to have become my main area of interest

Thanks for sticking till the end of the list, hope you’ve learned something and maybe you’ll pick one of these up if it took your interest. I don’t have to be a philistine just because I’m drawing video game fanart! Bye now!

[age-of-shadows]

Avantasian headcanons just for fun pt. 2 - the Scarecrow

wohoooo more headcanons! this time about everyone’s favorite emo boy: the Scarecrow from The Wicked Trilogy.

Scarecrow is, for me, the most complex Avantasia protag because of his story and his perception of the world. this trilogy is super messy and hard to decipher unless you really pay attention to the songs, and even after that, later on you might realise some things you hadn’t discovered before. this is due to the fact that Scarecrow’s perception is messed up, and in the album he basically tells the story as how he and only HE sees what’s happening so his versions might not be entirely true as we see god (Bob Catley) trying to help him all the time but he makes it seem as if god had turned his back on him and just left him. he’s also the most problematic protag in terms that you could even say he’s evil.

i think of this character as a “selfish asshole” to sum it up, but there’s actually a lot to unpack there. i’m guessing he probably has some kind of mental illness that keeps him from seeing things as they are and that makes him think everyone is against him, which turns him evil in our eyes. i could even say he has some sort of mild bipolar disorder taking into account that there’re songs where he just seems over his love interest (character played by Amanda Somerville) but right at the next moment he’s crying over her again, maybe we could talk about borderline personality disorder as well? who knows, but i really do think Scarecrow’s mental health is pretty messed up. besides, that’s what we see in Twisted Mind, where Roy Khan’s character (i like to think he’s some sort of doctor) rambles about how his perception is messed up and how he’s kind of an abomination. so, his mental health is obviously gonna affect his personality and his story, turning him into a person that can’t trust in anyone but himself and making him think he has to push everyone away so that he doesn’t get hurt anymore.

however, Scarecrow does have a heart, and this is where we talk about his love interest. that was probably the only time he felt love, hell, probably the first time he felt something positive towards anything else, and that’s where his obsession for Amanda’s character comes from, because if she doesn’t love him, no one else will. i also jokingly say he was mommy issues, but really, the only thing he really wants is someone who will take care of him and love him despite not being perfect and in that way, he’ll be able to heal.

Scarecrow is also pretty obsessed with fame, and here’s also where the “selfish asshole” comes into action. he’ll do anything to get what he wants even if that involves hurting other, mainly because he doesn’t know any better than that, because he’s alone (not really, since in all the albums he’s with Jorn Lande’s character, which is a personification of Temptation).

In other terms, I headcanon him as bisexual. he sure does show interest in women but if we take Jorn’s character as a male, this Temptation could also represent his desire for men (something pretty recurrent in Avantasia albums, though), besides, after all the things they’ve both gone through, it would make sense (specially if we listen to Promised Land). oh, i also see him as a bit of a jokester among the protags.

as for his alignment, he’s rather chaotic-evil, even if he doesn’t sees himself as truly evil or thinks what he does isn’t evil. as i said, you could say this guy is pretty much problematic during his whole story (though he gets a little redemption arc in Angel of Babylon, but it’s reaaaally small) and he doesn’t realise about how harmful everything he’s done is, not only for other people but for him as well. 

i’d probably be even MORE extense about this if it wasn’t for language barriers (i’m spanish) and could express myself better, but here’s how his relationship is with the rest of the protag crew:

Gabriel: as I said previously, Scarecrow is a bit of an asshole to Gabriel and makes fun of his beliefs, also because Gabriel tries to lead him in the “right direction” but of course, Scarecrow is a free spirit and doesn’t like people lecturing him. still, he kind of envies Gabriel because he’s really open to knowledge and all and he’s kind of dumb and can’t get a lot of things right, guess that’s another reason to why he makes fun of Gabriel sometimes.

Aaron: i guess you could say he likes him, mostly because he’s the only one who doesn’t lecture him too much and because he really tries to understand him and his feelings and get him to work on that.

Entity: he’s unsure about them at first too just like Gabriel, but they’re really helpful when it comes to him calming down after he loses his cool and stuff like that, though he does find them annoying sometimes because they will try to stop them from making any kind of heavy joke and will just try to bring peace between him and Gabriel in general, but he kinda appreciates them.

that’s it for Scarecrow, for now! though i’d like to go more into detail, as i said, despite my english being quite decent i can’t really explain myself just as i want to because i might not know how to express certain things. again, feel free to ask me anything about my headcanons and also to tell me yours!

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Pot, Meet Kettle

So, was looking for more Charmcaster content and came upon these comments related to the reboot episode “What Rhymes With Omnitrix?”  And...wow. I won’t name names out of respect for privacy and will put this all under a cut so that only those interested can read it, but the hypocrisy here is just so mind-numbing that I needed to comment on it.

Kevin stans unwilling to admit to his faults, do not engage.

What she did to Kevin was not conning in any way, that was clearly and blatantly magical enslavement complete with chains, torture, and mindcontrol. You can’t just downplay that shit like this and expect me to go along with it, not when the sequel series already tended to pull that, especially with regards to Charmcaster doing that sorta shit. You do not get to blatantly show Kevin being forced to do things against his will, being tortured for fighting back, and then try to pass it off as him having been tricked into working with her. What the fuck is with this franchise with having Charm do horribly evil shit and then just waving it off?

Remind me: how much horribly evil shit did Kevin commit, even in the sequel series themselves where he was a good guy, that got downplayed, justified, waved off or swept under the rug? Murder, war profiteering, aiding other criminals when it suited his interests, letting his friends take the rap for his crimes, etc?  

Sequel series Charm was incredibly shitty, there’s no denying that, probably shittier than sequel series Kevin honestly given the sheer lack of consistency in her character and over-the-top extremes they had her go to. But guess what, that doesn’t make sequel series Kevin un-shitty. If you’re not holding the same standard to how they’re written, your argument loses credibility because it is intellectually dishonest.

More to the point, what about all of the crap that reboot Kevin has pulled? Does none of it bother you? Is him walking free sensible given the stuff he’s done? Ex: he enslaved Glitch, who is a sentient being, against his will twice. He wasn’t taken to task for it afterward, even though he felt no remorse and went on to do more evil deeds. Before getting controlled by Charm, he was about to beat Ben to death. And even before he got his Antitrix he was a vicious bully who traumatized Ben to the point of being scared of public bathrooms. So why is all of that excusable and you can “go along with it” when the show doesn’t dwell on any of it afterward, but you draw a line in the sand when Charm, a villain, does something bad to Kevin, another fucking villain? That’s like hating on Kevin for manipulating the Weatherheads or Steam Smythe and expecting the show to make a bigger deal out of that, or hating on Zombozo for screwing Vilgax over or hypnotizing Kevin and expecting the show to make a bigger deal out of that; it makes no logical sense. Villains are gonna villain, it’s what they do.

With Charmcaster, it was a case of Kevin trying to puff himself up and seem big and bad and Charm responding with ‘great, let me have your brain for my own’, followed by an episode of him fighting viciously against her control until she took 100% over. But he was ‘working with her’, the writers say. And given how much the sequel series were into brushing the awful shit she did under the rug, I really don’t have patience for it here.

Again, I ask if you’ve checked under Kevin’s rug from the sequel series lately. Lot of awful shit there. And if you had the patience for all of that, you can have the patience for this.

And as for what sparked this whole outburst, the ‘working with her’ thing was in reference to that in his puffing Kevin outright said that she ought to take control of him. She told him upfront that she wanted to control Ben against his will to have him attack Gwen, and told him to be on his way because he wasn’t Ben. Kevin could have gotten out unscathed. But, not thinking straight because of jealousy, he protested and said that she should want to control him because he’s more powerful. Charm’s response (basically “OK, if you insist!”) made him realize all too late what he had just said and what it actually meant would happen to him.

It’s not trying to excuse what Charm did as right or justifiable or undermine it in any way, it’s just acknowledging that Kevin also played a willful part in making it happen too due to his hate-boner for Ben, just as Charm did due to her hate-boner for Gwen.  He wasn’t just minding his own business until Charm up and took control of him for no reason: he was about to murder Ben and got accidentally pulled over to Charm who mistook him for Ben, she told him to leave when she realized her mistake, and then Kevin insisted that her plan to control Ben was dumb because Ben was weak; she should want him because he’s stronger. His claim of Charm “conning” him into getting controlled is him lying to himself about what happened, acting as though Charm deliberately manipulated his jealousy to make him say what he did, rather than admit that he had been a stupid, jealous kid who badly fucked up.

It’s not even that they don’t treat her as being in the wrong, it’s that they want her to both be redeemable and also to do things that may or may not be irredeemable. It’s a theme of every sequel series and now the reboot as well.

Except that Charmcaster hasn’t done anything remotely irredeemable in the reboot series. And if you think that she did, then you’re being intellectually dishonest because, again, Kevin has done literally the exact same things and usually for the exact same reasons. He’s not against controlling, enslaving, manipulating or relishing in inflicting pain on people either. He may not be a psychopath, but he still is written as lacking in basic empathy, just like Charm.

It was also absolutely a theme for him as well in the sequel series, probably even moreso since they did a whole fucking arc about it w/ Ultimate Kevin, where he did horrific things that were irredeemable and yet he’s still redeemed and those actions are swept under the rug with the whole “it wasn’t his fault, it was the energy he absorbed that made him do it!” excuse, which is the same kind of cop-out as the Alpha Rune was for sequel series Charmcaster. If you can buy wholesale into that excuse but can’t for the Alpha Rune, you are operating under a double standard. Either both are cases of awful character writing that exist purely for the writers to avoid having to write actual redemption arcs, or neither of them are. Pick one.

SO they have her do these things and then either sweep them under the rug, downplay the shit out of them, or tell us that we should feel sorry for her that she felt the need to do that.

....I...I really can’t right now.  I just can’t.

This literally describes Kevin too. Swap names and gender pronouns, and it’s the same.

And yet every time Kevin does something horrible, your reaction seems to be “oh, my son!”, sweeping it under the rug or downplaying it, and you feel sorry for him that he felt the need to do it; you still understand and sympathize with his troubled mental state regardless of what inexcusable acts of villainy it drives him to do. But when it’s Charmcaster? Fuck that bitch and cue violent fantasies of what Kevin should do to her for revenge just because he happened to be the victim of her actions (oh yeah, and about those: what the actual fuck!? Honestly, the hypocritical bitching about Charm being some kind of writers’ pet wouldn’t bug me half as much without this totally uncalled-for shit accompanying it.)

It sounds to me that this has nothing to do with morality: it has everything to do with a bias toward your fave and anger that he got hurt.  It sounds to me that Kevin can hurt Ben, Gwen, Grandpa Max, Glitch, or anyone else and you’re fine with it - heck, he can hurt Charm and you’re fine with it given the aforementioned fantasies. But when Kevin is hurt, the one who did it MUST be held accountable at every turn and suffer the painful consequences!

He’s your fave, I get it, but the emotions involved with that should not rule out objectivity. Nor should it fuel torture porn fantasies toward another character, especially a female child one who already has being physically abused by a boy as part of her goddamn backstory. (Humiliating slapstick like the show itself uses is fine though, she definitely deserves it.)

The way you are going about it, you come off as a pitiful MRA-type always bitching about how them damn women get away with everything and men get screwed as a result, even when it’s not at all reflective of reality. If you really think the writers of the Ben 10 franchise have historically held some kind of bias toward Charm and didn’t toward Kevin, then just look at Kevin’s screentime throughout the franchise compared to Charm and then come back at me with that shit (same goes for Gwen for that matter; stack her up against Ben and Kevin in terms of significant arcs, actions and development, and you’ll find she falls woefully short.)

And the thing is, for the reboot at least, she’s young enough I’m willing to give her some leeway, but the tempering damages that by making it feel like the writers don’t see what she does as an issue.

It’s not that the writers don’t see what she does as an issue. It’s that you see it as way too big of an issue while also not seeing the same thing happening with Kevin as an issue at all. It’s a double standard, pure and simple: Kevin is your fave and so he can get away with anything in your eyes and you don’t consider it to be troubling writing if he gets let off with a slap on the wrist for it. But you can’t do the same for Charm because she’s not your fave and - more importantly - Kevin is negatively impacted by what she does. If he wasn’t, then I’m pretty damn sure that no evil deed she commits would actually bother you at all. You want the show to fixate on how evil what she did was not because you hold some standard against magical mental enslavement in general, but because you’re angry that she did it to Kevin. This is all about you taking offense on behalf of your fave, not about the writers messing up in any way.

And before anyone gets on my case for bashing Kevin, I’m not! I love reboot Kevin! None of what I described above about him bothers me in any way because I can look at him objectively and enjoy him as the troubled but undeniably nasty little shit that he is, just as I do with reboot Charm. They’re both villains who do villainous things, and the show’s lax attitude toward it is due to its light-hearted tone and the fact that they’re both children (ditto for the likes of Billy Billions and Simon Sez). But more to the point, they’re supposed to be hypocrites in regards to each other, because what they hate about each other is actually the worst of themselves reflected right back at them. They are the same kind of person and they project like crazy, this is a certified fact per Word of God. Their FANS, however, shouldn’t be following their example because they ought to be smarter and more mature than that.

It goes all the way back to this post, and what I said there still applies: Why are male characters allowed to be bitter, angry, hateful, vengeful, insolent, insulting, anti-social, violent and manipulative without reproach while female characters always get demonized for it?  Why does such behavior in a male character get the “my precious son!” reaction, while the exact same behavior in a female character get the “that horrible bitch!” reaction? Why are bad things a female character does to a male character considered irredeemably awful, but what bad things that male character might do to her for revenge considered an appealing fantasy and totally justified? Why can a male character be allowed nuance despite their deplorable acts of villainy, and yet when it’s done with a female character it’s proof that “the writers don’t get that what she did was wrong because otherwise why try to make her appealing or sympathetic in any way?” Why this double standard?

I don’t know, but I do know that it’s wrong and I am not here for it.

Tl;dr: don’t hate on Charm for things your fave is equally guilty of or things that a witch-themed supervillain is gonna naturally do just because it’s your fave who gets hurt by it.

[themanofonebook]

—Okay here is that promised Enjolras and Javert meta that I was talking about. @pontificalandwarlike and I were having this discussion a while ago and I don’t remember what she said but I can guess based on the context and below the cut is the response which I sent to her and also an added bit from myself with more on the subject read at will I do this because I love it. There’s some stuff in there about Hugo and Christianity and blah blah it’s long because I’m dumb.

“Oh I can tell you why people laud Enjolras and decry Javert very simply, though it says a bit about how we, as humans, think of ourselves and our souls — and also just a bit about Hugo and Christianity, which was basically his purpose in writing the book if we’re going to be totally honest.

Yes Javert and Enjolras are basically the same character, it’s true; they are both “terrible”, they are both obsessively devoted to their cause with the supposed exclusion of all else (though Enjolras has his friends and Javert has his snuff and flair for the dramatic), they both value their own perception of justice above everything else in the known world; in their minds, “the right” is the most important thing and anything you offer up pales in comparison to their idea of a perfect world, Enjolras’s being a democracy bordering on Marxist ideas which would not be born for quite some time, Javert’s being a country where all criminality is stamped out and the bourgeois are petted and protected because they are born good and have the smallest chance of falling to evil.

Their character arcs parallel — introduction in which they are, in reality, a powerful, marble backdrop for the main characters at the time; Enjolras is the lover of liberty whom we compare Marius and Les Amis to, Javert is the staunch supporter of the law and Valjean’s twin and contrast. They go through their own personal development, delved into with a touch of detail, but their greatest moments are their deaths; the very ends of the developmental stages and their subsequent demises are what changes perception of their places in the story, Enjolras being an angel and stand-in for Saint Michael, Javert being closer to the musical’s “Lucifer” and falling from the grace that is his own righteousness because he cannot comprehend goodness — and there’s the point.

Enjolras, while beginning as a bit of a pigheaded arse, if I might be so bold, has the benefits of Combeferre, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, etc., and Marius on the barricade. Being there, fighting, killing others, brings out in him that shred of humanity, but his focus, his Justice, can allow for the deaths of others for the greater good. Then there is his death, and this is important in regards to what I said about this entire novel being Hugo’s prompt to return to religion (Christianity, the Christian God) and seek goodness there. Up until this point, Enjolras has killed, derided; he’s floated on his own cloud of aloof angelic righteousness, which is why he is Saint Michael; but Grantaire, lowly, non-believing Grantaire, extends his hand to him; Enjolras, touched by Combeferre’s humanity, touched by the deaths of his friends, touched by the pure goodness and all-too poignant mortal sorrow of those going to die on the barricades, takes this offering and raises Grantaire to his level (in a way, maybe not entirely), and dies with him. He is redeemed enough, as a human being, to stand with someone “lesser” than himself, to accept and to love them, and to die with them; he now relates to the very people whom he was fighting to aid with his revolution. It’s this admission of humanity which reinforces one of the most basic beliefs of Christianity. And all of this religious spew that I’m doing right now is coming from a non-Christian so there’s that, haha. Enjolras, in the end, embraced Grantaire, embraced Heaven, embraced human love, perhaps even embraced Jesus, and that, in and of itself, earns him his redemption and shifts him from “marble bastard of unfeeling harsh murderous justice and rebellion” to “sympathetic golden symbol of a new dawn”.

Javert, though he goes through a lot of development as a person, does not do so as a symbol. He becomes looser, we see that he is snarky, etc. etc., but he is still the same supporter of the law and the corrupt system as always, up until the moment of his death — in fact, his death itself is a reflection of how deeply Javert is rooted in his beliefs concerning the French justice system. Valjean, poor, suffering Valjean who has made something good of himself, who has learnt love as well as kindness and therefore raised himself up just as Enjolras did, lowers — yes, lowers — his hand to Javert, who has never grown past this point because who in France would spare an inspector, who would extend kindness their way? He offers Javert his life, and then offers himself; in conceding to go with Javert to the station and then to prison, he lowers himself to Javert’s level; it is a clear stepping down, and even Javert recognizes this, therefore he recognizes himself as low; low, in his mind, does not register as “loveless”, or lacking in morality, because he has no sense of either of these things; in Javert’s perfectly flawed world, “low” means “criminal”. Valjean is stepping down to him, bowing to his demands; Valjean had and gave up the high ground to him. Whom has Valjean served in such a way in the past? The poor. He lowers himself to them, to the destitute, to those who have nothing, to those outside of society,but not to policemen, not to Javert. Javert knew that he was not a member of society, but there was always that line; he was of the law, therefore he was right, if not good; now, Valjean extends a hand to him, bows to him, offers himself, and Javert has no choice but to consider himself a criminal… and to see Valjean as a superior once more, a vicious slap in the face giving the events of M.sur.M and what that must have done to him mentally. Javert does not take it well.

He doesn’t accept the offered hand as Enjolras did, he doesn’t lower himself to lift himself up, he hardly recognizes the change in himself — rather, he knows that something is different, but does not know what that something is, and is afraid; the system is capable of change, for Javert represents the system, but the system is required to fall to change, and Javert is only a human. He is a person. He cannot process goodness within himself, refuses to be on par with Valjean, though he concedes, in the end, to let him go, because he cannot bear to see that man die. He knows that it would be wrong. He knows! Already, his perception of right and wrong is changing! He has a chance.

…and he does not take it. He kills himself, with one foot out and one foot in, still trapped by the law which consumed his life; he must apologize, for not returning this man to jail, even though he couldn’t, for the sake of love — not romantic love, but basic, moral goodness. He couldn’t do it. And he couldn’t handle the change which Valjean prompted in him. And he fell.

A lot of people say that Javert’s death shocked them, and I don’t think it’s just because a strong man like that died so quickly; it’s because he was given the option to change, the transformation was initiated, and we as readers were so used to these being successful (Valjean, Marius, Enjolras), that when Javert cannot take it and derails before his shift is complete, it shocks us. It’s Hugo’s last jab at the system which Javert did and did not represent; it’s a snatching away of hope — hope for Javert, hope for change. Hugo wanted to see that system go down so badly that Javert died. At the same time, Javert’s death is clearly made out to be an apology to God; this is the only way he knows, now, having failed in his duties as a human being beneath Heaven, inspector aside; the last time he apologized (to Madeleine), he resigned. The only way to resign to God is… well. But Hugo leaves it semi-ambiguous as to whether or not Javert was ultimately forgiven for his sins in lacking goodness and kindness. We don’t know. That ambiguity is the only hope for the system. By taking apart what we have, can we really make it better? There’s a chance, and we have to try.

But to us mere mortals, to know that Enjolras had his chance at redemption and seized Grantaire’s hand and held tight, and that Javert was given the same chance and instead made to apologize by dying, we opt for the more hopeful, and praise Enjolras for being so good and abhor Javert for failing and falling, because we should all like to be like Enjolras, and have the hope of redemption that Enjolras has and Javert ultimately denied in dying — yes, he may have had redemption after death (I mean look at ghostverse that’s what I’m sayin’), but what can we, as living humans, do with that? We don’t want to die! We want to rise up and change and be good and loving and loved, and that is what Enjolras’s death is, and Javert’s is not.

And an addition here with a tiny note:

I think it’s important that we judge Enjolras on the same scale as we do Javert, or we’re being just as unfair as the system of law which the book was so against and so for altering. Enjolras willingly takes his friends out into the streets, builds a barricade which he must know is going to fall, fights with the army of France (made up of French citizens; note how Enjolras seems willing enough to exclude them from the people he wants to save, and, while admittedly some of them were rich and also reaping the benefits of having work and such that’s still a dick move and his redeeming point comes with the whole “he is my brother tear down the marble cheek” bit which I love), and ultimately ends up dying with his compatriots and accomplishing nothing he missed becoming historic men like Enjolras who are willing to have this brilliant moving moral suicide are not the future lovers like Marius Pontmercy who acknowledge the corruption in society and accept different points of view (see “my mother is the republic” Combeferre singing about Caesar on his way out the door his willingness to take in his father’s beliefs about Napoleon but also to go to the barricade and fight against the monarchy with his friends because that is what he truly believes to be wrong that is his opinion which he has formed after listening to others) are the future they will see the future while people like Enjolras and Courfeyrac and Combeferre will not bless them they burn out so fast.

If we’re going to judge Javert on the basis that the ends do not justify the means and that his letter to the Préfecture and his suicide do not excuse his actions then we must also judge Enjolras in the same way instead of raising him up onto this unrealistic pedestal which has been created for him he is not Apollo he is not a god he is not even marble he is a man just as flawed as any other man in this book.