#he's flawed. that much is obvious. and yes he has some questionable morals. but when it comes to FAMILY.

[thefallenangel2008]

I'm sorry, but the fact that Stan could have become just like his father but he still ended up being supporting and encouraging towards Mabel, Dipper, Soos and Wendy despite everything... I'm- I'm sorry but I love that man so much YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.

[weena-mercator]

Inbetween reblogging all the fun “unnecessary feelings day” stuff, I’d like to touch on the bigger part of what’s happening here.

I think that for the most part all the giddiness about it which produces all the fanart and other “gay gay homosexual gay” posts probably originates from the same way I see it… which is that it’s fun and silly to point at Miles “Gay Disaster” Edgeworth but also understanding that this line is really more like 70% about questioning his morals and place in the legal system and 30% about Phoenix (along with some deeply buried feelings he’s not ready to admit at all yet)

(admittedly I only got in Ace Attorney in 2019 and then didn’t get really into it until this year, so… apologies if this is all very obvious. But I guess new people are joining the fandom every day, so if you’ve been around a long time this is nothing new to you I’m sure - for others maybe they’re just now exploring this stuff)

Edgeworth is struggling with the fact that he’s now questioning everything he’s been taught to believe when it comes to the law and prosecuting. And why? Because of Phoenix.

Phoenix has opened his eyes to the fact that not all those who are deemed guilty by the police are actually guilty, that not everyone lies because they’re guilty and committed the crime, but perhaps they didn’t commit the crime and they lie for some other reason (they’re not guilty but worried the truth about something will make it look like they are, they want to protect someone, etc.).

“Unease… and uncertainty.”

Edgeworth is uncomfortable with acknowledging that his whole belief system is fracturing after Phoenix comes back into his life. He is absolutely not okay with feeling anything but certain. And sure, a lot of that belief system was probably born out of a) survival under MvK’s roof and b) some self-inflicted punishment because even though supposedly Yanni Yogi murdered his father - they still managed to be found not guilty, so he can’t help but wonder if that verdict was right, maybe Yogi really is not guilty because he himself might be the guilty one… He can’t know for sure, but the last thing he remembers is throwing the gun, the gunshot, a scream - it haunts him nightly. But the nightmares are reminder enough of his possible guilt, so he tries not to dwell on it during his conscious hours if possible, he’s got a job to do: get guilty verdicts for others. But he’s not going to say either of these reasons out loud for sure (at least not for a bit), so it’s easier to try to convince himself and others that he is following in MvK’s footsteps under the guise of the man who murdered my father was declared not guilty because of a flaw in the legal system so I will do whatever is in my power to ensure all those charged with a crime do not escape the punish of the law.

And as a cherry on top, who is the one bringing all of these feelings of unease and uncertainty to the surface? Phoenix Wright. A childhood friend he hasn’t seen since he lost his father. Someone he must have really cared about as a child, surely - there’s too much indication that they were very close for a while before Miles disappeared because MVK took him away, making their reunion all the more complicated for Edgeworth. Phoenix still sees him the way he did as children, and Edgeworth knows he’s anything but the same as the boy he was back then (or really, parts of him are still buried deep down but it will take a while before he’s ready to examine things further).

Whether you want to believe Phoenix and Miles had inklings of feelings stronger than friendship as children is up to your personal headcanon (I lean on the side of yes, because I’m a sucker for kid fluff and the story just gives this whole vibe of childhood best friends who got very close very fast and felt really strongly about each other, even if they were too young to understand/seek out romantic love - but they knew they really cared about each other a lot).

Phoenix seems as idealistic as ever to Edgeworth, and it’s too much to handle that Phoenix could still be trying to see Edgeworth as someone he doesn’t believe he is capable of being anymore - someone he hasn’t been for quite a long time.

I think Miles probably tried to hang on tightly to his memories of Phoenix (and to an extent, Larry) after his father died, because Phoenix was still out there somewhere. But eventually he had to push them down… bury his feelings because he couldn’t survive that way in the von Karma household. Feelings and relationships were only distractions.

Well… now Phoenix is back and largely responsible for this crisis of conscience that Edgeworth finds himself in. That’s the largest meaning behind the line.

But I don’t think it’s a stretch to still say, yes, the gay reading of it is not inaccurate either - just a smaller piece. Those feelings of nostalgia and caring about Phoenix are being stirred back up - he thought he had been able to successfully bury them, apparently not.

On top of everything else, his thoughts are going to be that he cannot handle dealing with feelings for Phoenix. He has not allowed himself to develop relationships with others beyond what is necessary for his job, and even his relationships with MVK and Franziska are not healthy by any standards. So yeah, some of that unease and uncertainty is about Phoenix specifically, not just what Phoenix has showed him, but also what Phoenix represents to him - a past that’s not only painful to remember, but also a time where he cared about and was close to Phoenix. But he’s not at all in the right headspace to try to deal with that, so he’s going to continue to try to pretend he’s not having these feelings.

I like to think the moment when Edgeworth really goes “oh shit I have feelings for him” comes later, at a point during Turnabout Goodbyes (I have my specific moment in mind - I actually did not even ship them hard by the “unnecessary feelings” line, it was more like haha silly gay lawyers that’s fun and later it became I depend emotionally on this homosexual ship)

Um anyways is that how most people also view this? Lol

Okay back to the fun reblogging for the celebrations.

[caratheewriter]

'Teasing the fans' - Harry Collett x poc! non-binary! reader

Synopsis: You and Harry explain the premise of your upcoming movie and your characters while teasing the fans.

Rating: PG-13

Warning(s): mentions of swearing

(the interview questions are bold)

Word Count: 694

Swords & Spirits' Y/n L/n & Harry Collett talk Swords, Spirits, and Character Dynamics | Explain This | Esquire

"Hi! I'm Y/n L/n."

"Hello, I'm Harry Collett."

"And Esquire asked us to explain some things."

"Some things?"

"Yes. Some thin- things about our movie, Swords & Spirits."

"That's better."

"Oh hush."

"If you could change one thing about your character, what would it be?"

You take a minute, thinking hard about your answer, "I would change the fact that Z uses their parents' death as an excuse for their attitude. Sometimes it was valid and other times, it was just too much and it got so fucking annoying. I won't say much but Z will take you through an emotional rollercoaster. Haz?"

"I would change Icarus' nothing. Icarus, to me, is a pretty stable characters. He sticks to his morals and holds Z accountable which is much needed. Yeah, Icarus is fine. He's also more emotionally aware than Z and he also a damn good best friend."

"He reminds me of Percy Jackson."

"Really?"

"Yeah. 'cause Percy's fatal flaw is loyalty and there are moments where Icarus' loyalty to Z is sometimes deadly."

"Yeah. Yeah, I can see that."

"Describe Icarus and Z's dynamic as if you were explaining it to a 5-year old."

"Ha! I don't know if I can do that."

"Ok, ok. Here's how it'll start: Z and Icarus are best friends. But sometimes they get closer than that."

"I can hear my niece going, "like mommy and daddy?" and I will not answer that."

"What would you say?"

"I would just say that they are best friends and leave it at that, besides why is a 5-year old watching it anyways."

"Fair point."

"How was it, fighting with actual weapons?"

"It took a while to get used to. The swords in House of The Dragon... there's a real one for scene stills and when we're filming, the one I had was made from aluminum, I believe. It was really hard to learn archery 'cause Icarus also has a bow and arrow, and I had to learn within a week so, I had a limited amount of experience and teaching."

"It was cool but, I hated the fact that I couldn't get a butterfly knife."

"You wanted a butterfly knife?"

"Yes! They said that a butterfly knife is too detailed to make a prop of and I couldn't use a real one for obvious reasons. Even though I know all of the precautions and how to safely use it."

You stick your tongue out to the camera.

"Explain the progression of your characters' relationship."

"Icarus and Z are best friends."

"Childhood besties, and they are very close mainly due to their mothers' friendship. Their moms were soul-swords during their time as active duty in the Society of Swords."

"Z and Icarus are also soul-swords. Z is the one that gets them into trouble, and Icarus either goes along with it or tries to reel Z back in."

"And then, they are relieved of their duty after they disregard direct orders. Losing your sigil is painful and you can feel the connection breaking. Icarus and Z never really had to tell each other what they were feeling because the other already knew."

"But now, they lost that soul connection. They don't know what to do with themselves. As the film progresses, they get to connect more naturally and feelings are caught."

"My favorite scene that shows the interpretation of them is when Mrs. Kennedy, Icarus' mother, tells them who they're named after. Icarus and Z start to reevaluate their feelings for each other. As for, do they become a couple or not? You just have to watch and find out."

"Is there any tension between Icarus and Z?"

"Yes, but you have to really analyze them. At first glance, it seems like they're just being besties but, they do have their moments."

"There's this one scene that's actually a flashback. Icarus and Z's first kiss and afterwards, you can see the moment where Icarus falls. Z, however, is a bit more complex. They spend more time training and plotting revenge on the High Table so, dating is like the last thing on their mind."

"But who knows? Maybe? maybe not?"

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

This person genuinely thinks that Aang would be a better character if he kidnapped a baby?? Or would be more interesting?? Honey, why would he do that. That's not him being boring, that's just him not committing an actual, terrible, crime. Alos it's his show, it's literally called 'Avatar the Last Airbender' of course he's going to get more episodes focusing on him, it's his show???

"Aang being a main character limits him to being a role model'' by brother in Christ, this a Nickelodeon show. Even Zuko is a bit of role model, in the sense of him being a way to teach kids "Just 'cause you're hurting doesn't mean it's okay to be a dick to others. Please apologize if you ever hurt someone."

Also Aang DOES make morally questionable, and downright incorrect, choices that the narrative address. Fleeing when the other airbenders want to send him away, hiding the map to Hakoda from Sokka and Katara, trying to learn firebending before he's ready and then vowing to NEVER use that bending again, trying to trigger the Avatar state, wanting revenge on the sandbenders, shutting off emotionally to not deal with his pain over losing Appa, refusing AND accepting to ignore his love for Katara to fully master the Avatar state, his innitial refusal to continue pretending he is dead to hide from his enemies, the Ember Island kiss, and even his refusal to kill Ozai (before the actual Deus Ex Machina happens).

Aang is challenged all the time. He grows all the time. He is allowed to be wrong all the time. Yall are just mad he was the protagonist instead of your favorite.

And while I agree Sokka didn't have much of an arc, I disagree about Toph never growing even if there were some issues with her storyline. She went from someone who was terrified of accepting help from others as that had always meant "lose all agency" her whole life, to someone that consistently relies on her friends. She went from uncooperative because "she carries her own weight" to being a team player that even offers her friends emotional support. She even makes the first step to reconciliate with her parents.

LOTS of characters had arcs (Iroh, Jet, Mai, Azula, and even King Kuei- that's how stories work. The reason some of these were handled better/given more or less screentime is because Bryke insisted on having only three seasons, even though the show clearly needed a fourth. It had nothing to do with "the problem of having a protagonist" - that's not a problem if you're a competent writer with enough time.

Also, if you see Katara in the FIRST DAMN EPISODE talking about how much she wants to learn waterbending AND how grateful she was to be allowed to be a kid again, yet you're suprised to see her become such a badass whose happy ending is helping end the war and thus be allowed to be a kid again because "she's just Aang's love interest", that says a lot more about YOU than about the show.

Avatar's writting has problems, yes, because no work of fiction is perfect because no writer is perfect. But the overwhelming majority of complaints from some fans come not from acknowledging those flaws, but from a complete inability to understand some REALLY basic storytelling stuff that the show handled with excellence.

That's what happens when you're too focused on what you want to see to actually look at the story playing out in front of you: you miss incredibly obvious things that the writers made as easy to follow as possible since the show is aimed at 7-year-olds.

[stellisketches]

I think the fight between Aphmau and Garroth at the end of season 2 reads a lot better if you don’t look at it from a “who’s right and whose wrong” perspective and just absorb it as a natural consequence of the narrative.

These two had gone through the emotional ringer leading up to the confrontation, and one way or another something was bound blow over. As a side note, I don’t think either of them were that out of character during the scene either, which I’ve seen some people argue.

Two of Aphmau's main character flaws is that she a) wants everyone around her to be happy all the time and b) she forgets to consider the full consequences of her actions. Part B is obvious in this situation, and as for part A, she had plenty of chances to tell Garroth she was pregnant before the whole invasion but chose not to because she didn’t want to make him unhappy (this was confirmed by Katelyn). She’d honestly prefer to tell Garroth bad news when he’s already upset and make him feel worse rather than tell him when he was happy/content and interrupt the peace (though I doubt she’s consciously aware of it).

And we’ve seen that Garroth is fully capable of being cold and snapping when he’s upset, though he seems to reserve it for people he genuinely dislikes or is deeply upset with. We’ve just never seen him reach that point with Aphmau (arguably save for end of s1, but I still chock that up to magick-fuckery). Because she was the one person who kept him grounded, and he did not ever want for her to see him in an uncaring light.

Was it morally right of Garroth to yell at her after being told? No. Did he come off as manipulative when he questioned if she had ever cared about him? Yeah. Was he acting as though she betrayed him when he knew they were never officially together? Pretty much.

Was it understandable that Garroth would be outwardly upset after being told the woman he loves is having another man’s child after weeks of building stress? Yes. Directly after finding out his mother was about to be executed and his home had been laid to siege? Double yes. Was him questioning his entire relationship with her a natural, instinctual response after realizing she had kept it from him for a substantial amount of time? I’d say yes.

Was it morally wrong for Aphmau to sleep with Aaron? No. Was she obligated to tell anyone about her intimate relationships? No. Was she responsible for the way Garroth acted? No.

Was it incredibly stupid for her to have told Garroth right after he found out his mother was going to be executed? Yes. Should she have anticipated that it was probably a bad time to announce she was pregnant? Yes. Was Aphmau toeing the line at feeling sorry for herself and playing the victim in order to initiate sympathy from Garroth throughout that conversation? Personally, I’d say yes.

They both acted in a way that was manipulative, as is what happens when two people are upset and in conflict. You want the other person to feel a certain way, and you say and do things that aren’t necessarily fair in order to make them feel it. It’s not about right and wrong, its just about making yourself and your misery heard. It is natural, and nature does not have a moral compass.

I’ve seen a TON of arguments on a ton of different platforms arguing about whether it was Aphmau or Garroth who was being manipulative towards the other and it all totals up to be pretty 50-50, and tbh I think that is the best seal I can get for my claim. People usually side with whoever they think is most morally correct, and everyone has opinions and biases they’ve settled into that impact who they side with. With a score that even, you know it really comes down to a personal moral standpoint.

Thing is, this wasn’t a moral argument. it was simply a well of building emotions that hit its limit and flooded way over capacity.

It’s not about who deserved to get yelled at. It’s not about who deserved to get rejected. When it comes down to it, it is about two people at their own personal breaking points who spiral into reverberating their anguish on one another. They were neither entirely justified or condemnable for feeling the way they did or for the way they spoke to one another.

And that is why it makes it so frustrating and uncomfortable to the audience.

[raspbeyes]

ace good character question mark (not really morally but yes)

(another one of my longer ones, this one more self-indulgent than actually analytical sorryyy i might just be spouting off stuff already said)

okay out of the gate i love ace as a character and i had to just spit out words into the void of why such an asshole of a character just rose to the top of my list of fav drdt characters

now drdt definetely has a lot of assholes in its cast: arturo, arei, j, charles, and recently teruko herself as of chapter 2. now while i do love the latter three, i cant help but say i dont really love arturo and arei as much and find their asshole tendancies more aggrivating

SO WHY ACE? what did he do? out of anyone, he's the one who's become actually more of an asshole compared to ch 2. at least teruko has ch 1 and a reason for being a jerk, j has her redeemable moments and isnt inherently bad, just coarse, charles was redeemed as was arei, and arturo hasn't done anything that made him inherently worse from ch 1 (i can hear u say "what about the whole j thing?" and my point still stands ... he's still just as insufferable lol). meanwhile, ace has turned from a comedic relief who swears profusely to an actual bully, who while still is probably just bite, actually threatens nico's life several times during ch 2.

i think its the sparse moments of "calm" between his hectic swearing that makes him so much more compelling to me. when a character, especially a character as far gone and stubborn as ace shows these slight moments of awareness of themselves, i think it reveals so much to their character beneath surface level without overtly doing a full reveal, making them sm more interesting to me. what makes ace compelling is where the expectations of his supposedly hot headed demeanor dont add up

rambling time ~

ace has a strange relationship with his talent. for someone who is a red headed, athletic, and foul mouthed character is already signing the alarm bells of a leon kuwata character. those three major traits signal to some sort of pride ace would have for his talent. and while in some ways he is like leon in that he doesn't train much, its actually ace's fear of failure that keeps him pushing past his fear of horses. ace has a habit of supplementing one fear for another, like how he overcame his fear of levi with his fear of the killing game. but at the end of the day, ace lives not by any level of cockiness like his brash character design may suggest, but rather by constant fear.

though ace is aware of his cowardice, as seen in his dialogue in ch1, ep2

Ace: Damn ... I know I'm scared of everything, alright? You don't gotta point that out to me. I wanna overcome my fears, but it's really fuckin' hard!

Right away, when called out, ace admits to knowing of his flaw and even more, he wants to improve! it's wild that a character who seems so bull-headed would even comprehend the thought of self-improvment, especially coming from ace. ace doesn't just have the desire to be safe, but he also has the desire to grow past that mindset (though clearly not enough to actually change). moreover, his line of saying how teruko doesn't have to "point that out" will show up again later

i dont have much to say on the trial outside of the obvious ace being a dick and going along with popular concensus. tho his outburst on levi is interesting. especially where he calls levi a coward

Ace: That's right. Shut your damn mouth, you coward -

I wonder how ace now is the one calling levi a coward when ace previously was terrified of levi. he seems especially peeved off by levi's peacemaker attitude the most. honestly, this is some good ol' fashion projection. Ace is well aware he's a coward, but he calls out levi for somehow the same thing.

personally, i think ace is pissed off that someone as intimidating as levi manages to maintain his anger and fears when ace cannot. We know Levi has a darker past that we aren't aware of and with the slight collpase in his character after ace's sharp remarks, it's clear levi isn't as much of a pushover as he lets on. ace noticed this from the start due to his own paranoia - which is why ace feared levi intially sm - and seeing levi somehow being the better person infuriates him. he wishes to be better, but when he fails, seeing levi further rubs salt into that wound.

a clear but inevitable change occurs within ace from chapter 1 to 2, with the creator (i believe i cant find the screenshot sorryyy) mentioning that ace hasn't been dying his hair red like he usually does to hide away his grey hairs, probably due to the stress. out of anyone's reactions following min's exection, ace's is the most vocal

Ace: Get me the fuck out of here! I don't want to be here anymore! Someone, anyone out there, please help me!!

Because everything, from the body discovery, to the trial, to the execution, were all something ace feared would happen and kept wanting to deny by having outbursts and trying to gain some short-term joy in picking fights. but now, every one last of his fears have been proven true, justifying all of his negative emotions. next we see him in chapter 2 is believing the food eden and levi prepared is poisoned and jumping to the conclusion teruko died when she arrived early.

during the motive reveal, ace says off-handedly

Ace: You've been nothing but a complainer this whole time, Teruko, and that's coming from me.

Again, small detail, but shows ace's awareness that he often complains. just adds to how ace views himself.

Tho more concerningly ace says later

Ace: You know what, fuck it! Fuck this motive, fuck investigating, fuck this killing game, I'm just going to walk around randomly and get my head blown off by whatever's waiting for us. Who cares! Buh-bye!

I will touch on this more later, but here we get the first glimpse of ace's self-destructivness. perhaps in some desperate way to escape his fear of death and everything from the last chapter, ace chooses apathy as the solution to facing death

during teruko's exploration at the gym, ace constantly brings up levi's threat from the trial. but unlike before, where he might cower away, ace shows no fear in snatching levi's stretch band and running away. it seems that while before ace may have wanted to improve by following levi, seeing levi do something ace would have done while facing no reprucussions from the rest of cast drives ace mad. after all, levi did threaten to actually harm ace, while ace only makes cowardly attempts to fight, but somehow people are way more willing to look past levi compared to ace.

however, after teruko calls ace "utterly useless" and "volatile, a coward" and "will die quickly" ace comes rushing back into the gym

however, when confronted and teruko only doubles down on her statement, ace is taken aback before saying

Ace: Tch, I should have realized it from the start. In this killing game, everyone is out to get me. Especially people who love picking fights with me, people like you and Levi (side note: in all of my talk of his self awareness, ace still doesn't realize he's the one starting fights smhh). I can't believe I wasted my time with all that dumb shit like arm wrestling and running around screaming at meaningless stuff. I was fucking stupid to not take this killing game seriously from the start. I'm done with being everyone's kickable scaredy cat. The only thing I should do is look out for myself and myself alone.

His previous awareness of his cowardly-ness now has transformed to self-loathing, as he is angry at himself for not "taking the killing game seriously". it sure seems like he did, judging by his fear of it; but it seems to me he more means trying to let himself get caught up in miniscule conflicts to distract from bigger problems. in some ways, it's like teruko in which ace tried to open up (not a lot, mind you) to distract from the looming fear of dying. but now that it has been confirmed, he feels like he has been played for a fool. his awareness of his "scaredy cat" label further intrigues the audience, because it seems ace truly does loathe how much of a coward he is, but is unable to truly overcome it. before, he seemed more willing to openly express it, and his desire to change, exposing himself slightly. but now he realized how much of a weakness that was for him, as pointed out by teruko, so now ace is determined more than ever to mask his fear with more destructive tendancies.

next we see ace is with what becomes the start with his rivalry with nico. we do get a hint in chapter 1 of ace picking on nico, but here, it fully explodes to actually bullying.

when asked what set ace off, nico recounts how he mentioned that if ace keeps on yelling, people will "keep thinking you're dumb". now idk when this happened, but likely right after teruko said pretty much veratim what nico is warning ace about happening. with it already proven true, ace is already prepared to fire back and now direct all his resentment towards his classmates of their perception of him on nico.

Ace: You all think I'm damaged in the head. But more than that ... Levi, Teruko, Nico, Veronika, and everyone else. You all think you can say whatever the fuck you want to my face, right? I'm stupid, irritating, a good-for-nothing, and a spineless coward. Is that what everyone really thinks of me? And it's fine that you drill it into my head over and over again, because you think that I'll forget about it in 5 minutes like you do? Ha! Ha ha ha ha! You're sooo funny! So fucking funny, did anyone ever tell you that? You think I act like this for fun, and then I go to bed and sleep soundly at night, you dumb piece of shit?

THIS! THIS IS WHAT MAKES ACE SO COMPELLING! Because as much as it seems like Ace is rejecting what everyone is saying from the list he made of negative traits, I'd argue only Teruko hands-down affirmed what Ace says about himself. Levi apologized multiple times, Nico further explained he meant it as constructive critcism, and well ... idk Veronika is just thrilled so she doesn't care. Honestly, while it might be true the cast thinks that of him, only 4 people have mentioned it, and two already apologized. But that was enough for ace, because form this dialogue alone, it inadvertenly reveals this is how ace views himself constantly

that's why i love ace's character writing. he can outwardly seem like such a jerk (and he is, no denying that) from being a coward, but with his dialogue, it reveals so much about it without him ever uncharacteristically acting vulnerable. he fully weaponizes his own self-hatred and chooses to instead reframe it as everyone else's full hatred of him. he is constantly hating himself, but at the same time, it conflicts with his want to be seen by others better. due to his own self hatred however, he believes that everyone already looks down on him, which creates its own self-fufilling prophecy

(SPOILER FOR THE RECENT EP 9) this even connects with his relationship with food. while jockies do develop eds due to the strict weight limiations to correctly ride the horse, that quickly can spiral to body image issues, and thus how people view them. ace's ed likely further adds to his hatred to not just himself but his own body, an ed that is further justified by said talent. moreover, we know previously how it is his fear of being viewed a failure that pushes him to become a jockey.

but instead of being able to better himself, he chooses to project and cover these self-loathing thoughts as not just his own, but everyone else's. and with nico - someone ace despises due to nico being the coward ace likely fears he is seen as (get it ... scaredy cat ... cuz ... cuz nico looks like a cat ... hehehe ill see myself out) - to point it out to him right after being told off by teruko is what broke the camel's back for him.

moreover, with how ace questions the others about him choosing to act the way he does "for fun" hints to the actual lack of control ace feels he has not just on the world, but himself. he cannot find anything in himself to like, but because he doesn't know how to be better, he's left constantly internalizing it. it may be why he constantly causing a stir and lashing out, in order to never be left alone to think about it like he would at night

it may be why ace threatens to "bash" veronica's "brain out", so veronika, in all her psycho analysis, only points out the surface level fear of the killing game pushing ace to act the way he does, treating ace like a coward. and he is, but ace knows that more than anyone else about himself and the constant treatment of him as pathetic infuriates him because in his eyes, they all aren't pin pointing anything ace doesn't know about himself that he may be able to control.

(tho before i continue on, just know whatever i've been rambling on about is not a justification of any of ace's actions, especially him being a massive asshole to nico, only due to his own insecurity and not because of nico himself. while ace didn't deserve to be attempted-murder-ed for it, he is the one who took the first shot and people have the right to be upset, especially nico. pls dont take this post as me justifiying ace's actions or his words at all T^T he's an intersting characters and i just like watching characters cause interesting conflicts)

During the cafeteria scene, when david intervenes in ace exposing nico's secret, ace says

Ace: Tch. Of course. You always need people like David to save you from mean bullies like me, huh? What a pathetic weakling. The truth is, you're nothing but a spineless whelp who can't stand up for yourself.

Nico: Why are you so cruel?

Ace: Go ahead and cry. Let everyone swoop in and help you.

Nico: You're ... You're the worst.

Ace: Yeah? And?

Ace refers to himself as a "mean bully" and accepts the label as "the worst" from nico fully, showing how he plans on only "looking out for himself". Ace is aware what he is doing is wrong, which is interesting from the bully archetype.

And as others have mentioned before, his line of calling nico a "pathetic weakling" feels less just directed at nico, but more himself. Ace, in his perspective, finds it unfair that Nico has aroused others' pity while ace only manages to drive them away (here's a thought: don't start a fight first chance u get lol). he believes that nico and him are both equals in terms of "patheticness" but nico, in ch 1, is sought after by xander and teruko (something ace interjects into). In some vain way to gain an edge over what ace views as his worst qualities, ace antagonizes nico, but it only leads to more people supporting nico (obviously lol). we'll see often ace referring to nico as a coward, 100% projecting.

but after david, hu, and nico run out the cafeteria, i think ace's interaction with rose is particularly interesting and definitely worth looking into.

Rose: Ace, you definitely went too far.

Ace: Haah? You wanna go --

Rose: You're doing it again. How do you have so much energy to fight all the time?

Ace: Tch - Look, I just ... I struggle to control myself sometimes when I get angry. Or something.

Levi: Still, that in no way warrants what you said to Nico -

Ace: Oh, like you're one to talk. Why am I sticking around this dump? I'm leaving.

I have to wonder what Rose said that caught Ace off-guard. this is speculation, but initially ace seemed fired up to fight. But when Rose instead poses a question rather than a statement of ace's character, it's what manages to cool him down enough to admit his own anger issues. In a way, Rose may have been a lingering question Ace often thinks himself, and for Rose to verbalize it manages to cool Ace down. But when Levi makes a statement about ace, that and what ace views as levi's hypocrisy is enough to put ace back on the offensive (or defensive... idk he's just angry all over again)

now onto nico's attempted murder (also have to say this, but omg i love ace's va, Seth Raffield. especially during ch 6. bro put his everything to sound actually in pain its incredible work all throughout!)

while most of ace's reaction is in line of what you'll expect ace - hell anyone really if they were nearly murdered - to say (ie swear profusely and scream).

however, for once, ace is offered help from levi and eden (idk about teruko lol but ig she gives advice in telling ace to give up on finding nico.

Ace: Don't bother. I'd rather bleed all over my room than accept any sort of help from you.

Levi: Don't say that. Your injury is serious. If you don't get medical treatment right now, you're going to make your situation worse -

Ace: Then I'll let it get worse! I'd rather die alone than accept your help! It's inevitable anyway, so why should I take your pity on top of everything else I have to suffer through?! Don't talk to me ever again!

Levi: ...

Eden: Don't say that ...

Ace: You know ... Heh. I've always wondered which is worse, dying young or living a long shitty life of suffering. But it turns out neither of those options are as bad as this.

Teruko: What's 'this'?

Ace: Don't ask stupid crap. And also? Go eat shit. [Ace proceeds to pass out]

This always confuses me. LIKE WHAT IS 'THIS' REFERRING TO? The killing game? Being murdered? Nico getting away with murder??? WHAT AHHH?

It's so puzzling I cannot for the life of me figure out what ace is alluding to by what is so bad from dying at nico's hand. Whatever it is is clearly important since teruko points out ace's vague phrasing BUT I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT!! ( T^T )

Though from what i do know, ace clearly still holds a deep resentment for levi, rather wanting to die than get his help. And that's a huge jump from ace of ch1 who was terrified of death, and perhaps he still is. but we did see early in ch2 after the motive reveal this self-destructive attitude he has adopted since the min's execution.

He fully accepts his death, calling it inevitable, which may be even more true for ace's case with the understanding of his ed. with his body "falling apart" and eds being known to get in the way of a body being able to properly recover, ace's paranoia of death becomes something not just delusion but a constant reality for him. Death is always present in his mind, with it seeming he has spent a long time questioning whether dying young or old is better or worse.

I don't have much to say as of newer material since it's pretty expected of ace's reaction. tho its really jarring how people are fully unwilling to accept the possibility nico attempted to kill ace WHEN HE WAS CLEARLY INJURED. it's wild. i can't say i agree with him fully going after nico during the investigation, but i cant say i think ace is in the wrong since LITERALLY NOBODY IS WILLING TO BELIEVE ACE, not even eden nor teruko choose to back him up on what they saw.

so uh tl;dr (don't blame u)

soo ...yeah ace cool character maybe? idk if anything i really said was anything ground breaking i just had to compile them all together in this big ol' post. ace is a character who idk resonates with me in all of his frustration. a lot of what he says feels like a very human feeling of knowing his wrongs but feeling powerless to make a change, creating a cycle of bitter frustration. it's what really makes ace stand out, as while at first he appears to be a one off hot headed joke, ch 2 takes the breadcrumbs laid out in ch 1 and truly expands on the implications it means. He's the bully trope, but instead of bullying out of confidence, he bullies from insecurity. And not just that, he is very aware of it and hates himself for how he acts. A bully who wants to do better but can't control himself is just intriguing and i cant wait to see more ace development

now anyway ill be off in my sacrifice circle to manifest survivor ace

[fuutaenjoyer]

watched it’s not my fault again and was compelled to ramble because i am muu’s number one defender. and then i decided that youtube wasn’t enough, and i had to put my ramblings on tumblr, so here they are. if i said anything stupid please don’t make fun of me i am stupid

i’m gonna say it, i’m a muu defender and i think voting her guilty this time was one of the worst decisions we’ve made when it comes to verdicts. yeah, we fucked up a lot in the first trial, but because of the way everything was interlocked it all feels salvageable, and like we actually made the right choices in a couple of places, but i am convinced that voting muu guilty is gonna be awful for us for multiple reasons.

number one, haruka. this boy literally said he’d kill himself if muu got guilty, and though i don’t think he’ll actually kill himself (though i won’t put it past him) i do think it’ll make him super emotionally unstable and someone else may get hurt because of it. also, giving both of them a guilty verdict 100% is just gonna make their codependency get way worse. haruka needed to be voted guilty for obvious reasons (he literally said that he would kill again, or something along those lines) which kinda means that our only other choice would be voting muu innocent, which i stand by we should have done

bringing me onto reason two, i don’t think a guilty verdict will do anything for muu. yes, she is morally grey, and after pain was 100% nor the full story. but, and i am stealing this point from someone else that i cannot remember, is she truly believes herself to be so good, then why does she perceive herself as some sort of insect monster? herself, and everyone around her, aside from the girl she killed (rei? i think her name is rei?) muu speaks to the trope of someone who did something bad, and deep down knows it’s bad, so they just have to commit to it until they stop feeling guilty, because that’s the only way they know how to deal with it. yes, after pain isn’t as cut and dry as it initially appeared, but this isn’t either! like, the vocals when she kills rei(?), she sounds unstable, distraught even, as if she was actually screaming. she doesn’t sound like someone who believes herself to be in the right, she sounds like someone desperately repeating what she thought she believed. and then it goes straight into her questioning ‘hey, what if i’m a bad girl?’ etc. etc. and first off, as someone who doesn’t speak jp i don’t know if this is just the translation, but the wording of it feels very childish, because, news flash, mu is childish. she isn’t some master manipulator, she is someone naive, who’s cultivated toxic relationships her entire life because yeah, she’s spoiled. being spoiled isn’t a crime, and being flawed isn’t unforgivable. yeah, the bullying is really bad, but that doesn’t mean she deserves to be bullied, and notice how pretty much the only thing that is the same in this video as after pain is her desperation when she actually commits the murder? even if we ignore everything in after pain and take everything in this as face value, that desperation is still there. she was still pushed to the brink. muu wants to be innocent, and she wants to be right, because of course she does. she’s a 16 year old who was bullied and killed someone. she was spoiled and doesn’t have any amount of self awareness, and because of it did bad things, but muu is not an evil villain who is solely responsible for all of these bad things. just because she was the ring leader doesn’t mean she has to bear the weight of the bullying that was done, because when she was being bullied, her ‘friends’ were still doing the bullying, aka she was in a really toxic environment. idk i’m kinda just rambling but i have so many thoughts, and this is also something i saw someone else say on tumblr, but i firmly believe that if we continued to vote muu innocent she would eventually break under the pressure of knowing that she wasn’t

[clairedaring]

Okay, I dare not reblog your response to the essay post because the length of it is already too much, so Imma continue/reply through this new ask instead! ---------------

First: Thank you! I'm delighted that you enjoyed my rambling essay so much! And if it's good, it's only because you asked the right questions and gave me this opportunity to yap! An answer is only as good as its question allows it to be, after all!

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Assuming that the paper receipt Win found in the last episode implied his missing? dead? dad was also caught up in some money laundering shady business at the temple, I think Win will play some kind of double agent character in S2 where he’s forced into both running shady temple business all the while reporting back to the RDJ-looking cop.

YES! I think Win's gonna find himself in a teeth-clench cooperation with Cop RDJ (and the feelings might be mutual until maybe the two of them reach an understanding as S2 progresses)!

That cop seriously has more things going on with him beyond what we glimpsed. He has very personal goals he wants to achieve—whatever means necessary. Could he actually be a personal friend of Win's father? Or someone who used to work with him? Is Win's father the common thread between Win and Cop RDJ?

I'm very interested in his side of the story, man!

----

To be honest, they’ve ended Monk Dol’s arc so well, I really don’t want to sacrifice his character’s integrity and beliefs for the sake of the narrative but I also badly need him onscreen again as the only character with a moral compass in this series full of peope without it ಥ_ಥ

Sadhu, you nailed my struggle! I know I shouldn't be attached, but bro, I am. Too late!!! Y'all made him too charismatic and earnest in his practice and conduct, and now you created one of the best religious-affiliated characters I've ever met in my personal list of fiction.

Imagine if Monk Dol was a real person I know!!! Yo, I'll do anything to be his kalyāṇa-mitta ("noble/virtuous friend;" Buddhist friendship characterized by camaraderie in helping each other improve while practicing The Noble Eightfold Path. It includes chastising each other for unskillful conduct, etc).

I like to point out that Monk Dol was also written to be afflicted with the Three Poisons (klesa) through his attachment to Dear, so he's actually flawed despite being the best boy person in the series. He showed delusion (moha) such as thinking Dear could ever be with him and that he should disrobe to be with her. He showed attachment (rāga), most obvious in his dream of Dear and that scene in the bathroom. The only klesa he exhibited the least, even when he had grown attached to Dear, was aversion or hatred (dosa), but it was still present—in his quiet resentment and growing regret over becoming a monk at too tender an age. He was growing averse to his life as a monk.

So I think, one of the many functions Monk Dol provided in สาธุ was also about a Buddhist's valorization of growth from mistakes. Instead of characterizing his lapse with Dear as a sort of fall in morality or failure in his religious duty, the emphasis was placed on how Monk Dol overcame his delusion. In Buddhist ethics, moral progress is extolled—more so than moral duty and moral adherence. It's all about effort, striving, and using your mistakes to learn; Monk Dol's character arc exemplifies that. One of the Buddha's lauded disciples was Aṅgulimāla, a serial killer, after all.

Okay LOOK I REALLY LIKE THIS GUY, OKAY

------

Whatever happens in S2, I hope S2 gives me lots of Monk Dol internal struggles, nothing I love more than a tortured gentle, kind soul (@ สาธุ scriptwriters, please don’t use my beloved Monk Dol as a sacrificial martyr though, HE’S SUFFERED ENOUGH) getting a bittersweet, hopeful-ish open ending.

OH SHIT. I... I'm also a sucker for tortured gentle, kind soul!!! Ahhhhhhh!

--------

I LOVE the scene you chose to make your new gif.

Because this Dhamma talk was probably the hardest-to-understand of all. I'll tell you why...

In this one, Monk Dol was explaining upādāna ("clinging; attachment"). However, he wasn't talking about the usual stuff about attachment like "don't be attached to money" "don't be attached to beauty" or "don't be attached to fame."

He's talking about attachment to things Buddhists think are good. Meditation. Making merits. Offering alms to monks. The rituals. He's saying that one should not even be attached to these good things. "It's easy to be attached to things that feel pleasant. But we should not be attached to them, too."

It's very counterintuitive. Buddhists are taught that all of these stuff are good and moral, so why not be attached to them?

Because if you're so stuck in doing them, it will also start to become a burden to your mind, and then it turns into suffering. But there's also more to it!

The Buddha had an analogy for this (I forgot in which sutta/sutra, though. Bruh yapped way too much and had a shit ton of sutta in the Pali Canon). Paraphrasing from my memory here:

The Dhamma is a boat. When you want to cross the river and reach the other side, you use the Dhamma (and related tools). But once you reach it and are now on land, do you still hold onto the boat? No. You discard it, having no longer need it on land. To cling to anything when it's no longer required causes dukkha.

This is what Monk Dol was also saying in that talk. Samadhi ("wisdom") during meditation is nice and pleasant, but true samadhi is knowing when to be detached from the pleasantry of meditation so that the "bliss" of it doesn't distract you from your real goal (of Enlightenment).

And this, I need to stress, was the Dhamma talk Monk Dol was giving in his first appearance. I was absolutely floored and impressed, man, because this isn't something someone with a more pop culture understanding of Buddhism can come up with. Again, fucking props to the scriptwriters and their advisors; they really know their shit!

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Okay yea I am done rambling ahahhaha. Please, if you cook more The Believers gif set I will EAT THEM SO GOOD. I wish more people are into this shit, goddamn. And I can't wait for Season 2!!!

(You have no idea how happy I am to find a fellow appreciator like you!)

Thank you Lyn for once again blessing me with even more insights into the brilliant writing and details in the characterisation of Monk Dol (i don't deserve this. cries happy tears ಥᴗಥ. months and months of waiting and lurking in the สาธุ tag for fellow สาธุ appreciators has finally come into fruition. i truly have no regrets spending hours screencapping สาธุ. always said they were purely self-indulgent but i must admit i always secretly hope people would come across them and gave the series a chance).

I didn't think I could love Monk Dol more but you have truly proven that Monk Dol is truly in fact best flawed boi monk. In a series with such a sensitive topic, I understand that careless writing could have easily made him a terrible character or cause great controversial or mixed reactions but I do think the writing for Monk Dol was just sophisticated enough and it feels like there's much care in the crafting of his character (my beloved Dol).

Kudos to Pup who plays Monk Dol as well, because I would have never guessed that he isn't a professional actor but the frontman of a rock band (funnily enough i've been listening to Potato (his band) forever but i didn't register that they're the same person until I started watching interviews and they start asking Pup about how does it feel to transform from a rock singer to a monk).

i shall end this ask with a gif encapsulating my exact reaction of Monk Dol's first Dhamma talk/sermon

[codylabs]

Yo I saw your Bubblegum Crisis fanart a week ago and I thought they were really cool! (yes I know they are old but whatever)

I'm not sure if you still are a fan of the series but I've got a question:

Hypothetically speaking , if BGC was going to release today as say a remake/soft reboot- 12 episodes ideally what would you add or change? (Outside of some obvious things like flashing lights)

Personally I'd make Leon a tad more likeable and give each Knight Saber a bit more development.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm

I would give the suits ankles.

Define the Sabers' weaponry and equipment a little more rigidly, so that combat sequences can follow a little more internal logic than their current "we've got newer upgraded suits that can punch harder than your lasers can lase" or whatever.

I would make the suits a little bulkier to allow space for internal machinery and enough... Oh heck I won't keep going on about the suits. You saw the fanart so you already know the attributes of my opinions on such matters.

Uhhhh get rid of the topless scenes; for Various Reasons I'm not a big fan of fanservice in general.

Make Mackie and Linna actual characters, with character traits and character arcs and characteristics and stuff. One of the only good things the 2040 reboot did was make Linna a sort of POV character as the only 'normal one.' I thought that worked really well. In the fanfic I wrote, that's how I use her. And Mackie... His big sister is a closeted psychopath with the fortune and propensity to fund a private army, frequently makes him drive through exploding factories in the dead of night, and in the morning he has to... Go to school? Do his friends just think he spends all his time on some obsessive hobby, so when they come over he has to pretend to be some kind of expert in building model trains just to keep up appearances? Do the Sabers go on a mission only to discover they can't fly, because Mackie had hockey practice and forgot to fuel the thermal rockets? Is Sylia on the PTA??? This is comedy gold.

As far as animation style goes, the original nailed it in terms of what I want and what I like. Yeah it would be cheaper today to CGI it, but that sounds worse to me for reasons. And yeah I know how much difficulty and baggage is added to art by costly development, but I want to have my cake and also to eat it. Pwease.

The show is usually fairly good about this next one, but I'll say it because a lot of modern stories fail at it: keep the plot small-scale. The show kind of lost me when they exploded all the Genome buildings around the planet, and the reboot REALLY lost the plot. Like, the protaganists are just one team, they should fight one-team sized threats. Just like Spiderman shouldn't face anyone bigger/badder than Doc Ock, the Sabers shouldn't ever deal with anything bigger than "somebody stole the codes to a military satellite." The codes to a military satellite is big stakes for them. That's a big deal. Their regular fair should be bagging/tagging/pacifying rampant androids or sabotaging corporate mischief. There's tons of ground to explore there. Maybe they can go biggish for a finale. Maybe. If they behave and are good. As a treat.

I like that the original was very episodic. Every episode can stand on its own as a little movie. I like that.

Sylia should appear to testify in court wearing full armor with a darth vader voice synthesizer. Nothing would be funnier than this. The show should be a little funny. It should be a little campy. The cast are all funny people with strong personalities. They should be allowed to be funny.

I disagree that Leon is currently unlikable, I think he's great. Obviously, he's a huge simp and a total tool, but he has tons of good aspects as well, and is an all-around swell dude if he weren't ever exposed to w o m e n. IMO, being a perfectly moral star child isn't what makes a good character, and if he has flaws that's opportunity for growth. But I concede that he does need to do more in the plot though. I'd give him an arc, some development or at least resolution to him and Priss, maybe he figures out Nene's secret ID and acts as their man on the inside, maybe he shows up with the calvary, maybe he's actual useful for once in his life, IDK.

Wild west episode.

Show boomers active in everyday life, I guess. We hear a lot about how useful they are in industry, but all we ever see are state-of-the-art combat models that look all scary, or weird one-offs like illegal vampire hookers. There are innumerable directions you could take domestic androids .

There's probably more I could say, but it's 2 in the morning and I'm pretty much just procedurally generating ideas like an LLM at this point. I still do like this show a lot, though maybe not as much as I once did.

[justmybookthots]

Last of the Talons

4/5 stars

This (physical) library book has been on my desk for about over a week; I kept reading bits of it and then putting it off for other books. At one point, I considered just returning the book because reading paperbacks compared to ebooks felt… tiring. It’s a lot of work—you need good lighting, but then that means I gotta open the curtains, but opening the curtains means letting the heat in, and the heat is nothing to joke about over here. (There is also the fact that the mess in my room becomes more visible, but that is neither here nor there.) 

In any case, the weather cooperated and I finished it yesterday, at long last. 

And I liked it! Enjoyed it, even, despite its flaws. Last of the Talons is far from a perfect book; it’s formulaic, in a way, so much so that I predicted how the story would go about midway through. It’s a simple tale about a female assassin who steals and destroys something precious (a diamond-studded tapestry) from the temple belonging to an immortal emperor called the Pied Piper. As punishment, she is spirited away to his realm and tasked with killing him…. by him. If she fails, he will kill her.

First of all, I have to say I’m not a huge fan of the abduction premise, and that’s a reason I didn’t feel compelled to continue at the beginning. I don’t dislike it because it’s morally wrong or anything, I dislike it because I find this premise stale and not suspenseful, having seen it play out so many times (ACoTAR was the last offender, and I was bored out of my mind). But I went back to it yesterday because Library Due Date Guilt ™ was tearing me apart. And you know what? I enjoyed myself, finishing it in a couple of hours.

Let’s talk about what I did like:

The Emperor/Pied Piper, AKA Rui. He wasn’t gruff, or grumpy… which I must give him kudos for, because your girl is so deathly tired of that archetype. And he was actually a real sweetheart, though, yes, I did have some issues with him that I’ll address later on.

The scene of Rui and Lina (heroine) at the river. Like, damn. That was good. The mind games had me sweating a tiny bit.

Kang, the advisor under Rui. Now THIS man is the real sweetheart. He was unendingly patient and kind to Lina even though she fucked his kingdom and people over so many times. I don't know what kind of saint he was.

This is obviously Korean-inspired. I liked that a lot. The descriptions of the food, the hanboks, the mythology, and the Korean vocabulary / names were most welcome. I just like Asian culture, so fucking sue me, lol. 

I liked how the book’s title came into play at the denouement of the story. 

The plot is simple, but easy to follow and quite engaging once you get in the midst of it. I sense there’s something bigger at play regarding the other humans that were spirited away into the immortal realm, but it isn’t revealed yet, so I have questions. That'll be for the sequel.

The story behind the tapestry was really sweet. And sad.

Now. What I didn’t like. (Nothing major/egregious, but still.) One of the points, Rui actually does a great job addressing, albeit unwittingly, lol:

Lina: “I’ve been told I’m quite the assassin.” Rui: “I was told that as well and I have to admit so far I’m disappointed. I was expecting something more.”

Yeah, Rui. Me too.

The problem with Lina is that she thinks with her heart, not her head. I won't be going explicitly into spoilers (though it’s really so OBVIOUS when you read it), but she chooses a route that she thinks will help her kill the emperor even though it is so FUCKING DUBIOUS. Of course it bites her in the ass later on. A lot of things do—because... she just isn't the brightest bulb out there. (Regardless, I gotta give her props for being so relentless about her mission. I can think of so many heroines that wander off-track in other books, resulting in a meandering plot.)

More cons I was not a fan of:

Insta-love. I mean, it's not like they confess their affections right away (they take a while to get there) but it's clear Rui already likes her early on, maybe even at the beginning of the story. I do not like insta-love. It kills the stakes because I didn't feel like Lina was ever genuinely in any danger with him,  and I should, given that's supposed to be part of the main premise. I wanted a good slow-burn, which should also apply to attraction—it does not apply to: oh! Well, they'll get together late into the story but feel some attraction early on. Nuh-uh. Tbf, though, the insta-attraction is more from Rui than Lina. 

This leads me to another tangent. Rui was still grieving the loss of his old lover. His moving on to Lina was way too abrupt for me. 

Lack of plot twists. I mean, there's supposed to be one, I guess, but it's so obvious where this story was headed to. I'd say one of the best fantasy plot twists that really bowled me over was from Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir earlier this year. Till now, I don't think I've read a plot twist of that magnitude from any other fantasy book. Tbf, I also saw through The Stolen Heir's plot twist, so this is not a major complaint or anything. A story is more than its twists—the fact that I still thoroughly, vastly prefer The Stolen Heir to Torch Against the Night is evidence. 

All in all, a solid YA debut, albeit slightly forgettable. I had a good time reading it, and I'll be reading the next instalment coming out next year in April. 

I just hope I remember to do so. 

- 13 Aug 2023

[raspberryjellybrains]

Morpheus is a truly fascinating character to look at from a moral perspective because he's such a dick but about 50% of the time it's on accident and the other 50% it's on purpose, but not because of any genuine hate or malice just... poorly directed sadness. Neither of these reasons make it okay, but they make it damn hard to see where the lines are regarding guilt, blame, and forgiveness. As if this isn't enough, hearing Morpheus' take on things (or appalling lack thereof) along with some others makes it even harder to grapple with.

When I'm analyzing this first 50%, I often come back around to asking whether someone should punished for something they didn't know was wrong, which is a normal hard and fast 'no', but this someone has had millinea to find out it is wrong and correct it and hasn't, which then pulls me into questioning where the ignorance becomes willful. Especially when the individual is so blindsided by the idea that there might even be something wrong. Morpheus is cold and aloof, which I put down to a general temperament thing; the problem is that he can't afford to be. This is, quite literally, a major reason why the series ends the way it does. He wasn't particularly mean to Lyta, just not very kind or understanding. He was busy and distracted and hurting and didn't explain what was going on or offer much sympathy (none in the comics). Is it okay that he did that? No. Do I understand why and feel sad that a trait that is innocuous to most was deadly to him? Yes, of course always, yes.

The other 50% where Morpheus is trying to hurt people, it's born out of his own hurt, as most cruelty is. He is not a malicious being; cruel, but not malicious. The way he treats Destruction is from his own wish to escape the weight of their existence and a frustration that someone did it, someone did it and he couldn't stop or join them. He doesn't actually hate Destruction, Dream clearly blames himself at least in part for his leaving and seems to miss him as much he wants to respect or exile him for the deciding to do so. He's on the fence about how to act and overcompensates by being desperately terrible, which is what he always fucking does. That's the worst part! I chose Destruction specifically as an example because the situation lays bare the core of his cruelty very, very well. Nada and Orpheus are good examples as well. Dream doesn't like not knowing what to do, doesn't like being scared and can't stand the idea of being thought of as anything less than perfectly confident and controlled at all times (wow, so healthy!). He doesn't want people to look at him and see someone who needs comfort so he doesn't let them look at all, and ensures they don't by pushing them away at the slightest offense. If they brush against an insecurity or hurt, he's trained himself to lash out rather than lick the wounds. He condemns Nada to Hell when she sees who he is and rejects him for it; He leaves Orpheus on an island for a thousand years because he reminded Dream that he can't fix everything, or even keep those he loves safe; He's so unforgiving and rude towards Destruction because he did what Dream desperately needed to do but couldn't.

Thing is, these are both fixable flaws with obvious sources, but he has spent so long living by them that he doesn't know any other way to do so. Maybe it makes me an apologist—I'm willing to acknowledge that I can tend to hold a warped perspective on things—but I see his core personal moral failings as holding himself to an ordinary standard of behavior when an extraordinary one is needed and feeling that somehow his power and suffering makes him better than just about everyone else (now think about that and Lucifer and lose your mind briefly.) He isn't, on the whole, awful and irredeemable. He's flawed and he's trying, but when one is endless there is very little room for such a thing.

Then I end up asking the question: did he deserve it? does anybody? And that's... hard. Morpheus caused real hurt and damage, intentional or not, across space and time. Does he deserve to die for it? I would like to say no, but I would also see reason in saying yes. The questions get big, applicabilty of death penalty and impact of intention on action big, and that's usually when I stop the train. The point of Morpheus' weird and complex morality is to drive the train straight into the sunset, which I fully encourage those who can do it safely to do but if I did, we would be here until tumblr was ash.

So I can't offer an answer with a neat little bow, or even a particularly persuasive argument as to the final moral determination of Morpheus as a character, but that wasn't necessarily my goal. I can tell you one thing for sure: he would majorly benefit from one (1) positive and healthy friendship.

[hopeswriting]

Is Tsuna a kind and moral protagonist? Do you think he is kinder than most other protagonist recent or past? Like Tanjiro, Itadori, Deku

hi nonny, thank you for the ask!

oh yeah, definitely. it's his whole thing, much like many shonen protagonists like him, including the ones you cited here. and no, i wouldn't say he's necessarily kinder than other protagonists of the same character archetype, but i'd actually say he's meaner than them?

or, well, not mean really, but he definitely has a selfish side to him and that kindness of his when you think about it, which i think is interesting. as kind and moral as he is, he's not driven to go out of his way to make the most out of it and help as many people as he can with it like most protagonists like him are, like deku is for example. now of course he still does do that too whenever the opportunity presents itself without a second thought, but he's always dragged kicking and screaming to those opportunities, though that changes as he grows throughout the manga.

tsuna's kindness and moral are natural to him because that's just who he is, but for me they don't necessarily come naturally to him? and i know i just said the exact opposite above lol, but the way i mean it is, like. whenever it comes down to it, being kind is his first instinct and the one he stands by through thick and thin even when it's not the easiest option by a long shot, but he's also not always kind (though he never fails to be when it matters the most). which of course is because he was bullied for years and taught no one wants his kindness to begin with so he stopped showing it to anyone, but it’s also made obvious in the manga it’s also because he just has his flaws too, like any normal and average fourteen years old middle schooler.

early in the manga especially (because he grows out of them throughout the manga, or, well, some of them anyway and to some extent at the very least), but he’s lazy and judgy too, and doesn’t always do right by his friends and doesn’t always think kindly about them, and runs away from responsibilities and decisions that have to be made and that are right to be made until he’s reluctantly made to face them and deal with them. and i can’t think of any other protagonist in the same ilk as tsuna who’s the same way? who is very kind, enough to sway hearts and earn respect/loyalty/love and make the world/people better through their kindness, while still allowed and shown at times to just be a person too, a human who isn’t always a perfect role model.

and idk if you get what i mean here?? but like, when it comes down to it, i think tsuna is more of an ichigo actually! in the sense where they both care about their little corner of their world and their precious people living in it, and not much else. in the sense where keeping the peace of their corner of their world lasting is always the only thing that motivates them whenever they’re made to deal with things much bigger than that, and never the stakes of said bigger thing they’re dealing with. for example in the future arc literally never once tsuna’s motives are along the lines of “i need to defeat byakuran to save the world(s)”. instead they always are “i need to defeat byakuran so we can go back to the past and get back to our daily lives, and be safe and happy again”, because that’s the only thing he cares about. and that’s what i meant when i said he’s kind in a selfish way, because he’s kind to the people he cares about, and though he’d always be kind to other people too if he has the opportunity to be, he’d still always put his precious people first no matter what it’d mean, no questions asked.

but yes, tsuna is undeniably kind and moral lol, sorry i rambled a bit. no more and no less than any other protagonist like him though tbh, though in a distinct way that is very him, and maybe only him too.

[gnbrkrs]

Some thoughts on Emet-Selch, Crystal Exarch, their roles as mirrors and how Shadowbringers is not quite a good vs evil story

I find it interesting that a lot of people miss a lot of the moral ambiguity about the Crystal Exarch/ Emet-Selch conflict in Shadowbringers because of the one thing about the former that isn't shown in much detail, which is the bad timeline and the opinions of it's denizens.

Although it is never addressed directly, and their belief in what is best for Etheirys was unquestionable, it is highly unlikely that he or the bad timeline Ironworks asked or had the opportunity to ask every person on the planet at the time if they agreed to be erased from existence for the sake of a better future that they would not see (yes, we do eventually find out that the timeline stayed intact, but that was their initial prediction in case of success and there was no way the could have known until after the fact). And just like the Scions in response to the Ascians, I doubt absolutely everyone would have agreed to give their existence up no matter how bad their life was and how much better the past would have appeared.

Both want to achieve a similar goal (reviving a better past and creating new paths from there). Both are willing to sacrifice other people for it (who may or may not agree with their vision of a greater future, although one could argue that Emet's way of restoring his world is a lot slower, more painful for those being sacrificed and therefore more evil) because of their attachment to the way things were before everything went to hell. The more one thinks about the bad timeline, the more these characters look like mirrors to each other, and yet a lot of people treat Shadowbringers as a more clear-cut good vs evil story, seeing Crystal Exarch as the unambiguously heroic and Emet-Selch as the tragic, but complete villain. And although one could make an argument that the latter's path ends up saving more lives in terms of numbers, it also requires taking a stance on several philosophical and ethical questions (namely whether one has the right to decide who lives and who dies, or the moral implications of saving certain people at the expense of others) to which the world may not have a definite answer. Which only makes the whole situation more interesting to observe from the sidelines.

While Emet-Selch's desire to restore Amaurot is made painfully clear to us, from our perspective it is still the past, which different players may or may consider to be worth the sacrifice, but a lot would agree that in the end, the cost is too great and he must be stopped. At the same time, the past G'raha/ Exarch is trying to save is our present, the world as we know it and are attached to, as well as the one we have just arrived to, and is clearly on our side. This would make a lot of players sympathize with him on for that reason alone. In addition to that, the bad timeline isn't much shown beyond how people were suffering, as well as the Ironworks' generations-long work to make time travel possible, which already makes erasing the bad timeline look like a mercy. It's even possible that the way we see it is not so different from the way the Ascians see the post-Sundering world. But what is easy to miss in both perspectives is that there are people who want to keep on living despite the misery. And judging by how both are viewed in rather emotionally colored perceptions, no one, whether that is G'raha, Emet-Selch, or us as the player, is immune to flaws in judgement.

If one looks beneath the surface, I think Shadowbringers could also be a great look into how susceptible people are to personal biases and attachments, and how it affects one's judgement, not only by showing us characters who are going through those things, but also by making the players experience the same thing, even though it may not be obvious at first. When one takes some distance from the situation, it may turn out that the enemy is not as different as one thinks they are. And while people may draw different conclusions from this, it is interesting to see that the themes portrayed in the plot itself can also apply to the player and not just the characters in the story.

[pedropascalunofficial]

Pedro Pascal and Lena Headey

Head to head interview

Hunger Magazine, Issue 6. Released December 28, 2014. Photoshoot October 15, 2013.

Thirteen million. That's the number of people, on average, who tuned into each episode of the third season of Game of Thrones. Among them was Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, who was as enthralled by the sex and slaughter as the rest of us. But little did he know that within a few months he'd be pitching up on the shores of Belfast to join the cast as Oberyn Martell, affectionately known as the Red Viper. Sound ominous? It is. The Red Viper is GoTs newest anti-hero, “sexy and charming but driven by hate”. Sounds like he'll be right at home.

Pedro, on the other hand, though he looks good on paper, wasn't the obvious choice for the role. Expecting a big name to ride into King’s Landing, the show's fans took to forums to express their concerns as soon as the news broke. So is he worried? Like hell he is. “The fans had the part cast in their minds already. They knew who they wanted and it certainly was not me. But I'm not stupid, | presumed that people were going to say ‘who the fuck is this guy’. Since I anticipated the reaction it didn't throw me off.”

“There are so many different ways to go into battle with yourself when you're trying to get a job. I felt a certain amount of pressure because I wanted to make everyone happy. The fan base is so specific and, as a fan myself, I understand the relationship that they have with the show. The Red Viper is the best part I've ever played, and in season four shocks come at the most unexpected times. You might think you know, but you have no idea,” he explains.

Looks like the Red Viper could be in line to fill a Walter-White-sized-hole in television, but to test the theory we pit Pascal against Lena Headey, aka the Queen. Because if you can come away from Cersei unscathed, you can handle anything.

LH: So, Pedro, you come into Game of Thrones in season four, playing a pretty major character. Does that fill you with joy or dread?

PP: I'd say it fills me with joy because it’s a really fucking fun part. He’s a badass. He comes up against a lot of the main characters in the show. I'm very aware of the show. I watch it like a fan.

LH: Were you a fan before you arrived in Belfast?

PP: Yeah, I was a proper fan. I was caught up in the drama of it before I even auditioned for the part. I was already up to speed.

LH: I remember meeting you and thinking, “he fucking loves the show’.

PP: I kissed your ass.

LH: Well, it worked. We're friends now.

PP: I was like a tourist visiting the set, and yet I had to act with you and be in a scene with the characters that I had such a specific association with already.

LH: So you’re saying it’s boring?

PP: No, it wasn’t boring at all. It was extremely, relentlessly surreal.

LH: And who were your favourite characters up until that point?

PP: Not you.

LH: I realise that!

PP: There are too many characters to have a favourite, but I was fascinated by the Lannisters because they're so frightening. They scared me and then you would come in and pull sympathy from your audience somehow, and I found that rather fascinating. The Northerners were so easy to like or get behind, but it was quite something to see people sympathise with a Lannister, after you made people see things from their perspective.

LH: Speaking of being slightly ambiguous as a character, you come in as a major player and a very well-loved character in the eyes of people who read the books, and he’s somewhat of an anti-hero. Did you base him on anyone?

PP: What does an anti-hero mean exactly?

LH: It means he doesn't wear deodorant, doesn't it? [Laughs]. Someone you shouldn't champion, but you do, like Walter White in Breaking Bad.

PP: No, | didn’t really base him on anyone.

LH: Did you take anything from classic movies that you thought you could use and spin to your advantage playing the Red Viper?

PP: God, that’s a good question. I probably did subconsciously. Now I feel under the spotlight because I need to think of somebody, and I have so many in my mind! I think that’s something that is happening a lot in TV today: the anti-heroes are central to these television shows, and people are really getting behind them, even though they're not necessarily the most moral characters. So I'd say that ‘ve become more familiar with the character who's obviously very flawed but gets you on their side — you have complicated feelings about them. But I think I saw the story too much from this character's perspective to perceive any flaws.

LH: He has some.

PP: I know, from the outside. But I don't see any of them. What are his flaws?

LH: His flaws? He's a dirty bastard!

PP: Why is he a dirty bastard? He likes to fucking fight, for sure.

LH: Back to you as an actor. You've done it for a long time and, as we all know, the path is not always golden, and sometimes you think, “fuck it” and you want to leave it and do something else. Have there been moments where you wanted to give up?

PP: Yes, there have been moments where I came very close to giving up. But I never had anything to fall back on. I think you can understand that.

LH: Because were stupid?

PP: We're stupid.

LH: I can't even make pizza!

PP: We don’t have any other skills.

LH: None at all!

PP: And that’s the odd conundrum. You get to a point where you think, “This isn’t going to happen. This isn’t sustainable. I'm too exhausted, and it can't be good for me.” There were moments where I truly did try to formulate an idea of what I'd do. I thought I'd go back to school, start pre-med again and go to medical school or something like that.

LH: But that didn't happen, you just thought about it?

PP: Yes, I'd have thoughts, but it was still fantasy really. But at the time it felt like a practical life plan. Do you know what I mean?

LH: Yeah of course, you need to pay the fucking rent.

PP: Exactly. You just try to escape from the chaos of what you're feeling by trying to create order in your life. Order seems like a solution to save you from the pain of acting!

LH: It's a mental pain. Who was the first person you called when you got the role?

PP: My sister.

LH: Does she watch the show?

PP: Yes, she does.

LH: Pedro Pascal... or Pablo as I called you when I had too much wine, which was deeply insulting.

PP: Even family members have done that to me! Do I look more like a Pablo? Because it happens with about ninety-five percent of the people I meet.

LH: No, I think I’m just an ignorant drunk person.

PP: No, you were an ignorant drunk person that night is what you're saying.

LH: And now I’m educated.

PP: [Whispers] But | want you to call me Pablo.

LH: Ok, Pablo! When you first arrived on set in Northern Ireland, what was your feeling showing up to a bunch of British actors? Did it feel different to doing an American project?

PP: Yes, but I loved it. It wasn’t intimidating. I found it surreal because I’d watched and loved the show. I hadn't had the opportunity to work on something that I was really familiar with before, so it was overwhelming. But it was far more delightful than intimidating. Also you guys were really cool. Everyone was friendly.

LH: Oh, that’s just fake.

PP: Well, you guys were good at it!

LH: We know Game of Thrones is very popular obviously. Do you have any thoughts, or fears, about what this is going to bring you in terms of exposure?

PP: I have hope.

LH: Oh, God. I don’t mean to shatter that, but give it up.

PP: I don’t know really. It’s all been filmed, and now I'm back to my normal routine, so I haven't really thought about it. I remember when we finished filming and we were on our way to the airport, you asked me, “How does it feel you're all done?” and I couldn't really answer.

LH: You were quite emotional that day.

PP: I was very emotional because I’d had such an amazing time doing the part. Also just being there immersed in the experience... You described it to me best. You told me how I'd be feeling.

LH: We don't know your character's backstory when you enter the show, and you have some rather brutal scenes. Anyone who has read the books will know what I’m talking about.

PP: My character comes in, he stirs a bunch of shit up, and then he makes this fucking enormous exit. Now can | ask you a question?

LH: What is it? I’m not going to sleep with you. Give it up.

PP: Oh, come on! This has gone to shit and it’s your fault, so good luck to whoever has to edit it! But anyway, sometimes I'd hang out with the cast members and we'd go to dinner and they would get stopped constantly. There was no denying who they played because they were so recognisable, but you got away with it because you have this beautiful blonde wig on in the show, and in real life you are...

LH: Grey?

PP: {Laughs] No! You have beautiful chestnut hair! Is it liberating to not be recognised the way some of the other cast members are?

LH: Yes, it is liberating.

PP: Liberating being able to walk down an alley in Dubrovnik without being stopped?

LH: Yes, except sometimes | get recognised in the weirdest places. A woman was emptying my bag at Heathrow Airport's security gates and just went, “Are you the Queen?” while rummaging through my underwear. It was so fucking weird.

PP: It seems they're more respectful to you?

LH: Because they're frightened. Wait until they meet the Viper.

PP: Well, that covers it.

LH: I think we're going to get our own show out of this, you know

Interested in learning more about Pedro? Check out Pedro Pascal Unofficial on Pinterest!

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor

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As recently as September 2020 David Tennant topped a Radio Times poll of favourite Doctors. He beat Tom Baker in a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine poll, and was voted the best TV character of the 21st Century by the readers of Digital Spy. He was the Doctor during one of Doctor Who‘s critical and commercial peaks, bringing in consistently high ratings and a Christmas day audience of 13.31 million for ‘Voyage of the Damned’, and 12.27 million for his final episode, ‘The End of Time – Part Two’. He is the only other Doctor who challenges Tom Baker in terms of associated iconography, even being part of the Christmas idents on BBC One as his final episodes were broadcast. Put simply, the Tenth Doctor is ‘My Doctor’ for a huge swathe of people and David Tennant in a brown coat will be the image they think of when Doctor Who is mentioned.

In articles to accompany these fan polls, Tennant’s Doctor is described as ‘amiable’ in contrast to his predecessor Christopher Eccleston’s dark take on the character. Ten is ‘down-to-earth’, ‘romantic’, ‘sweeter’, ‘more light-hearted’ and the Doctor you’d most want to invite you on board the TARDIS. That’s interesting in some respects, because the Tenth Doctor is very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, and travelling with him can be addictively fun, but he is also casually cruel, harshly dismissive, and lacking in self-awareness. His ego wants feeding, and once fed, can have destructive results.

That tension in the character isn’t due to bad writing or acting. Quite the contrary. Most Doctors have an element of unpleasantness to their behaviour. Ever since the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara, the character has been moving away from the entitled snob we met him as, but can never escape it completely.

Six and Twelve were both written to be especially abrasive, then soften as time went on (with Colin Baker having to do this through Big Finish audio plays rather than on telly). A significant difference between Twelve and Ten, though, is that Twelve questions himself more. Ten, to the very end, seems to believe his own hype.

The Tenth Doctor’s duality is apparent from his first full appearance in 2005’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Having quoted The Lion King and fearlessly ambled through the Sycorax ship in a dressing gown, he seems the picture of bonhomie, that lighter and amiable character shining through. Then he kills their leader. True, it was in self-defence, but it was lethal force that may not have been necessary. Then he immediately topples the British Prime Minister for a not dissimilar act of aggression. Immediately we see the Tenth Doctor’s potential for violence and moral grey areas. He’s still the same man who considered braining someone with a rock in ‘An Unearthly Child’. 

Teamed with Rose Tyler, a companion of similar status to Tennant’s Doctor, they blazed their way through time and space with a level of confidence that bordered on entitlement, and a love that manifested itself negatively on the people surrounding them. The most obvious example in Series 2 is ‘Tooth and Claw’, where Russell T. Davies has them react to horror and carnage in the manner of excited tourists who’ve just seen a celebrity. This aloof detachment results in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood institute that will eventually split them apart. We see their blinkers on again in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, when they take Mickey for granted. Rose and the Doctor skip along the dividing line between romance and hubris.

Then, in a Christmassy romp where the Doctor is grieving the loss of Rose, he commits genocide and Donna Noble sucker punches him with ‘I think you need somebody to stop you’. Well-meaning as this statement is, the Doctor treats it as a reason to reduce his next companion to a function rather than a person. Martha Jones is there to stop the Doctor, as far as he’s concerned. She’s a rebound companion. Martha is in love with him, and though he respects her, she’s also something of a prop.

This is the series in which the Doctor becomes human in order to escape the Family of Blood (adapted from a book in which he becomes human in order to understand his companion’s grief, not realising anyone is after him), and is culpable for all the death that follows in his wake. Martha puts up with a position as a servant and with regular racist abuse on her travels with this man, before finally realising at the end of the series that she needs to get out of the relationship. For a rebound companion, Martha withstands a hell of a lot, mostly caused by the Doctor’s failings. 

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Series 4 develops the Doctor further, putting the Tenth’s Doctor’s flaws in the foreground more clearly. Donna is now travelling with him, and simply calls him out on his behaviour more than Rose or Martha did. Nonetheless the Doctor ploughs on, and in ‘Midnight’ we see him reduced to desperate and ugly pleas about how clever he is when he’s put in a situation he can’t talk himself out of.

Rose has also become more Doctor-like while trapped in another reality, and brutally tells Donna that she’s going to have to die in order to return to the original timeline (just as the Doctor tells Donna she’s going to have to lose her memories of travelling with him in order to live her previous life, even as she clearly asks him not to – and how long did the Doctor know he would have to do this for? It’s not like he’s surprised when Donna starts glitching). Tied into this is the Doctor’s belief in his own legend. In ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ he holds a gun to Cobb’s head, then withdraws it and asks that they start a society based on the morals of his actions. You know, like a well-adjusted person does.

What’s interesting here is that despite presenting himself as ‘a man who never would’, the Doctor is a man who absolutely would. We’ve seen him do it. Even the Tenth Doctor, so keen to live up to the absolute moral ideals he espouses, killed the Sycorax leader and the Krillitanes, drove the Cybermen to die of despair, brought the Family of Blood to a quiet village and then disposed of them personally. But Tennant doesn’t play this as a useful lie, he plays it as something the Doctor absolutely believes in that moment, that he is a man who would not kill even as his daughter lies dead. It’s why his picking up a gun in ‘The End of Time’ has such impact. And it makes some sense that the Tenth Doctor would reject violence following a predecessor who regenerated after refusing to commit another double-genocide.

In the series finale ‘Journey’s End‘, Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into weapons. This is because the Doctor’s friends have used weapons against the Daleks who – and I can’t stress this enough – are about to kill everyone in the entire universe. Fighting back against them seems pretty rational. Also – and again I can’t stress this enough – the Daleks are bad. Like, really bad. You won’t believe just how mindbogglingly bad they are. The Doctor has tried to destroy them several times by this point. Here, there isn’t the complication of double-genocide, and instead the very real threat of absolutely everyone in the universe dying. This accusation, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, should absolutely not land.

And yet, with the Tenth Doctor, it does. This is a huge distinction between him and the First Doctor, who had to persuade pacifists to fight for him in ‘The Daleks’.

In ‘The Sontaran Strategem’ Martha compares the Doctor to fire. It’s so blunt it almost seems not worth saying, but it’s the perfect analogy (especially for a show where fire is a huge part of the very first story). Yes, fire shines in dark places, yes it can be a beacon, but despite it being very much fire’s entire deal, people can forget that it burns. And fire has that mythical connection of being stolen from the gods and brought to humanity. The Time Lord Victorious concept fits the Tenth Doctor so well. Of all the Doctors, he’s the most ready to believe in himself as a semi-mythic figure.

Even when regenerating there’s a balance between hero and legend: the Tenth Doctor does ultimately save Wilfred Mott, but only after pointing out passionately how big a sacrifice he’s making. And then he goes to get his reward by meeting all his friends, only to glare at them from a distance. His last words are ‘I don’t want to go’, which works well as clearly being a poignant moment for the actor as well, but in the context of Doctor Who as a whole it renders Ten anomalous: no one else went this unwillingly. And yet, in interviews Russell T. Davies said it was important to end the story with ‘the Doctor as people have loved him: funny, the bright spark, the hero, the enthusiast’.

It’s fascinating then, that this is the Doctor who has been taken to heart by so many viewers because there’s such an extreme contrast between his good-natured front, his stated beliefs, and his actions. He clearly loves Rose and Donna, but leaves them with a compromised version of happiness. They go on extraordinary journeys only to end up somewhere that leaves them less than who they want to be, with Russell T. Davies being more brutally honest than Steven Moffat, who nearly always goes the romance route. Davies once said to Mark Lawson that he liked writing happy endings ‘because in the real world they don’t exist’, but his endings tend towards the bittersweet: Mickey and Martha end up together but this feels like they’re leftovers from the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. The Tenth Doctor doesn’t, as Nine does, go with a smile, but holding back tears.

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It’s a testament to how well written the Tenth Doctor is that the character has this light and shade, and with David Tennant’s immense likeability he can appeal to a wider audience as a result. It’s not surprise he wins all these polls, but I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor arrived and invited me on board the TARDIS, I’d want it to be anyone but Ten.

The post Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

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