#he's fleshed out vs just being angry

[overlordraax]

Netflix Galvs is the best portrayal of Galvatron we have had in such a long time. Destroying Unicron would benefit him but doom all of Cybertron. I love it as a motivation for a villain, because his motivations are pretty sympathetic but also his solution is something incredibly selfish. That's fine for a villain.

Tbh I just wish the ending was different. I wish that since everyone decided to form an alliance it created a future where Unicron was defeated and thus Galvs Back-To-The-Future'd himself out of existence. Showing that there was a way there could still be a happy ending but Galvatron's flaw was only seeing it coming from one possibility.

Idk it just would have closed the story more neatly. Them teasing a sequel when it's definitely not going to happen and they had already gotten a full trilogy was a bit much.

wfc trilogy galvatron is so underrated. his life sucks so much and he decides the best solution is to execute a suicide plot so complicated it involves messing with spacetime, destroying a planet, and outsourcing labor to his past self. and it doesn't even work because his past self sabotages him. and then his life sucks even worse afterwards.

the entire time he's wearing booty shorts that say "Unicron won't let me die"

[writingwithcolor]

Is it less offensive to have my black sheriff be a scaredy-cat or trigger-happy?

joeyyygunslinger asked:

I’m conceptualizing a wild-west (I haven't and never will pick a state/year, it's just a generic wild-west setting) black comedy comic series. The main characters are a pair of sheriffs who work together more often than not, one Black and the other White. I want one to be fiery-tempered and trigger-happy (To the point where, in just about every other cover I’ve sketched so far, he has his gun out and is asking the other guy, “Can I shoot it?”), and the other an over-cautious scaredy-cat… And neither of these personalities seem to be a very PC one to give to a Black guy, so which one would be less offensive?

Technically, you can give the character whatever persona you see fit. From there, flesh them out to be more than the traits you mentioned. Show us why they’re the way they are and how they’re more than that. As often stated, it helps to have more characters of the identity if you’re unsure about stereotypes and characterization.

Objectively, a cautious, scared Black man character is less (potentially) stereotypical than one with a temper and trigger-happy. The former recalls Angry Black Person, Scary Black Man and Violent Men of Color tropes. One might argue the scaredy-cat Black man has notes of emasculation, but personally this kind of personality is way less encountered. Exploring a softer, cautious Black man character would be interesting to me (speaking as a Black woman. I’d love to hear from more Black men and people!).

Do not write from a place of fear

I do want to address your comments on being Politically Correct and less offensive. I’m not a fan of those words when it comes to representation. Maybe it’s the snide connotations of the word, often accompanied by a derisive attitude. Maybe it’s just me! But I just don’t love proper and preferred representation being equated to it.

I would like to take the more positive approach.

For one, being respectful and including proper representation vs deliberate or even thoughtless exclusion, should be the focus. Not which choice will step on fewer toes. Writing from a place of fear and extreme caution is stifling. It snuffs out your creativity and will have you questioning your every move. I get that it's natural to feel that way when exploring new territory, but we must learn to be courageous as writers and write against the fear. Your work will turn out much more fluent and natural when you do.

On the other hand, it’s definitely important to build enough knowledge and do the research so you'll have this confidence on hand while you write. This will help create a story with characters that are less like carefully curated caricatures meant to cause the least amount of offensive as possible.

While you should absolutely:

Be aware of stereotypes and what could be offensive as you build your characters and story.

Question your choices and trace the logic of why you made them.

You should also:

Focus on writing varied, complex people.

Let your knowledge guide and inspire you, do continuous research, but not let it fully stop all momentum.

Use the editing, sensitivity read process, and revisions to correct and adjust your work.

~Mod Colette

[sixstepsaway]

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

[tmwcs]

MIND GOING BRR AT THINKING ABOUT HOW SEX WITH HUMAN HEESEUNG AND IMMORTAL YN WENT,did she....act like a succubus or was as clueless as the mortal yn

And it went down exactly like this….

Warnings: Smuuuuuuuuuuuut central here. Y/n gets deceived, y/n is a bad girl, y/n gets it, heeleads swap y/n’s, alternate universe, mention of the word ‘r*pe*, devil baby eating people, unprotected smut, non-con/sub-con smut, heavy noncon smut vibes, time space continuum, time space travel, different worlds, kind of a marvel vs dc vibe. This is an aftermath from the Drabble “Somewhere in Time”.

You stood firm, crossing your arms while doing your best to remain ignorant. Knowing that this wouldn’t end well for you, you braced for impact, expecting for him to grab you from behind and twirl you around. There had been a handful of times that you and Helel had little arguments, but with him being the devil and ultimate powerful, many would deem it pointless to even try and throw a fit. Perhaps you were just too damn stubborn and prideful to submit, even knowing that the white flag would be waved in a moment….he always had his ways.

Facing the side of the mortal realm, you waited for the moment where he’d take you to bed by force. It would be a repeated act where you’re on the bed underneath him, taking in the rape as it slowly progresses to submission. As per usual, he’ll get you to the point where you’ll stop fighting, and beg for more until you can’t take it any longer, in which he’ll have you back to screaming for mercy. What a sicko. But, he IS the devil after all…and you’re married to him.

It all started after you returned home with him. You thought all would be well since a spark arose within you after Helel and his alternate souls rescued you and your own counterparts. For so many years since he’s taken you, you fought physically and emotionally against the idea of accepting his love. But your pride grew weak and you started to fall for him….no doubt it was a result of a disorder enforced by his own method. Anyone suppressed by a kind captor will eventually fall for them.

Upon the return to Hell from the most recent endeavor, you grew angry in seeing baby Helan sitting there, tearing the pieces of mortal flesh. You stood in total shock as the toddler tone of “mommy! Mommy!” Came out from those bloody lips. The red stain smeared his face and clothes as he sat there reaching up, closing and opening his fingers enthusiastically, waiting for you to pick him up. There were bits and pieces of limbs, fingers, organs and all sorts of fleshy parts you refused to look at. That innocent smile on your child’s face was a facade; behind it was pure malice and grotesque evil, enabled by his father.

“W-what-…!!” You stutter as you trembled, falling to your knees as your baby rushed over and hugged you. “Mommy! I missed you!”

Your eyes remained wide in horror while your hands stayed glued to the stone floor, you couldn’t think or react, not even to return the embrace of your own child.

Later that evening, you spoke to Helel about it begrudgingly.

“I thought we had an agreement that I don’t want Helan to do things like that.”

Helel scoffed as he finished sipping on his wine glass. A faint gulp slides down as he sides-eye you. Placing it down on the table, he reaches and began loosening his collard tie, smirking an adoring look over to you. “It was hardly an agreement. You mentioned your complaints and I listened.”

Here we go. This is the part that of which you hate. “Darling, he’s a growing boy…and not like the ones from where you originated. He needs flesh and blood in order to grow. Once he reaches a mature age he will be able to live without ever requiring the need for sustenance.”

You shook your head. “No…no I don’t like that. There has to be another way. I don’t want my baby to do monstrous things.”

He looks you over. “You? The Goddess of Hell—“

“HE’S MY BABY TOO!” You yelled, fierce anger in your eyes as you sphered them in his direction. His affectionate smile slowly starts to fade and his hand drops as he releases his tie. With a raise of a brow, his eyes wide and you knew, you crossed the line. A

He slowly walks over calmly, surprisingly. Whenever he was upset with you he’d immediately became forceful, teaching you a lesson while reiterating how much he loved you, and that it was all for your own good. But this time, he truly was pissed off. Not that you were justifying him, but a slight bit of you could understand his position. Your son is the offspring of the Devil after all, and the latter had just went through Heaven and Hell, visiting multiple worlds in gathering a league to save you and all versions of you. In his eyes, you were coming off as ungrateful.

His silence was more frightening than anything. He stood, watching as you tucked your chin and stared at the ground in shame. He peers down his outstanding height and just looks at you….sternly, with rage. What was more unusual was that he merely took a piece of your hair, and rubbed it together. He was being so tender and gentle, despite his eyes violating you through every hole in your body.

He sighs. “Bad girl.” Was all he barely whispers with a slight deep tone.

You shook as the shive stabbed your spine. You were going to get it this time.

“I-I—“ he cuts you off as he places a finger over your lips. “Shhhh…don’t fucking speak.”

You trembled. “Go to the bed, and stay there.”

You did as he demanded and tucked yourself away under the velvet bedding. He was being odd and handing this situation differently. God, it scared you so much.

He quietly leaves the room. You knew better than to try and follow or leave. The man has eyes and ears everywhere; it is Hell after all.

You were so scared that the fear took an emotional strain out of you, exhausting you. You drifted off to sleep immediately, unaware of what was coming.

………

“Geez, what is it now? Why are you here?”

“Ah—collecting the savoring morsels for your lovely girl, are we?”

“Isn’t there a lovely girl of your own that you should be feeding?”

“Precisely why I’m here.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Helel grins as he converses with his identical alternate.

“Be truthful. You love her.”

“Duh.”

“You love her so much that you also adore ALL flavors of her…don’t you?”

……

Heeseung stares sternly at his Devil counterpart. “Is there a point to this?”

“I am saying, o’hostile college-pretty-boy, that you and I are same. We love and kill for our brides. We are the only ones that love and care for them…all of them.” Helel crosses his arms. “You’re not the type to share…but is it really sharing if it is…you? “

Heeseung’s eyes sparked in rage, yet the devil continued. “And don’t you…want to experience your pretty baby in a different light?”

His counterpart calmed down. There wasn’t any denying the fact that the moment he saw you…other versions of you, his mind went wild. For you, he lives and breathes; it was blissful to have you in his life…what could be better than to have multiple duplicates of his precious girl?

“If we do this, just know that I’m not going to be restricted by any means. If I’m fucking my girl, regardless if it’s an alternate variant of her, I’m going all in.”

Helel smirks. “Relatable.”

“I can take who’s next.” The cashier spoke as the two remained facing each other. Both flaring a deadly smile.

……………..

You woke up, still in bed. Helel didn’t come back? Was he really that angry? What was he doing? This was too terrifying to deal with. You can’t believe you were saying this but in a sense, you’d wish he’d just rape and fuck your brains out already. At least you’d find some pleasure and resolvement from it….but this…this sense of unknowing his intentions was too dangerous. He always says he’d love you too much but is there a line that even YOU cannot cross with the Devil?

The e door gently opens, and you hear the foot steps walk around the large platform bed frame. “Helel?”

“Mmhmm.”

He walks over, and doesn’t say anything more as he moves his fingers, signaling for you to crawl closer towards the edge of the bed. He had a soft smirk. It was strange, though. His aura seemed off-putting. Your senses could feel there was something different but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Abiding by his non-verbal signal, you crawl over on all fours and allowed those two fingers to caress your chin. “You’ve been a bad girl?”

He spoke in an inquired tone. You assumed it was him being antagonizing in his demeanor, since you recognized the signs of sexual tension rising. “Yes…I’ve been bad..” you softly responded. You knew what he wanted to hear. You knew that he intended to punish you.

“Well, let’s do something about that.” He sighs out, leaning down as he grips your jawline. His elegant attire of black satin and white chiffon just made him so classy and irresistible. He kisses you, and to your surprise it was warm and tender. “Take it off.” He whispers, staring into your eye with an aloof but soft expression.

You began shedding off your undergarments, leaving just the garter and thigh high, damask stockings in place. “Good. Now take mine off.”

You undress him, beginning with his tie. Once you got the undershirt unbuttoned, he slowly pushed your head down, dragging your cheek against his entire abdominal muscles. You took the hint and undid his trousers, reaching to release his throbbing muscle; and it was throbbing. It was breathing to you.

“Put that bad little mouth on it.”

His voice was smooth and airy. Deep and dark. God, this man was so fine. Why the hell did you yell at him in the first place?

You lavished his cock with your saliva. Smoothing the moisture up and down, you dragged your tongue and traced every bit of vein and inch of it. He grits his teeth, enjoying this so much more than you expected. He slaps his hands on your arms as he flings you on your back. You yelped from the sudden change of motion as the level of force you recognized started to appear. Here it is…here is what you were both, dreading and looking forward to.

“H-Helel…” you whispered. “Wrong name baby.” He responded back as he kisses you, shoving his hand in between your thighs. You gasped out into his mouth. “Heeseung! Heeseung!”

It wasn’t odd to you, after all he went by both his original title and the name he adopted, the one that his brothers often called him by. Normally, however, during his deliverance of his punishments, he’d force you to call him Helel. But it seems he may have cooled off and wasn’t as angry anymore.

“Heeseung!” You gasped as he ravished your breasts with his tongue. This was all enough to get you ovulating, you swore to yourself.

“Come here…bad girl.”

You nod as he started to incorporate more force, aggression, and roughness as he lines himself to your center, all while placing one thigh on his hip as the other rested against his bicep, extending the leg up and over his shoulder. You were left wide open for him to take you…

He slides in, slowly. Sloooooooowly.

“Ah!! Heeseung!” You yell, gasping for air as your pants increases. He makes you watch as he continues to go in…slowly. When he finally was all in, he grinds his balls against your taint as he leans forward and fully hovers above you. “Let’s fuck the bad out and full you with some goodness.”

You furrow your brows in worry as you await for the ultimate pounding to occur. Fuck he is going to ruin you.

He slides out, the relief of the tight fullness dissipates as he gets all but the tip out, when suddenly….

“AHHH!!! FFFFUCK!!! SSSSTOP!!”

You can’t recall him ever going this brutal, it was as if he was starving for you. The only time you ever felt him this needy was when he took you for the first time. Thrusting, pounding, and reaching depths of your interior that was enough to make you drool and pass out, you lay mercilessly and took every bit of his thunder.

“Yeah? Fucking beg! Bad fucking girl, come on! Beg!” He grits out as the beads of sweat start to form on every inch of his smooth skin.

Screaming, crying, and panting, he gets you dumb-fucked until finally you reach that peak that took time to build up. Through all the pain and rough aggression, it finally pushed through and to his pleasure, you begged for him to keep going.

“Oh please! Please…don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t stop…fffffucking me!”

He smirks as he picks up the pace and goes faster. Your body bounces rigorously against the bedsheets as he slams into you. What a delightful scene it was to see you helplessly taking his cock and shifting in wild motion as he pumps you repeatedly. In fact, you were bouncing so much from the impact, he had to hold you by the neck to hold you steady as he enhanced momentum.

Gritting his teeth and flinging his head back, you watched as his naked body knelt before twitches while he releases. “Fuck!”

He pulsates and fills you, and for a moment the softness that came after had you thinking he was done…but he wasn’t.

The tightening of his grip around your neck said otherwise. His hips regain the thrusting motion, starting off slow and picking up pace. “Heeseung…no!” You gasp as the pleasure remained but the pain was starting to sting.

For who knows how long, he pelted you over and over again. Words in between of “let me enjoy this…” were harshly whispered into your ear as he changed positions and flipped you over, turn you onto your side, and even had you on top, while he still carried the rhythm and controlled the movements. Fucked left, right, up, and down, you realized that he was indeed punishing you as he went beyond in delivering overstimulation and pain.

By the time he released for the sixth or seventh time, you begged with barely any air in your lungs. “N-no more….p-ppplease….”

Your body was lifeless as he catches his breath. “Fuck that was better than I imagined.”

He quickly dresses, still somewhat sweaty which was surprising, considering he never really eluded such human traits. “I…I’m sssso-rry…sorry…”

You barely got it out of you but you managed to apologize, hoping that he would allow you to rest fully tonight. “Aw baby.” He whispers as he leans in and kisses you. His hand grabs hold of yours and he interlocks your fingers together as he massages the back of your palm. Breaking the kiss, he tells you…

“I’ll let him know. Wish I could stay, but I gotta get back to you.”

What?……

You didn’t have the energy to respond, but it suddenly clicked. The change in his aura, the sweat beads, and the way he ferociously fucked you with starved hunger in his eyes.

“H-Heeseung…” you gently spoke out as you recognized the figure from the incident. The one who belonged to the youngest version of your being. You watched as he smirked. “Wrong name baby.”

You looked him from the side as your hair is messily plastered to your face, and your body drained. You couldn’t even form the confused expression in your eye as he spoke his words. He smiled and there, you witnessed one inhuman trait among this man. His eyes darken, his grin becomes sinisterly devious as he bites down his bottom lip. “Be sure to name one of the kids after me. Little Ethan has a ring to it.”

He kisses you once more and takes his leave.

Moments later, he comes in…Helel. With an offensive smirk, he notes your exhausted body. You barely could move as you moaned, struggling to regain composure. Standing side the bed, you heard the disheveling spill of cloth as he sheds off his attire, piece by piece. You felt his hand grab you waist as he turns you fully over to your back as he crawls on top of you. Gently wiping the pieces of sweaty stands from your forehead, he admires your face as his fingers tap against your cheek and the corner of your lips.

Oh no….

“Now, let’s hear that apology, hm?” He smirks against your ear as he lines the tip to your worn and beaten entrance. “Let’s hear how sorry you REEEEEAALLY are.”

“Nnngh….nnmph!” You moaned as you struggled to gain a breath in, he’s pushing into you. Your legs begin to shiver and your spine jolts from the hypersensitivity levels that radiates from your core. “Now that I had some time to blow off some steam, I figure this is more than an appropriate time for you to show daddy how you’re going to make up for your mistake, hm? Let’s turn you back into a good girl again.”

The worst and best night of your entire afterlife. Two of the same men pile-driving you. So this is why he was so calm earlier…what a devious man he was. You knew you had already lost, and you were about to lose even more. Since that’s the case, you thought it be fitting to get a word in, knowing he wasn’t going to go easy, despite his demeanor.

“Ethan…”

“Pardon?” He widened his eyes as he lifts a stern brow. “N-next child….i brrrring in…name is…E-Ethan…”

He smirks. “Ah…Ethan. Right.” Kissing you, he pulls away as he pinches your chin. “If it’s a bunch of heathens you want, no problem. I can give you loads of them.” He snaps his fingers.

You saw them walk in. The sight put your breath on hold and caused your eyes to sting in despair as you watched each fine, nude form stand around the bed, stroking their cocks at the sight of you. “How about a godly descendant, a pair of twins, and a nations most wanted? Sounds like you’re eager to be a mommy again, and you know I aim to please you…darling.”

With a dark chuckle, he spoke as the others closed in.

“Let’s fuck her boys.”

No…NO! NOO!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

- Fin

Taglist: @enheene , aiden2001 , @heeseung-min , @lathan1510 , @rayofsunshineeee , @hoyeonheeseung , @rayofsunshineeee , @yohanabanana , @sunoosrightbuttcheek , @jaeneohee , @icydawon , @silcry , @iamliacamila , @nikstrange , @enheene ; @nuriicata , @en-happiness @lisaaannna @en-geneisaxx

[therabbitthatpostthings]

Okay let’s talk about Murder Drones Finale 😭😭😭

SPOILERS FOR EP 8! ALL OF IT. MURDER DRONES SPOILERS HERE

First off that opening was so cool. Brayden's still on fucking fire, the teacher is so over it. I love it.

Nuzi being Cringe!

THEY ARE SO FUCKING CRINGE YOUR HONOR I LOVE THEM! Uzi asked are they dating and he says "That was the plan!" I LOVE THEMMMMM OMGGGG! I can't get a good screenshot of it but they do wrap they tails together during the fall.

The Animation

I just- it's so fucking good. The red lights as the planet is destroyed. The way that the purple light of Uzi's Null reflects on Cyn's robotic and flesh parts. This is an episode you gotta watch frame by frame. I'm just gonna lump cinematography and shot choices in here too. Like the only way for everyone to truly understand what I'm talking about I NEED YOU TO WATCH THE EPISODE! Like it's well known that every episode is a reference to a horror movie, the Prom is Carrie, Cabin Fever is Friday the 13th, etc. I feel like we don't appreciate how scary this show actually is. The way shots are laid out and scenes are paced give off such unease. It's great I love it. I'm sorry but Uzi trying to put her own heart back in her chest AND save N who is being disemboweled is INSANE WORK. AND THE HANDS! THE HANDS!

AND THE EXPRESSIONS! YALL- FUCK- getting across so much emotion with robot characters is always my favorite thing to see.

And of course! Uzi, N, and V vs Cyn and J. I- it's just- y'all go watch this fight pls. This shot is so fucking beautiful...

J vs V

So J knew the whole time. Big Yikes. ALSO MY PRINCESS BABY GIRL IS ALIVE! God on J for living past the end credits but WOW- for Cyn to trick her... I wonder how much of that she really thought was Tessa.

Khan, Lizzy and Thad

I love this shot of Khan so much.

I still believe that the "secret friend" was Khan and/or Nori just because there is no reason for Lizzy to not tell Thad (also V texted her AFTER the planet exploded to let her know she's alive which she wouldn't need to do if she still thought Tessa was Tessa). It would be funny if it was all three. Nori was gonna get the cross to the surface and give it Lizzy to get to Khan. Khan asked Lizzy to find the hideout since she was hanging out with V in between Ep2 and 3 and then V texted her after the planet exploded to stall J. Honestly love that for Lizzy did the most and cared the least. Side note, the way Lizzy is so unbothered in the fight confirms to me that she is the homeroom teacher's daughter.

But yeah! I'm glad these three made it to the end and they didn't do the thing where Lizzy and Uzi become besties. I like Lizzy as V's friend more. Love love LOVE- Khan looking at Nori's core and saying "Kinda hot..?" Nice to know that the Doorman women have a type. And Thad. Sweet little prince Thad. Just a good dude.

Cyn (this whole part is rambly)

I've been very specific about referring to Absolute Solver as Cyn. I usually write "Absolute Solver/Cyn" when reffering to them. Cyn is dead though. Uzi burned up her core and ate the [null]. So for brevity, I'm just gonna call it/them Cyn.

Speaking of Cyn. I love Cyn. I don't think I talk about how much I love Cyn. I can't talk about Cyn without talking about her relationship to N, V, and J. N, V, Nori and Uzi all refer to Cyn as her. J refers to Cyn as it. Cause that's all it really is. Cyn was the host- someone who is long gone. Even when Uzi was taken over V was angry at Cyn: "Same horrors, huh Cyn?"

J on the other hands says: "It tricked me too." She's knows what the Solver is and sees it for what it is, a virus. We've seen from the memories that N and V (especially N) were a lot closer to Cyn than J who sided with Tessa and the Elliots. This distinction of calling Cyn shows that N and V can't or won't distinguish the two. This is someone they grew up and lived with. N is hesitant and scared cause that's who little sister vs V who is angry cause this is the creature that replaced Cyn. Remember V says "We do our job, and that thing leaves us alone." As far as V is concerned Cyn was always like this and she just wants to save her team, especially N. (As far as Uzi and Nori go, they've never known the Solver by any other name except Cyn so no need to change it. Absolute Solver is a mouthful compared to Cyn). My point it, it hurts seeing the person you love become a monster and even more to know that Cyn 1001 was never there. The only time we saw her was as that little scared Robot in the pile. They never really knew her and maybe there's hope that Cyn, their Cyn, is in there but she isn't. She never was, it's always been the Solver.

And because I have to mention it. In N's flashbacks after Cyn caves his chest open we see flashes of this happening at the mansion and V's body on the floor. Which was expected, we know Cyn made them but what I'm thinking is, Cyn DEFINITELY used N to kill Tessa.

ANYWAY- now I get to talk about how much I love this fucking little freak. She is so CREEPY! I love everything about Cyn. I love how she moves- how her movements are so creepy and fluid. Like all the animation is fluid but she moves extra-fluid. It's creepy she's creepy I love her! I love how much personality she has, they totally could have went the soulless machine route but no, just like the Worker Drones she HAS personality! She sadistic, malicious, and manipulative. Genuinely there is so much wrong with her. Like there is so much about her to talk about that I can't even explain in words. Better to assimilate than explain tbh. Like she shows genuine interest in the Murder Drones. She kept their personalities in tact because of N, even knowing that V and J would be liabilities. She even told Tessa as long as she didn't get in her way, Tessa would be unharmed. She could've easily killed the banquet without all the flair but she was angry at the Elliot family for threatening her, N and the rest of the Drones. The singularity is the point where technology reaches when we, humans, can no longer control it. It is indistinguishable from our concept of humanity. I'm not gonna get all philosophical and ponder the legitimacy of the Drones AI, I think the show does that well enough. They have thoughts and feelings, they are alive, plain and simple. This story is not new btw, robots living in the remains of human society and having their own personalities and living as an extent of humanity has been done before. The examples I can think of are Wall-E, Stray and I Have No Mouth... works too (kinda). Basically, Cyn as the antagonist have her own personality that goes beyond the mindless machine route is so fucking cool and I love it. I love has antagonistic she is to everyone, even people she likes. It's not like she doesn't understand empathy, she just doesn't care. "Your copies will forgive me." And again! The is not new, this is not a new character type, I'm sure but it's done well here. She is amazing and I love everything about her. Cyn you are freaking crazy baby girl and I love you.

The Ending

She a damaged OC now, what else is there to say?

[rottenpumpkin13]

I think CC had a huuuge problem with fleshing out Genesis and Angeal to be honest. I feel like the personalities they’ve been given by the fandom are mostly fanon and don’t have that much substantiation in canon because AG were both largely used as plot devices- which again I think is a big problem because it doesn’t make you feel or understand either of the characters or why they behave the way they do. By the end of CC I felt really bad for Sephiroth, was ambivalent toward Angeal but still felt a twinge of sadness because of how sad Zack was over him, and absolutely loathed Genesis. I’m still not Genesis’ biggest fan but the canon characterization has made him a bit more endearing, though when I go back to canon and see him I’m left disliking him all over again. Unless you really dig into CC lore you have no idea how Genesis felt about Sephiroth, it just comes off like he was always jealous of him and that the relationship was painfully one-sided with Sephiroth practically begging for his friendship. It doesn’t help that 80% of Genesis’ dialogue is Loveless quotes and the other 20% is him being angry and hateful. I guess it’s justified, but unlike with Sephiroth and Angeal you never see Genesis being anything but hateful. With the other two I found myself sympathizing and mourning the loss of the people they were prior to realizing the truth, but with Genesis I wished he’d just shut up and go away already. The training room scene also doesn’t help his case, because first it starts out with Genesis being cocky and wanting to take Sephiroth alone- despite Angeal’s warning- and then later on blasts his best friend in the face with a fire ball all while talking about being a hero. He purposefully escalates the fight, then when Sephiroth gets serious Genesis gets injured and crap really hits the fan- and all this could’ve been avoided if Genesis hadn’t had an inferiority complex the size of the moon. I also find it hard to excuse this whole sequence of events because this was prior to his degradation, and while it’s unclear whether it had started even before his injury, I’m going to say he was still mostly in his right state of mind and he still behaves like he has no care for his friends, even his childhood friend who was trying to keep the spar friendly and prevent it from turning into a fight to the death.

Sorry about the rant, but that other anon talking about Genesis also brought back my thoughts about him and I felt like sharing since I’ve never really written them out.

Canon vs fanon aside, there's a lot of context and nuance often lost when adapting Japanese dialogue to fit English contexts. My biggest gripe with the training room scene in english is how Genesis proclaims "The world needs a new hero" right before he fights Sephiroth, suggesting he wants to take Sephiroth's place/ be better than him. But then you look at translations like this one and that scene gains a whole new meaning. Genesis instead says "I too would like to become a hero." And rather than the cocky "That's no way to talk to a hero," before he blasts Angeal in the face with a fire ball, he states "All I want is to be a hero."

The training room scene is a lost cause, because it's easy to place the blame on any one of them, or on whoever decided to go in there that day, or even on the fight itself, but accidents happen. But in the end, no one is truly to blame because none of them asked for Jenova cells or to be part of the Jenova Project, and the truth is that if it hadn't been the training room incident, something else would have triggered the degradation, or the conflict as a whole, and they would have been doomed regardless.

And that's why Genesis is so angry, and why he's so desperate for the cure that he keeps reciting what (in his mind) is the answer to the cure. I guess the reason we never see him be anything but reactive to the situation he's in because when we're introduced to him, shit has already hit the fan. He's deserted already. The first scene we see in Crisis Core literally has Angeal answer the phone and get the news that Genesis left. The only crumb of pre-degradation Genesis we get is the training room scene which—as mentioned above—got mistranslated in English, so of course we're going to think Genesis was hot-headed and envious (which in all honesty he could've just as well have been).

It's easier to sympathize with Angeal and Sephiroth because everything that's happening is happening because Genesis revolted against Shinra, and I get that. But what makes me sympathize with Genesis (and this is coming from someone who used to hate him) is the degradation and his motives. He wants a cure. He wants to live, and it's hard to live when your body is working against you and literally degrading because of something completely out of your control. On top of that, the people after you, the organization you've always aspired to be a part of because of your childhood hero, your friends including that hero, are on the side of those who did this to you.

Don't know if this makes any sense because I'm literally trying not to fall asleep writing this out asfshsjska

[scottfreed]

Comparing the Text of the "TANGLED: Before the Ever After SERIES BIBLE" and the "Tangled The Series: Series BIBLE"

I wanted to compare the text from the two Tangled bibles from the Disney leaks since there seemed to be a lot of overlap in the language and I was interested to see what had changed between the initial BEA bible(2015) and the TTS series bible(2018).

I'm in the asoiaf fandom and we do this with old George RR Martian drafts and manuscripts all the time, a sort of literary archeology. I took the plain text of both documents and ran a comparison to see what had changed between the two bibles. ((My dumbass put the 2018 TTS document as the original and the 2015 BEA doc as the "modified" one. So the Struck through text is actually the older/original/BEA.))

So obviously, the TTS bible was far longer since it was created and modified far later into development and even after wrap. It encompasses waaay more material. So naturally, all the S2 material outside if a brief synopsis was not in the BEA.

S1 Characters that do not appear in the 2015 BEA bible, but do in the 2018 TTS bible include: Angry, Red, Sugarby, Monty(even though his episode was), WRECK MARAUDER (Same as Monty), Fidella, and surprisingly: Stan and Pete.

And most surprising of all: the Captain didn't have a character profile in that initial document even though I could swear he has more episodes than characters like Lance, Varian, Quirin, and Xavier who all do have profiles in the 2015 BEA one.

I wonder if this indicates the order in which the characters were developed, or if they had different initial plans to use certain characters with more frequency and that didn't work out.

And as I sort of mentioned, in the BEA document, there were only summaries of six episodes after the special; "Challenge of the Brave," "Rapunzel's Enemy," "Cassandra Vs. Eugene," "In Like Flynn," "Under Wraps," and ""Fitzherbert PI."

It's fascinating to me how most of these are Cass and Eugene focused eps, with only one truly Raps focused one.

Anyway...

First big difference in the text:

By far the most common and consistent change between versions was Cassandra's job.

In 2015 in the Before Ever After pitch, she was consistently referred to as a "handmaiden" and then as of the 2018 TTS series bible this was changed everywhere to "lady in waiting".

I always wondered about this shift. At first I wondered if the change was to distance the show from the wildly successful, but thematically dark/adult "Handmaid's Tale" which came out within like a month of TTS, but now I'm wondering if it was more to align her thematically with her later characterization of "the Lady in waiting who is sick of waiting." It's probably that latter option. But I did kind of prefer the handmaiden angle since a lady in waiting is still comparatively powerful nobility. And imo a "maid" taking on a Kingdom is way more sympathetic than a lady doing so. It could have just added that extra layer of class conflict, but oh well.

No matter the reason, "Handmaiden" is out, "Lady in waiting" is in!

Attila got a little fleshing out between versions! Though this never seemed to materialize. I almost wonder if someone needed to hit a word-limit or something. I would have liked to see an ep showing Attila more and more integrated into Coronan society. See his progress from S1 to S3.

It seems the decision to have the full entourage outside of the main three on the mission might have been a later addition. (Alternatively the 2015 bible might have just had need to be more short and concise with the S2 details.)

It did seem(unfortunately) like the spare 5 didn't contribute much to the overarching plot, so I wouldn't be surprised if that were true. (And I'm including the Hookfoot filler episodes with that.) It would have looked pretty different, but might have been more character focused if they had gone in that direction.

Seems the Lorb episode was originally REALLY different...

The idea of them being mythical leaf people was a later addition, as well as the island aspect of the setting.

And it looked like the human "distinct tribe of people" were originally going to be worshiping Rapunzel and not Pascal. I can certainly see why they changed this so much.

It would be hard for Raps to beat the Demigoddess allegations and maintain the everyman vibe, plus the God Guise/Cargo Cult tropes are awkward as hell in that context.

"The Brotherhood of the Stone" ?

"The Brotherhood of the Stone" ?

"The Brotherhood of the Stone" ?????

..... Brotherhood fans btfo, its so over, we will literally never recover from this. *passes away*

No but really, no distinct mention of Adira or someone in her role. I wonder if the idea of discord/disagreement among the Brotherhood members didn't come about until later.

This is pretty cool! I didn't know that "Plus Est En Vous" seemed to be the initial name for the special! Then it got changed and used for the finale.

It also looks like "Cassandra vs. Eugene" was a pretty different episode initially as well.

It looks like originally, the scavenger hunt was not intended to lock them in the dungeons, and the Stabbingtons weren't involved.

I'm kind of of two minds on this one since on the one hand I like when decisions are deliberate and not just a matter of coincidence gives the characters agency. Plus I like the Stabbington's as villains and was glad to see them. But on the other hand, Rapunzel locking people in a cell when being locked away against her will is so central to her character and no one ever calling her out for it was so off-putting to me. Plus it made the Stabbingtons much less threatening.

I almost want to see that original version of that ep. I wonder if it would have been more character-focused.

And the last little changes I noticed were to "In Like Flynn" where they changed the word "crime" to "scheme" in the description and dropped the "King" for just "Frederic" probably just to convey the lighter tone of the episode better.

Oh, and one more!

The "Moonstone" didn't seem to be named as of BEA and there was some intentional(?) ambiguity about Edmond and his title and origin.

Overall not a lot of big differences. But it was a bit surprising what elements and characters where emphasized compared to what ended up manifesting in the show.

[n-fblog]

Reo, Nagi, and Differences from the Main Manga

Thoughts from Episode: Nagi, chapter 17

Reo:

This chapter was kind of needed for him to "abandon" his ego of becoming the best with Nagi (and we can see it sort of fading in the textbox) -- and simultaneously get rid of that growing attachment he has to Nagi. Really sad to see him say, "thank you" as if he doesn't even have the strength to break them apart himself (and he didn't)

The chameleon makes its first chronological appearance so we can clearly see him start to 'adapt' his thinking and playing even though it's not fully fleshed out yet, which is exciting! I wasn't sure if that was something he made up with Shidou before, but it's hilarious to know it all started with Nagi, AGAIN. Or maybe this is the manga trying to convey that he's changing himself to help Nagi walk away lol

His inferiority complex with Nagi makes itself kind of known here, with the monologue- "Those are the words *I* wanted to say,," but was unable to...

Somehow, Nagi being able to encourage Reo makes him the stronger one mentally -- which is tough for someone who subconsciously already thinks he can't go very far without Nagi skill-wise.

Poor guy... and he still has so far to go before he starts to think he can fight on his own.

Nagi:

Man, this chapter pretty much confirms that their mischaracterization and miscommunication goes both ways lol. Nagi spitefully admonishes that he isn't Reo's 'toy' when Reo flips from "wanting to be the best" to "wanting to stay together"-- These guys have such a hard time acknowledging their friendship outside of football, it's actually painful.

I can't tell if he made any sort of connection betweey 'toy' and being Reo's 'treasure'. But that's almost definitely a metaphor on Reo's part. What a lot of people misuse is that Reo calls Nagi his 'treasured possession' when I really, truly don't think he meant viewing Nagi as a literal object. But how else do you expect a rich boy who's only been shown love through material things to describe something he values? *(see tags for a rant on this lol)

I do wish we'd gotten more insight into how he felt when he heard what Reo said in the moment, but this chapter was already long as it is. I do think Nagi's expressions sort of speak for themselves.

I mean, he straight up looks like he's about to cry here. 

I would argue that part of Nagi's promise to 'stay together' during the entrance actually includes 'believing in each other' like he says here:

 And if that's the case, then what did Reo's claim of abandonment mean to him? Was it that Reo didn't believe in Nagi's newfound drive to win? Or was he mad that Reo didn't believe in himself? I think it's a bit of both, but I really want to see more thoughts in the manga or from the fandom

Blue Lock vs. Episode: Nagi

So... Nagi definitely seems more angry in this chapter, right? When you revisit Ch. 76, you can see that Nagi is a lot more apologetic towards Reo

( Here you see him lament not growing alongside Reo, but fired up and excited to work with Isagi)

vs. what we saw this chapter

(Nagi saying sorry and acknowledging he's changed, but looking less toward the future and more resisting the past)

Maybe this is just a difference in translations, but "I can't [am not able to] go back" feels a little different from "I won't go back" -- the former just feels like an admission (to Reo), while the latter feels a lot more confrontational, a downright refusal to go along with what Reo wants.

And that's fine, but it does reshape how I thought about Nagi, and I think it really emphasizes just how pissed he was at Reo by the end of 2nd Selection.

This reframes their interaction during U-20 tryouts for me. I originally thought it was mostly setting up Reo's chameleon style defense and Reo's internal conflict (which it is) but EpiNagi really just shows that Nagi also has a ways to go before they reunite in Manshine

I think this could be the panel (from Ch. 107, 3rd Selection) where Nagi forgives Reo -- it's the point where Reo sort of shows he understands Nagi's drive to win, and that he doesn't value staying together over improving anymore. After that, they have no issues (in Nagi's eyes) so it was probably easy to imagine walking up to Reo during MC v BM and asking for his help ... but man, we still have a long way til then, and I can't wait for EpiNagi to probably prove me wrong :p

[dotthings]

Just so wild that in the year 2024 there are still people who lay all the blame on Dean instead of acknowledging that Sam and Cas at various points have done things that actually hurt. Yet it’s always Dean’s fault for feeling feelings about it, while Sam and Cas get a default assumption that they should stand up to Dean, and they aren’t shamed for expressing their hurt.

And addressing those default assumptions in the fandom has become so fraught because of being pressed between the “blame Dean, never ever Sam and Cas” tendencies vs bitter takes from the Dean side that also have takes on the canon messaging that don’t add up for me and a default take of “blame Sam and Cas, never ever Dean.”

Dean is very loving and he feels things very deeply and he is afraid to lose the people he loves, afraid of his own anger, of what that can turn into, afraid of turning into his father, and he can’t see himself as he really is, as loving, and entitled to his anger and that doesn’t mean he is defined by it, and when he can’t see himself more clearly that just puts things into a deeper spiral of self-doubt and fear.

That’s what canon said about Dean, not that Dean was wrong to be angry. Not that Dean’s feelings are wrong. It’s more about how he processes his own feelings and his self-perception and self-acceptance. It’s a simplistic take to go with either “canon is saying Dean is abusive” or “canon is saying Dean’s anger is bad, anger is bad.” So it’s like the Dean side and the Sam and Cas sides of things saw that complicated emotional journey and the take away in both cases was “canon says anger is bad, canon says Dean’s anger is bad, therefore (either) canon says Sam and Cas are always right (or) canon says Dean is always wrong” and neither are what the canon actually said.

Nobody in Team Free Will was perfect, they all did things that hurt each other, but systemically spn fandom in my experience is prevailingly inclined to only blame Dean. And it doesn’t match the canon. The canon gets blamed for this tendency, that it inspired the extremities, but I watched that same canon and what I see with all 3 is fleshed out complex characters who are sometimes to blame and sometimes not, sometimes believe they themselves are to blame when they aren’t, or are trying to avoid their own blame, unless they are overblaming themselves. I know I’m not the only one who sees it that way. But I am worn out from having to navigate the takes from those two sides and I don’t really see either as less hurtful towards Dean.

[sonic-oc-showdown]

ROUND 2

Tommy belongs to @clawcakes

Sharp belongs to @sege-h

Find out more about them below!

Tommy the Bear:

tommy is the drummer in a band called The Shooting Stars, a traveling trio famous for hits like His World, Rooftop Run (Day), and Fist Bump (Instrumental). she's super smart, but acts like a dumbass because she thinks life is more fun that way. she's a silly lady that just wants to enjoy life and have fun! she’s selectively mute and speaks only to her bandmates, though she loves to sing. tommy's also in a queerplatonic relationship with her bandmates, plucky the squirrel and lyre the deer. plucky and lyre are more set on the traveling part of the band, while tommy's just happy to be with them wherever they go.

Ashen "Sharp" the Wolf:

Ashen is a runaway that slowly grew bitter towards the world, driving him to eventually join Eggman. He knew Eggman viewed him as disposable as anyone else, but joining him at least gave him a roof over his head. He eventually volunteered for one of Eggman's experiments, weaponizing his arms and allowing him to turn them to metal at will. Ashen viewed this as something that'd allow him to always have a weapon on hand to defend himself with. He'd later find out that this experiment served as a prototype for the metal virus, allowing Eggman to better figure out how to turn flesh into metal. Ashen is a very angry individual, having used anger to cover up his true emotions in order to protect himself from being vulnerable around anyone. It took some chipping away at the emotional wall he'd built up, but he eventually made a secret friend that was with the resistance, and eventually ran away from Eggman in order to save that friend's life. He's now (reluctantly) working with the resistance/restoration.

[thatahjumma]

I had to pause the show, I am currently at the fight scene between Bumi and Aang. I have to say the characterisations of most of the characters so far have disappointed me. I can't help but compare to the OG ATLA because its literally based off the show and the characters in the animated series are already so fully fledged and complex, the live active just had to follow suit, instead of adding their own interpretations. I'll comment about main characters after I've watched the whole series but now,

Jet and the Freedom Fighters: They were casted so brilliantly!! And the actor for Jet did the absolute perfect job in being the charismatic leader of the 'lost boys' who lived in the trees. What I didn't like was how Netflix labelled him a "terrorist" and "acting out of hate". They outrightly labelled what he was doing, which made him less of complex character vs the animated series portraying him as a boy dealing with the traumas of loss and war, finding family with others who had to deal with the same loss, and failing to see the complexities of war. I don't know, the characterisation in Netflix's ATLA feels off.

Uncle Iroh: I like that Netflix addressed that he was a war criminal and how that affected the soldier on a personal level as well. But when Iroh said "War pushes us to the edge. I wasn't talking about me", I felt again that it does not feel like the Iroh I know from the animated series. The Iroh, who regretted his past decisions, the Iroh who was compassionate and on the search for enlightenment, the Iroh who was part of the White Lotus as a way of redeeming himself. Even the fight scene in the animated series, he did not use any firebending againts the Earthbender soldiers but in the Netflix one he did. In the animated series, it was significant to me that he did not use firebending (only the chains) -- from his past, he understood that he should not use his power to oppress. Somehow, without explicitly fleshing our Iroh's past, the animated series succeeded in creating a more complex, fully fledged character.

Lastly, BUMI T.T I understand that Netflix wanted to set the show in the context of war and so it kept bringing it up and I understood that the Netflix characterisation of Bumi was trying to act as a foil to Aang: someone who lived through 100 years of war vs someone who "ran" away from the difficulties of it. But this made Bumi wholly unlikeable and very much NOT BUMI. The animated Bumi acted as someone who could potentially be Aang's earthbending teacher and a "mad genius", someone who prepared Aang for the tough journey ahead and taught him to think outside the box. To me, while people do change and become jaded by war, Bumi was one of the characters that retained his 'madness' and joyfulness/zest for life (that's why he was part of the White Lotus). In the OG ATLA, he changed over a 100 years in terms of the wisdoms he gained and imparted to Aang. In the netflix series, he seemed like just an angry old king, who was jaded and took his anger out on his old friend? He even made the remark of airbenders being "flighty" after Aang said that they all died??? What on EARTH really, King Bumi liked to joke but he would never disrespect Aang or a whole peoples like that. Crazy characterisation choice by NetflixT.T

Anyway I'll stop ranting here and finish the episode (ALSO HOW COULD THEY TAKE AWAY THE AANG X KATARA MOMENT IN THE CAVE?? I'm really starting to understand why the original creators pulled themselves out of the Netflix project)

[fckyeahvikings]

I've been waiting for a little of the hype to die down a smidge but this was one thing that just happened to inch across my YouTube feed and I was immediately smitten by the redheaded warrioress that graced it. The said redhead, Sigrid, aside, let's have some fun under this cut for spoilers and mature themes.

It's quite simple: you'll either love it or absolutely hate it.

Twilight of the Gods was something that I had next to no prior knowledge of except that "300" was the first R rated movie I was able to legally see (I'm that old.)

Now, that being said, this animation - I won't insult it by calling it a cartoon - is definitely a mature-themed bunch of rag-tag half taken from Norse mythology figures with a female lead, Sigrid, that was actually, refreshingly, allowed to be herself, which happened to be a wildly emotive woman with a sex drive to boot. The story itself takes several creative licenses with Norse mythology, injects some run of the mill misogyny (i.e. frequent use of the word "cunt" vs anatomically correct vagina/vulva) and sets up for a season two.

If you can get past the fact that it's essentially a watered down Ragnarok that, again, you'll love or hate.

Each character is fleshed out in a halfway believable way although seemingly like they walked straight from the Prose or Poetic Eddas: a bit like cardboard cutouts of Viking ideals that have survived over the centuries and a little stiff for it.

I'm really trying not to sound like boo, this is garbage. Because it's really not. It... just isn't to everyone's taste, likely.

Here's what I did enjoy:

Sigrid. As a whole. Even though some aspects of all the characters do seem stiff, Sigrid being allowed to be an openly angry, grieving daughter (you'll find out why in the first episode) is something that isn't normally seen in mainstream media. Female rage incarnate.

Leif. Sigrid's betrothed. As far as animation goes, he's not hard to look at. He struck me as the older son that isn't trying to follow in his father's footsteps and regrets some things along the line (re: in a lot of ways, he reminded me of Vili Hemmingson from Assassin's Creed Valhalla almost immediately. Which, if you know me, you know I adore Vili in AC Valhalla. Leif was difficult not to see the resemblance in, especially when Leif seemed to be lacking in certain areas and greatly fleshed out in others. The same way that Vili seems to have half a character in his part of AC Valhalla and the other portion was chopped off.) His character is very honor driven though with some darker choices sprinkled in there for moral spice.

Loki. Finally allowed to be their Jotnar self, they have the depth you would expect for a depiction of Loki, down to the association of spiders with them. Loki's shapeshifting is flaunted, even down to the story behind Sleipnir, though with a fair dose of period-specific homophobia in that. (It's not so much that Loki was the mare, it was that Loki was the bottom.) Some people online have taken great exception to this, understandably, but this is unfortunately period specific and accurate to the Viking beliefs. The dynamics of Loki with their family, as a doting father figure willing to do pretty much anything to spare their children, is actually another refreshing take on the sagas. While Twilight of the Gods does have them relatively accurately depicted, the choice of Loki being decidedly presenting as an obviously male Jotnar is a bit jarring. Even in the sagas, Loki takes on a more Aesir (human) appearance and has red hair.

Freyja. Her design in Twilight of the Gods is absolutely exquisite, in my opinion. She's shown as a woman of color and of great power, wisdom and influence, even hobbled as she is in the story. She feels appropriately otherworldly. She also feels like the type of woman who would absolutely murder you and stage being the grieving widow while wearing an expensive fur coat all while wailing, "Oh, no, officer! I have no idea how this happened! *sniff* He was like this when I arrived! *uncontrollable sobbing*"

Baldr. Another design that I adored. Baldr's being a god of light was key in his design and it's obvious, he looks like a piece of the sun itself came into being in the animation. He has some of his mother's (Freyja's, as is most common now) features but he otherwise is simply golden and radiating light. He is rather impartial to his half-brother's rampaging but that's also saga accurate. Interestingly, this is one of the places where the series plays fast and loose with the mythology. He is pierced by a mistletoe dart but nothing of Fimbulwinter comes of it. The events of Ragnarok do happen but wildly out of order or not at all, Baldr is one of those.

Odin. I can't write all of this and not give the All Father a nod. Without giving away huge portions of the series, this is seriously one of my favorite depictions of him now. He managed to simultaneously be Havi, the Mad-One, and Odin, the all wise, all knowing All Father. He creeped me out endlessly and was as familiar to me as the back of my own hand at the same time.

What I didn't like:

Casual sexism. As period specific as it is, being aware of it when it's spoken does diminish the experience somewhat. Especially with Nidavellir. This could do with a warning unto itself: the way that women are used and then literally drowned in the dwarvish realm nearly wrecked and ruined things for me there. The use of "cunt" over any other word for female-presenting anatomy (vagina/vulva/etc) seemed juvenile. And while there are several sex scenes in the series, including two where it's male/male and woman/woman, there is no shown female climax. Just male. You just get the woman/women moaning seductively off-screen. It's an unfriendly reminder that the use of vagina and showing female pleasure onscreen would have ramped the rating of this from mature to outright pornography for those two things alone.

Thor. It's the second time that he's depicted as being outright abusive to his family (first being God of War's take.) If this was faithful to the sagas and to the Viking teachings on honor (among other things), it would have been grounds for Sif to readily divorce him. Which Thor would have borne the brunt of. The depictions of his brazenly, wantonly slaughtering Jotunns is saga accurate.

Egill. And the se of "ergi." It's not something that you just... have happen like that. Nor is it necessarily a brand. (If you want to squint and tilt your head, Loki calls Odin that in the flyting mess.) Some equate is to the modern F slur whereas the F slur didn't even exist as such then.

Tiwaz. IS TYR. WHY DID THEY MAKE HIM AN ABSOLUTE UNINTELLIGEBLE THING BEYOND COMPREHENSION. And is honestly is a glaring error in the entire story.

Still, a solid 8.5/10 for accuracy but 3.5/10 for the story in places and characters. The cons should definitely be addressed in a season two and these are just the ones that immediately sprung to mind without a complete rewatch (which I'm not prepared for yet.)

No, don't @ me on this. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[mamuzzy]

MAMUZZY READS HARD CONTACT: Chapter 1.2.

In case you need to hear it from someone: reading this book won’t make you misogynistic, queerphobic, terf, ableist, genocide-supporter and [insert whatever antis may have called you]. In fact, no book or movie, or game makes you one of these. How you behave with a flesh-and-blood person is what defines you, not the media you consume.

But maaaan… you can’t believe how hard this was to write. We are at still only on chapter 1, yet heavy themes such as grief, survival guilt and possible caste-system among the clones was already mentioned. And now as we follow a different point of view by introducing the secondary protagonist in Hard Contact, Etain Tur-Mukan, we’ll get into more darker topics. Getting the right words to talk about sensitive and serious topics like misogyny and sexism, rape and xenophobia was truly a challenge.

While I’m grateful to those repcomm-critical people who actually sat down and pointed out the problematic parts of the book for me in the past, I still feel that being critical of RepComm is like an exclusive club, where you can get inside if you already possess the secret of knowledge of… well, being critical thinker, and other “basic” criteria.

I mean, these are supposed to be serious problems. They fucking are. Misogyny is a serious problem all around the world, helping people to understand why you find certain parts problematic might be much more effective instead of going on full rage and tearing people heads off and make a fucking joke out of real people’s misery by gatekeeping information about serious topics.

In this essay, I will use related quotes from this section of the book to talk about an issue what I’m struggling with lately: relearning english language to be all-gender and sexuality inclusive. I know that lot of non-native english speakers are struggling with this, especially around my age or above, so I try to explain what does it mean to have addressed as female/male instead of woman/man in an everyday conversation, without calling you derogatory names for not knowing. Sorry that this has to be specific, but I’m truly angry about how antis rhetorics are basically about “if you don’t already know this, the problem is with you”. You can never assume with what background the readers come. Never.

-- FEMALE vs. WOMAN --

I started to recognize the differences between Hungarian edition and the original English release. Hungarian translations can be really good when a passionate and professional hand touches it and the more I read the English version, the more I think that the translation is faulty at some places. I often had that feeling that yeaaah, I get what the original english sentence would have sounded like. Karen Traviss’ style is much more simple, less-artistic and surprisingly easy to read despite the military topics.

Because of these differences, nuances can be lost in the translation.

Also, I started to feel the influence of the constant exposure of critical voices toward the books, and made this segment truly hard to read. Because when you hear certain voices, labels and slogans all the time, you are unconsciously trained to notice these things, I mean, that's how real life propaganda works. Immediately getting focused on certain words or expressions and immediately have the "appropriate" emotional response. And then you spend hours to figure it out if this is how the author intended or the curtain is just blue and that was it.

Here are some examples:

A friend of mine once told me that the book uses the word “female” a lot instead of woman and that is usually a telltale sign of someone being a TERF. Because of this, I immediately noticed that Ghez Hokan referred to women as such, moreover, he was talking to an alien.

I thought that our culture uses these terms entirely differently, but now that I researched a bit, it is not that different: the only difference is that english language uses “female/male” terms are incorporated in everyday speech like it’s nothing, while in Hungary, you don’t use such terms so casually.

What does this mean and why is this important in connection to queerness and especially trans-related topics?

In what context you use female/male?

You refer to people by their sex.

It is used in scientific context.

You use this when talking about flora and fauna.

You use this when you are talking other species that are not human and fantasy species.

If you use female/male terms on a human, you basicly degrade them to their mammalian status and reproductive abilities. You basicly call them animals.

A little Hungarian lesson: Hungarian language doesn’t have a word for gender. We use the same word for sex and gender, so basically there is no difference. Government use “dzsender” as a slur against transpeople in their propaganda, and deliberately don’t invent a Hungarian word for it, so it will still sound like english, therefore, it makes easier to alienate people even more from the “rotten west” when you use scary foreign words which meaning you don’t know and you don’t care to look up.

Because we don’t use female/male in our everyday language, only in scientific context, calling a women “female” sounds exceptionally rude and people will give you a weird look because of it.

You would say how our country is progressive language-wise (I love how people are going crazy over how we have a single gender neutral pronoun <3), but actually we are far from it. Yeah, it sounds nice that we use respective language when addressing women, but when a women are culturally encouraged to be treated like a breeding cattle based on their reproductive organs and constantly associated to motherhood, nice words just simply lose their meanings. That’s why I don’t really hung up on single words usages and labels. You totally focus on one thing and miss everything else around it. Women are treated shit no matter how appropriately you call them.

So imagine the confusion that I was introduced to a culture where you call women or men casually as animals and I’m expected to learn this language so the majority of the world may understand me, only to encounter with other people who will call me TERF and I don’t even know why. Progressive fandom spaces don’t automatically come with unconditional friendliness and patience.

Just for curiosity, I upload the hungarian version of this scene.

English in comparison

Because hungarian used the term of “nőket” (woman+plural+accusative), the potential problematic usage of “female” are completely lost in the translation. Even if you have the misogyny-lense on, in hungarian, you won’t find this scene problematic... well apart from the obvious that someone is getting killed brutally. “Nő” is a completely acceptable way to talk about women in Hungary, and you use “hölgy” if you especially want to be polite or talking face-to-face.

-- ABOUT XENOPHOBIA --

Other thing I wanted to show you regarding this scene, that beside misogyny and terf-associations, Karen Traviss is often accused by fans by being xenophobic to alien species other than humans. If you remember in what cases we call living beings female/male, anything that is not human are referred like that in everyday English language.

I honestly can’t decide if the word usage of “female” was due to the guy being weequay (an alien, other than human), or because Ghez Hokan don’t respect women or it has some significance at all. We actually see Hokan talking to a woman later so we can check this later.

Also I can’t decide if comparing the “incoherent animal sound beings made when pain overwhelmed them” is just a description of sound or the so-called KarenTravissness. See what slogans and labels do to your brain? If you are fed that this book is xenophobic, you will see xenophobia everywhere.

I’m not here to make judgment about english language, but I hope I could provide help in translating one of the common slogans and catchphrases people usually don’t bother to explain, because this is something you are supposed to know on your own.

Don’t gatekeep important information to make yourself feel more intellectually and morally superior!

-- WEEQUAY LORE --

Etain actually has opinions about the Weequays. She starts the chapter being on the run, chased by a Weequay mercenary. First of all, Etain is not having a graceful entry because she spends her first minutes hiding in a barq-field (very expensivy luxury grain), most precisely, in manure, and this scene alone made me fall in love with her. But also the Weequay didn’t hide what intention he has when he founds Etain.

A certain someone in repcomm tumblr said that Etain should sort out her racist and xenophobic thoughts because Hondo Ohnaka definitely has a diverse vocabulary. I don’t know, but if I was chased by a someone in threat of getting raped, I wouldn’t think nice and politically and socially correct things either, but it's probably just me. People really should sort out their priorities. But it only made me wonder and research further. Because I played old Star Wars games, I know that Weequays are fluent in Huttese but it made me wonder: do weeqays have their own language?

LORE TIME!!!!!!!!!

The first weequay appeared in the Original Trilogy serving Jabba the Hutt, called Pagetti Rook.

But who are these guys actually?

Weequays are a humanoid race originating from the desert planet of Sriluur, The Outer Rim with a neighbouring Hutt Space/Hutt Sector. Their appearance evolved due to the harsh weather conditions. They have clan-based, harsh society with a mindset of “only the strongest will survive”, and what is especially interesting about them that they don’t use speech as their primary communication form, they use pheromones to communicate. When a weequay is from another clan, there is no guarantee that they will understand each other, let alone people from other races. They don’t use names (only when they are blending among non-weequays), because they identify each other by smell. This is one reason other species find them inferior and uncivilized and unintelligent. You can see braids on his head which has cultural significance, weequay women are bald.

Weequays already appeared in the Original Trilogy serving Jabba the Hutt, and usually in this role you will find them: due to their neighbouring influence of Hutt Space, they serve Hutt clans. It’s one of the very common star wars cantina scenes, where you see women of different alien species entertaining guest, and if the bar is Hutt affiliated, there is a chance that they are slaves and kept against their will. Weequays are different: they remained independent from the Hutts, but they will lend their aid, lend their mercenaries to serve them, so they are mostly associated in with gangs, crime syndicates, drug cartels, smugglers etc. Weequays and Rodians often associated with criminal gangs in Legends.

On the bright side, there were force-sensitive weequays in the Jedi Order: Que-Mars Redath-Gom - Died in the Battle of Geonosis Master Kossex - died in the First Battle of Kamino Master Tyr - died in the Battle of Thustra Master Sora Bulk - Betrayed the Order and joined Count Dooku General Sev - Died during O66

So according to Legends-lore, Etain’s little comment about the weequays’ communication skills is not entirely out of place. Now if Etain was aware that they had weequays in the Jedi Order or not is another question, or more like, if Karen Traviss was aware. From what I know about her, she wasn’t well versed in the Extended Universe’s (now Legends) lore.

… I really hope that my little lore-detours don’t bore you. It will happen again.

-- ABOUT MISOGYNY --

UFFFFFF-!!!!!!! Reminds me of a time, when once I walked late at night to home, I looked behind my back because I heard someone and the guy yelled after me with hurt self-esteem: YOU especially don’t have to worry!

The swift comeback indicates that maybe this isn’t the first when Etain got such comments about her looks. We actually got a glimpse about her appearance by that weequay.

Scrag-end is a derogatory slang for thin and veiny people.

I want to make clear another thing. Misogyny is present in this book, and I truly believe that depicting misogyny itself is not misogyny. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MISOGYNY, but like a mature person, and not treat it like a fucking fandom trope!!!

It’s the sad reality that things like this exist in the real world. Erasing it from literature because it makes you uncomfortable - regardless if you are affected or not - won’t help anyone. “It should be actively condemned by the narrative!!!!” Like you would actively condemn misogyny happening before your very eyes? Would you be brave enough to step between a guy and her girlfriend who is being yelled at or you decide it’s not your business? Will you call out a woman (and your boss) who claims that women should make the environment clean because boys are just stupid boys who can’t do shit on their own (which is now a road to misandry as well. LOL! Misandry is not recognized as a legit word in scrivener)? You would probably just politely smile while serving a woman customer who just told you that you shouldn’t lift heavy things and do man’s job because your uterus will be damaged and you can’t have kids. I’ve got more misogynistic remarks from women than men actually.

Nobody will teach you how to protect yourself from misogyny and people like these. I never feel protected and loved by couch activists who are supposedly on women-side preaching about fictional misogyny but I can protect myself from actual assholes face-to-face, because I had to learn to do it. This book won’t teach either the how-tos, but maybe you can recognize speech patterns. This is how you use a “problematic” literature. You learn from it. If you learn from all this that it’s okay to talk about women like that, the problem is with you, my friend.

-- ABOUT ETAIN --

We get to know about Etain that she is not very good user of the Force, or at least she is not mindful in stressful situations like this. She is exhausted and not have any strength left, emotions completely overrun her.

It made me really wonder what Etain was through if her first thought was to cut down a farmer with her lightsaber.

You know… the more I read about Etain (and what I remember about her in the other books), I would say that she is written as a child soldier. Which is weird because Jedi are ultimately are not trained to be soldiers

There are a lot of paragraphs where she compares herself to the clones and comparing their upbringing to hers, but her reactions in this scenes, it made me really wonder.

*SNORT* This part made me chuckle. Clever girl.

Etain definitely has doubts in her own abilities. It is not known if Master Fulier truly thought about Etain this way, some gestures indicated that in the past, or simply Etain’s low-self-esteem is talking. In this part, we don’t get to know more about her relationship with her master, but Fulier is described a challenge-loving person, and that could explain Etain’s jumpiness as well.

Interesting parallel that for a clone’s punishment is decomission if they fail their tests.

While it’s not supposed to be a punishment for a Jedi, those padawans who are not suited for knighthood are sent to one of the four service corps (Medical, Agricultural, Educational and Exploration). Etain is certainly feels it as a punishment to be sent here. Imagine you are trained for one thing in your life, and if you fail, you ultimately failed everything in life. Not exactly death, but almost.

-- JEDI AND THE TERRITORIES OUTSIDE OF THE REPUBLIC --

Another so-much-heard critic about Karen Traviss’ work that she wrote everyone hating on the Jedi, even the civilians.

But: Qiirula at this time (and probably before) is a Neutral planet in the midrim. Meaning, they have no ties with Republic. They don’t get aid, they don’t get Jedi visitors because it’s not their jurisdiction to care about. Ultimately the Senate decides where a Jedi should go and maintain peace. I don’t see why should an average quiirulan look at the Jedi like a godly entity and positive figure if they never see one before. Legends and hero stories won’t feed your stomach after all but you have bullies like Ghez Hokan and his mercenaries and the Neimoidians traders who will exploit you shitless.

There is no active war on Qiirula, but the Jedi are here - Padawan Etain and her master, Kast Fulier -, and that means, there is something here that is worth something to the Republic and something requires a Jedi presence after all.

The Jedi are not obligated to help the neutral systems or those under the CIS unless the Republic sends there forces to occupy and then they have maintain peace and enforcing the political decisions that had been made. At least that's what real life peacekeepers are doing in contries with tension. Do what you will with this information.

I certainly don't vibe with the Jedi Order as a government supported religious order.

That’s it for now, Chapter 1.3 will be the next, a smaller post introducing Fi and Niner and that will sums up the entire Chapter 1. ^^

Sorry if this one sounded like a rant, but I hate when people are throwing labels here and there and words eventually lose their impact.

[bluepoodle7]

#HouseImagesIFoundInteresting #WeirdHouses #HouseWithChimneyPlush #WeirdHouseRealtorIdeas #InfectedRealtorAu #MyThoughts

Just looking up weird houses and found a house plush I want.

I always I find weird or ugly houses interesting and the interior being a little off.

I wonder what the lure body will look like.

If I finally draw all my infected realtor house oc's these might be new ones.

My lure body guesses.

The monster house just a person with a lot of hair but is like a normal human or just has a beard while looking wolfman like with a cartoon house with chimney fungmammal.

(Monster House)

And the instrument shaped house looking like a famous composer and has a music note Stingray fungmammal.

Looks like a bootleg I.M Meen CDI like character in both look and movement.

(Instrument House)

The curved house being like the crooked man in design wise and has a stoplight fungmammal that changes into the base form.

If the instrument house had a theme be like.

I image the lurebody playing on a piano while the house flesh body tries to capture the buyer.

Music not mine.

Attack of the Killer Queen (Unused Version) - Deltarune (youtube.com)

(Curved House)

I can imagine the shoe house lure realtor being a shoe maker on the side and kicking other Realtors in the shin if they get close to a buyer they want.

Shoemaker elves would be this Realtor's fungmammal shape.

(Shoemaker House)

The airplane house lure would be female looking with disheveled clothes like this Realtors lure was in a crashed plane.

The parasite fungmammal is a Silky anteater and doesn't want to be a parasite one but is a glitched mutualism one.

He used to be a Falseperson but after being fired and angry changed into a parasite one then gave up being humanoid.

When she gets a buyer in the crashed plane house body will make the plane body move like it is flying but is in place then act like the plane is nose diving by the gases from the house.

Thinking about making a infected Realtor based of bear and have him be the main singer of the Nosy Neighbors band with Jack Black as the voice canon.

This infected Realtor having a thicc male body type Realtor that is nice and doesn't eat people.

-------------------------------

Thinking about fleshing out these weird houses in the images into Infected Realtors.

Maybe making them be in a band called the Nosy Neighbors.

Also my sitcom of Infected Realtors is getting huge dude.

Basically this.

Scott pilgrim vs the world, WE ARE!! Sex Bob-omb!! 1 2 3 4!!! (youtube.com)

My oc Fable in Zable's vessel body trying to get in the non accessible areas of a REALTORs house body be like.

Images and video not mine but link is there.

Fairly Odd Parents- Timmy's Dad's View of Privacy - YouTube

Images and video not mine but links are there.

Happy Home Mascot, A Fully Customizable Plush House for Your Promotion | Best Plush, Inc

Artist transforms parents' home into the ultimate monster house | Halloween haunted houses, Halloween house, Halloween home decor (pinterest.com)

Most Unusual Houses in the World (mcintyreproperty.com.au)

Weirdest Houses In The US (onlyinyourstate.com)

MyBestPlace - The Haines Shoe House, The Man Who Lived in a Shoe

I UGLY HOUSES. - HomeVestors of America, Inc. Trademark Registration (uspto.report)

Ugly Houses | Unusual Homes Around the World | HouseLogic

When threatened, the silky anteater, like other anteaters, defends itself by standing on its hind legs and holding its fore feet close to its face so it can strike any animal that tries to get close with its sharp claws. | Photo by Brian Wilcox : r/Awwducational (reddit.com)

[fancyfade]

Ah thank you for answering my questions actually I am the same anon of a blended family that pointed out the reason why Damian consider Bruce “only” son because a lot of people at dc views the batkids as Bruce’s students or soldiers. Iirc there was a deleted thread of a editor that confirms that.

Not saying there isn’t official lore of the robins acknowledged each other as brothers. Isn’t just me or is their dynamics mainly just

1. The boring Batfamily events Dc love to do. Seriously anyone excited for them anymore

2. Or around Bruce

Not to say they deep bonds, is it just me off dc often make the Batfamily…idk extremely antagonistic to each other to the point their characters are better fleshed out away from the family vs together?

Maybe because how Bruce is written recently but man it’s rough.

I definitely do think that writers flip flop a lot on how they consider Bruce's kids, or they want to treat them as mostly soldiers for the angsty Bruce thing and to explain why they don't have to show Bruce being a dad on panel. Or more of different writers have different opinions, rather than flip-flopping.

WRT bonds... I think that they have some that are well-developed on page, and some that are just not. Most of the characters' dynamic with Bruce has gotten panel time, though inconsistently, so we know pretty much what it should be. We also have seen Dick with Tim and Dick with Damian. There are characters who are not antagonistic, but just don't have a ton of panel time devoted to them (Dick and Cass pre-the dark cass era). And Damian and Tim are no longer antagonistic to each other for the most part but also just. don't have any panel time showing them actually becoming close.

rather than being antagonistic to each other being the reason main batfam events are boring, I think it's b/c they honestly all fill pretty similar niches.

like think about No Man's Land. That was a pretty big batfam event, but we almost never have all of them on panel at once. When we see them in big groups, its often just when in Oracle's clock tower between missions, like saying hi to Cass when she just became Batgirl.

But like. We see Dick go off and do a mission alone in the jail. Some Babs and Dick defending base stuff. Dick and Tim work together in the tunnels for ratcatcher. Cass and Tim when Tim has to be evacuated out of Gotham. Cass and Jean Paul infiltrating that one manipulative guy's camp. In general the missions are pretty small in terms of actually number of people actively on them.

Ok so going back to:

trying to have every single batfam member in a mission just makes them boringer. You have "so and so is the smart one" "so and so is the angry one" "so and so is the nice one" etc... but like. They're all smart. They can all be angry. They can all be nice. they all fill the niche of "generally competent fighter with stealth skills and usually above-average computer and detective skills". IDK its like having a party of 6 rogues.

So in general what you have is you have to diminish characters in one way to make the other stand out more. Like Gates of Gotham, which has stuff I really do like, also had stuff I really don't like like Tim being the only one having ideas. Because Tim had to be "the smart one". And this isn't unique to Batfam! It happens in many team stuff. 1960s Teen Titans diminished everyone's brains to make Dick stand out more, JLA does the same for Bruce. Writing complex dynamics is hard so it's easy to just find 1 or 2 character traits and exaggerate those.

I think that's why Batfam members are better fleshed out in their solo titles - they get to be full characters. I think they may also get to be better fleshed out in team comics, but normally because they get the narrative focus instead of other characters and are treated as the "batman" of the team. Like I love NTT, but Dick is clearly Marv's writer's pet and he gets so much narrative focus.

... I am not sure if I actually answered your question, but those are my thoughts in general.

[comshipbracket]

Antis DNI

Remember, you are voting for the ship you prefer, not the ship you find more problematic

Propaganda for both ships under the cut.

Velphi Propaganda (Pseudo-Incest - Laphicet is the reincarnation of Velvet's unborn nephew, Age Gap - Laphicet is 10 while Velvet is 19, MinorxAdult, Possible Abusive Dynamic - Velvet initially not quite treating him as a person, and then proceeding to treat him as a replacement for her dead brother. She also pulls Laphicet's hair when angry and doesn't apologise for it)

"Their character arcs are inseparably intertwined. The two of them push each other to be People (Laphicet gaining individuality after spending most of his life a partially brainwashed Literal Slave, and Velvet remembering that Positive Emotions Exist after being traumatized and then immediately spending 3 years in solitary confinement).. At first their dynamic is genuinely terrible (at least for Laphicet); Velvet starts out barely seeing him as a person, and when she does start to see him as a person, the person she's seeing is her dead brother. But as the two of them grow, Laphicet gets more assertive and Velvet starts to see him as himself."

"Anyways, have a transcription of one of their best scenes: `No, I don't 'understand'! You snap at people! You're scary! You--You tried to eat me! But… you're also kind… and you're filled with life! I don't understand a single thing about you! But you gave me a name, when I was a number! You gave me that compass! You taught me what it meant to be alive! That's why I care about you, Velvet! I'll protect you for my own sake! I don't care if you're malevolent! Or if it was pointless! If the world says it's a mistake to love you, I'll fight the whole world! I don't care HOW much pain you feel! It doesn't matter! A world without you, Velvet… is the one thing I couldn't bear!`"

"Additionally! The big scene the night before you head into the final dungeon is Laphicet combing Velvet's hair while they talk about the future, and for a bit they pretend everything's going to work out fine and plan out a life together. (video!!! https://youtu.be/golhLiuq78g?feature=shared&t=3273 )"

"Their last scene together is Laphicet telling Velvet he loves her, and Velvet agreeing and making him promise her that he'll live out the rest of his life to the fullest."

"LESS SERIOUSLY

Velvet uses a really gentle tone of voice when she talks to Laphicet that she never uses for anyone else.

Laphicet gets teased by another party member about being motivated by caring about Velvet and he just blushes and agrees

The hot springs sidequest ends up being a bodyswap plot, and the two of them ended up briefly swapping bodies (while naked). Afterwards, Velvet teasingly asks him if he peeked.and he truthfully says he covered his eyes the whole time, to which velvet just goes :I didn't :)" -- Velvet also invited Laphicet to bathe with her at a different point in the game, but he was too flustered and refused

In Rays (a crossover game), the two of them try to live together in peace before the plot ruins it" -- After the end of the initial story of Rays they do manage to live together peacefully, and the game won't stop reminding us of it in event stories"

MakoYuma Propaganda (Selfcest, Cannibalisation, Questionable Dynamic)

"Makoto and Yuma are the same coin, just different sides. Different paths. Makoto continued isolating himself, Yuma opened up and let himself risk being hurt in order to make connections with people. Makoto turned his back on the truth, Yuma fought to expose it. Also, Makoto is simply Yuma's flesh-eating homunculus clone. So they're literally the same person, genetically."