#her whole backstory is 'abused child'

[warcraftish]

As far as I'm concerned Tess/Lorna is canon but like, idk if "lady werewolf" and "her princess who is not werewolf" is sufficiently kottkrig-ish.

Anya/Lyana, maybe? Calia/Lilian is obvious but also bleccch in vibe. Maybe Forsaken/Ebonblade crossovers?

Lady Alistra and Duchess Mynx are basically ripe for the whole "take an only-very-slightly established lore character and make an entire Blorbo out them" thing, honestly. Or like, it's notable that a bunch of the Ebon Blade seem to specifically be nobility, whether high elven or Lordaeronian or whatever, so contrasting that with the various Dark Rangers and Deathstalkers, who at least seem to be more plebian, could be really interesting. Again, it's kind of "take an NPC name, appearance, and like two minutes of action in a quest somewhere and create hot blorbo-on-blorbo action", but.

For a lesbian I draw a tragically low amount of wlw stuff

Which kottkrig-brand lore character that isn't Sylvanas do the girlies like? Lilian??

[mybrainproblems]

thinking about how 5x04 birthmarks actually sets up house's childhood as being more fucked up than i think the writers intended.

like okay. to run down: john house is abusive towards his son. house deduces that his dad isn't his biological father when he's 12 and confronts him about it. as a result, his dad proceeds to not speak to him for months besides leaving notes at his bedroom door. house's belief that his dad isn't his biological father is eventually vindicated after john's death and he realizes that his mother didn't like his father much either.

which. jesus christ. can we just take a step back and let that sink in? his mother had an affair and house is the result of that. and his mom just..... lets her husband abuse her son? it doesn't sound like she really stepped in at any point to stop it and the only time we see his parents together she makes excuses for her husband's behavior. and like. house is born in 1959 so yes, it's not like his mother could easily leave her husband and i'm not saying that blythe house is evil bc it is a difficult situation given the time period, but the way the narrative frames her (lack of) action in such a passive way vs acknowledging that she's complicit is... really fucked up tbh! and i'm not saying that a victim of child abuse can't love their parents bc it's really complicated! but it's just such a weird thing to toss out there like a dead fish to fester in the sun and do absolutely nothing else with it.

i really don't know that the writers fully thought through the implications of the back story they set up even tho it ends up explaining why house puts up with a lot of really messed up shit from the people around him.

[blitz0hno]

It's sad to me that if the Milgram cases were Real with ALL the character traits/situational factors being the Same and we analyzed the people the same way we do the characters, we'd all be mocked and degraded for humanizing these "muderers" (except MAYBE Shidou and Yuno but that's not even beginning to touch the other end of the spectrum; some of the patronizing the fans do of characters reflect their real-life sense of "pity" etc.)

Like obviously people are gonna be wary about actions that lead to Death but tbh ALL THESE MURDERS WERE PREVENTABLE WITH BETTER SOCIETAL STRUCTURES

this wasn't supposed to be a long post but fuck it

Haruka needed a caretaker and a care team who understood his emotional and physical needs; he was neglected and compared instead, left to cope with intensely painful emotions alone.

Yuno is highly isolated and seeks feelings of warmth and closeness in quick gratification, because giving your heart to someone else in a selfish world is dangerous; she needed honesty and realness, and also an economy that doesn't make men's objectification of her an ideal career choice.

Fuuta is also highly isolated and has extremely punitive views; his "community" was built on vitriol instead of good faith.

Muu is a neglected teen who lashed out as a result of the social structures she and her friends perpetuated; a culture of perfectionism and hierarchal notions make desperation to stay "on top" explosive.

Shidou shouldn't live in a world where he has to "deceive" people to help transplant patients, or suffer with guilt over his own family; a culture of death acceptance and genorosity would help him overcome these horrible feelings.

Mahiru had her mind fixated on a highly commercialized/mainstream idea of "love" and "romance," wrapping her self-worth in it to the point where she pulled another down; had her partner been honest with her, in a world where saving face and repression wasn't more important than communicating, they could have been at peace with or without each other.

Kazui was forced by the expectations of others to play a role he never wanted to, and another human's hopes and dreams were wrapped up in this role; his "failure" to be a husband to her as a straight man would not have even been an issue in a world where everyone can explore themselves without shame.

Amane was raised with cult ideology and shown immense levels of violence for a child to comprehend; she should have been protected, and a world where safety is more important than ideology would have saved their whole family.

Mikoto was heavily abused to the point where "survive by any means necessary" is on the table; everyone involved in his "murder" would have been better off showing a lot more compassion to others AND themselves.

Kotoko, though no "tragic backstory" that we know of, has always known that this world and that people in it can be violent and cruel; giving them a taste of their own medicine wouldn't be so bad if the medicine weren't so horrible to begin with.

If this world sought understanding before judgement, Es would not have the weight of 10+ worlds on their shoulders.

But if the world wasn't this way, we wouldn't have Milgram.

So it goes.

[sylver-drawer]

SO TRUE! Manhwa has really taught people to be wary of every single woman because “omg she’s nice she has to be faking it”. Unless they get spoiled (EVEN WHEN THEY GET SPOILED SOMETIMES) about the character not being evil or whatnot, or even if they continue being just an overall normal girl, the readers will continue to rudely and nonsensically dislike ‘the other girl character’.

And yet, if a single man (LITERALLY A ONE OFF CHARACTER TO THE SECOND MALE LEAD) even approaches the female lead or breathes in her presence, it’s suddenly “omg I want him” or “he’s so cute” or any sort of praise simping for him in light of the female lead. But god forbid a female character just stand in the same room of the female lead, she has to be planning something.

And more often than not, it’s also like,,, the female lead tends to be a bad person too? And the readers live for it, but the moment another female character appears, suddenly the girlboss female lead they love is the most innocent of angels who has done no wrong, but the girl who just walked in? A sinner. The readers don’t know crap about the girl, and she’s already labeled with an antagonistic role just for being another woman existing in the same space as the woman [they] prefer.

And in these cases, it’s so much more common that if another female does one thing wrong, they are so much more hated than any male character who has done the same thing, or even worse. But the male character is nice to the female lead, so it’s ✨ok✨. Oh, but if the secondary female lead doesn’t worship the ground the female lead walks on, or if they get focus for one moment it’s suddenly foreshadowing that they’re the true villain of the story, obviously planning the female lead’s downfall 🧍‍♀️

Like it’s just so stupid. The manhwa community, especially in the rofan portion of the community, hate women so much but worship the ground any man walks on. Another female character isn’t allowed to have trauma or struggles, only the female lead can. Another female character can’t like the male lead, he belongs to the female lead. If the female character isn’t a tool for the female lead, she has to be an enemy. What’s the point of another female character other than to obviously steal the female lead’s spotlight? Oh, but the male lead/male character has such a sad backstory so it’s ok how he acts! Or he’s hot so it’s ok no matter what he does! Or the male character is such a cinnamon roll who deserved so much better even though all he’s done is exist. It’s so stupid.

it will be always beyond me how you guys will root for the mean female character in the isekai / historical stories and call her "girlboss" just for doing anything . But ofcourse the girl who is being all cute and extroverted is bad and an immediate threat to her!!! But the guy who is being all cute and extroverted is a potential ml and you guys will swoon over how y'all be getting "2nd male lead syndrome" even if the guy has the persona of ⅓rd of a raw bread lmao.

Yes I won't outright hate you for writing female characters who hate eachother and all but I miss the thought behind writing them and interpreting them properly .

wow I needed to get that off my chest .

In conclusion: y'all are mean to female characters without no reason and lenient with male characters for no reason and it's dumb lmao

[leychin]

HAPPY ENDING

t.shigaraki x reader

cw: mentions of past traumas but vague, shigarakis whole backstory, child abuse

No one in the League has had a "normal" childhood. Everyone has a tragic villain origin story, everyone has the moment the snapped. Its an unspoken rule to just never inquire about anyones past.

Shigaraki doesn't follow any rules though, so when he asks you one night while you both take a rare trip to a grocery store to pick up essentials, he asks what made you switch teams. He asks what happened to you, someone he can't imagine hurting him, or anyone from that matter what made you snap.

Shigaraki doesn't let people in, he can't afford it, especially not in his current position. But he feels like he knows you, which is silly because it's only been a year, but in that time he's seen your never ending kindness. You used to feed the stray cats outside the bar before it was destroyed, you used to sew up Toga's clothes and offered to let her lick the blood off your fingers when you pricked yourself. You bring Dabi relaxing teas every Tuesday without fail.

And for weeks you treated Shigaraki like he was your world, you were the only one listening to those long anti hero tangents when he was drunk at the bar, you're the one shuffled up next to him pressed shoulder to shoulder to watch him clear a handheld game, enjoying his warmth when hes done nothing except allow you to stay next to him.

So Shigaraki doesn't expect you to answer, and something inside of him deflates but he isnt sure what. He knows he doesn't have the right to your trust, and your story, so when you don't answer he opts to drop it.

He doesn't expect you to look at him with such a jaded look and tears welling in your eyes at the thiught of whatever happened to you, and hes quickly pulling you deeper into the shadows so that no one could see one of his subordinates friends in such a weak state.

"Its stupid." you dryly laugh in attempts to lighten the mood "I don't have whatever you and Dabi have going on." you try to explain to him, but its not coming out right. He doesn't know what to do, you're sat down in front of him thr way a subject kneels before a God. Shigaraki is no God, at least not yours. He doesn't want to be.

So he crouches down in front of you, and he just stares. He's trying to say take your time, but it never comes out, so he keeps staring at you with crimson eyes. He wants to reach out, to hold you, but it doesn't come out either.

You do tell him though, that its so so stupid but it's just because you weren't wanted. Not in the way Dabi alludes to and the way Toga speaks about her past, but in the way that you were a backup plan and never first. Your entire life was for the convenience of others, your mother spoiled your brother and barely remembered your birthdays, your father insisting it was a 'Father and son' thing.

You told him it wouldn't have been as bad if it wasn't your friends too, never invited unless someone else had to back out, never remembered for a birthday, conveniently left out for secret santa, and having to do prom dress fittings alone because they already did theres together.

Its funny, you laugh to him and Shigaraki continues to stare at you. So you tell him about your prom night, because that was the night you left. You had gotten a date with a boy you harbored a small crush on for a while, and he asked you to go with him so of course you and your naive heart said yes.

You waited for him for a while, thinking he was late, and when he was fourty minutes late you decided to give up, thinking he forgot. Only to go home already in tears to open snapchat and see his story with him dancing with another girl, your only message was from him saying his ex got back with him so he didn't 'have' to go with you anymore.

You cry, not because of the heartbreak but because of the frustration. You have never gotten to be wanted by other people, you've never gotten that feeling of being accepted for just being you the way everyone else does. Thats why you left, because no one wanted you around enough to stay, and at least in the League you can pretend you had a purpose.

You're laughing now, because the butterfly effect is so hilarious you can't do anything but either laugh or cry. If you had just gotten that dance that night you wouldn't be labeled a domestic terrorist. You tell that to Shigaraki thinking it'll lighten the mood, but he stares at you still with that blank face.

"I wasn't wanted either." Is all he says before he stands up and offers you a hand to help you up, and when you carefully take it he yanks you up and pulls you close to his chest.

"I don't know how to dance." he says carefully

"What?"

"You said you wanted someone to dance with you."

That wasn't the moral of the story, you note in your head. But you decide to show him the steps anyway to a basic slowdance, and he eventually gets more comfortable with it and starts to lead you on his own, the only sound now is awkward feet shuffling in the quiet alleyway.

"Im sorry there's no music." You eventually say awkwardly

"Its ok." is all he says

You enjoy this, you realize. You're glad Shigaraki is the one dancing with you and not that boy from those years ago. You rest your head on Shigaraki's chest, you feel him stiffen, but he relaxes into it. This is good.

"My father didn't like me either." Shigaraki quietly says "He hated that me and my sister were born." he pauses, wondering if he should even be telling his story when you just told yours, but opts to anyway. "He hurt us, and I always wondered why he had us if he just hated us."

You look up at him, and he stares back down at you. You wait for him to continue and he does "So when my quirk manifested, I killed him." He chuckles dryly, even if he doesnt remember everything else entirely, he remembers that moment when everything felt so clear, and the itching finally stopped.

He slowly lets go of you now, deciding the dance is done, and you do too. Not sure what to do to break the silence.

"Will you go back now?"

"What?"

"You said that if you had just gotten that dance, you wouldn't be a domestic terrorist. I just danced with you, so will you go?" He asks, and he doesnt realize his heart has made his way to his throat as he asks, he realizes he doesn't want you to go, he wants to do that again and again and again and again.

You realize what hes asking and you cant help but let your mouth curl into a smile, so you carefully intertwine your fingers with his, careful to not brush his pinky with yours.

He jumps at the contact, and stares at your hands together for an uncomfortably long time before looking back at you "What are you doing?" and you shrug before leading the both of you out of the alleyway and into the moonlight.

"Im gonna stay with the people who want me."

Shigaraki's heart lurches in his chest, and he feels so warm inside he thinks hes going to explode. But instead he opts to give a squeeze back "Good. I wouldn't have let you go back anyway."

[thatbitch151]

Ya know, everyone talks shit about Fairytail because it does rely heavily on “the power of friendship” and I get if that’s not your thing or feels too childish for you but

Can we acknowledge how dark it all is? Loke/Leo is suicidal in the beginning, Lucy comes from an abusive father and dead mother, Gray is an orphan And his step in mother figure died to save him after he made a bad choice, Erza was an orphan and a Literal Slave as a child with a bunch of other children and her childhood love got possessed and continued her abuser’s work. We all know the shit with Natsu and the dragon slayers.

That’s not even going into the Mirajane/Elfman/Lisanna backstory, or the story of any other characters like Juvia and Happy and Charla and Zeref and such. Like holy shit? This show is so so dark and everyone looks over all the trauma and dark themes because there’s the whole power of friendship thing, which was weaved into the show to actually mean something and not just there for shits and giggles.

All this to say, you can dislike the show, hate it even, but don’t just judge it for the light hearted outer shell it has, because inside is dark and dense and Meaningful

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk

[bittrlys]

The Dragon Prince season 6 is like watching people write themselves into a corner in real time. Exciting! Massive spoilers ahead, of course.

THE GOOD

Opening on Aaravos crying was a very strong choice, this is the actual 'Mystery of Aaravos' type content I've been waiting for

Terry picking up Viren while they're excited about him being alive is very cute

As ever, Terry being extremely ride or die is 👍

Terry taking care of Claudia was very sweet; Terry cutting Claudia's hair and Claudia's new haircut in general. Cute.

Viren and Claudia on the beach, "No parent wants their child to suffer for them." Oof.

In general, I was quite happy with everything Viren, Claudia, and even Soren, and I actually wrote a note of "i hate soren" at the start because I thought we were gearing up for another season of him just being a bad joke machine with no real character or feelings to speak of. But then they gave him, like, actual pathos! They let him interact with people in a way that feels human! They let him be resentful and complicated! Wow! Magefam is so back baby!

Viren trying to reconcile with Soren and be a better example for Claudia really got to me. His final sacrifice (OMG CRIMINAL BY FIONA APPLE JUST CAME ON SHUFFLE.......WHAT I NEED IS A GOOD DEFENSE CUS I'M FEELING LIKE A CRIMINAL.......AND I NEED TO BE REDEEMED TO THE ONE I'VE SINNED AGAINST.....) is tied so strongly to his children and that feels like a natural place to leave his character. Now, I've been saying forever that he was going to get a redemption via death, and figured Aaravos would be the one pulling the trigger, so none of that surprised me, but I thought the actual execution was generally good. I do have some more negative thoughts but I'll save those for later.

Viren is very good at justifying himself, and I like that you see him falling back into that, at times struggling with it, at times not even catching himself doing it. It feels very real. At the same time, I don't think he's ever seen himself as a hero, so it was interesting to let him go out on such a heroic note.

Viren's kind of abuse-coded (not actually abusive, IMO, but I understand if this makes people uncomfortable in a similar way) act of forcing Lissa to cry into the vial is interesting. It echoes him taking Sarai's last breath.

Him writing out his whole confession on this subject and then burning it because he realized it was only going to do him good was also very nice.

Though I wish Claudia had stuck by her 'I'm going solo' guns a little longer, I still think there's something to how she is so incapable of being alone, of thinking for herself, and desperately seeks direction. She is literally just like her dad, and it makes them both easy targets for Aaravos.

Like, Viren being such a force that Claudia easily followed him, then Claudia being such a force that Soren and Terry both easily followed her, and Aaravos being a supreme force Viren and Claudia both easily follow because at heart, they're more followers than leaders despite the force of their personalities and ambitions -- it's interesting.

Aaravos using Sol Regem to casually destroy a kingdom and kill Viren just as a small step in his plan is pretty fun. We love a grandiose villain!

Looking forward to Claudia and Aaravos. She's in some ways even more unequipped than Viren to handle Aaravos's manipulations, but at the same time, she's a lot more unpredictable than Viren. If this leads up to a confrontation between them, I think that could be really cool.

Aaravos tragic backstory with deleted child was really not on my bingo card at all -- I never thought 'noble revenge' would be his motivation. I like how this parallels him to Viren.

Aaravos crying enough to fill a sea is great imagery

The lore of the startouch elves being actual stars that descend is SO COOL. This is like, the first bit of worldbuilding in this show that's actually seriously impressed me. I love it.

Actual lore as to why humans don't have magic. Well. Not entirely. But it's better than what we had.

I liked Amaya and Janai's wedding looks. Cute.

Janai like Ehe I'll bring out my armies after I get married 😜 is funny. She isn't a very good queen but she is the moment! The gossip blogs would love her.

Ezran eating shit and not having his """diplomacy""" work out. LMAO.

SOL REGEM DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Kinda getting a y'know vibe from Soren and Corvus. I wouldn't mind that. I like that Corvus feels a little more tolerant of Soren than everyone else. It's funny Soren is like finally I'm away from my shit family but his new friends don't seem to care about him at all. Go and be totally free of all this, dude, or get a boyfriend.

Runaan back just when I was starting to think this show really hates gay males.

Rayla correcting her assumption about the sex of the diary's author was cute with the voice over changing. (cont...)

THE BAD

(... cont.) Did unfortunately then make it feel like "Had to be a woman because the author will be pining for a man."

Why is Zym STILL just a dog. Bro. It's like if all through Avatar you had to be aware Appa was going to be king someday. STOP BARKING.

Waiting for the whole cast to become vegetarians and somehow I suspect that will not be happening

When Claudia is listing the spell ingredients she could harvest from that cat thing I was just desperate to have Terry go, "Well, some of those could be ethically harvested, right?"

I find prophecies fairly corny as a writing tool and I get why they're going there -- predicted futures are the source of the anti-human oppression -- but still, I sighed.

Luna Tenebris putting a collar on her pet feels like, weird, right? Right? Right? She's not human and dragons otherwise seem so Respect all magical creatures. (Allegedly.) What is the uneven treatment of animals in this universe.

Naming your episode Red Wedding and I don't see a bloodbath ... oh, come on.

That ramble about ships from Caleb. Shudder.

Jeez, who is Rayla going to save? Her uncle who is an actual character or her backstory parents who are obviously happy and at peace? God forbid one of our main heroes has an actual hard choice to make.

Related: Caleb's 5 second rehab from dark magic.

Making his inner truth being about one other person is ... well ....

Cutting from Viren's rapidly cooling corpse to Lujanne receiving a sensual back massage was certainly a Choice.

Viren missing his wife THIS MUCH when he's barely mentioned her up to now was a little weird. I honestly think they saw the homoerotic interpretations of the very intense dynamics he had with Harrow and Aaravos and have been steadily backpedalling from that. Don't get me wrong, I can believe he loved her and he misses her, but the degree of it feels totally unearned.

I get children's media will have mascots for the children, normally I don't mind them, but dear god this show is hitting critical mass on annoying sidekicks (Zym counts as a very big one and he's already nigh unbearable.)

THE UGLY

I can imagine that the descendants of the human children Leola granted magic to are now able to do magic naturally and this could be the lore behind either Caleb or Ezran's abilities. I actually don't mind this as finally being in-universe explanation for this disparity that isn't just 'they want it more' or whatever, but it doesn't help this show's "Better People Are Born Better" messaging. Now, in that vein ...

King Ezran is a KING. Have we mentioned this? He's a king. He's divinely ordained to be above everyone else. You must show him respect because he's KING. Even Rayla emphasizes what a KING he is. BOW BEFORE HIM.

Ezran's idea of """diplomacy""" is just going "Be nice, please." (Followed by a threat LMAO.) "Go live somewhere else." WHERE. What if they try to occupy territory that isn't theirs? Xadian society seems quite separated and territorial. Ezran doesn't consider this. He doesn't consider anything. He has no actual diplomatic skills because he never offers anything, he just expects people to listen to him because he's KING.

You know in Parasite when they're like Of course the rich people are nice, they can afford to be? When Ezran was going I'm a king and I can choose kindness I was like, You're king because of an accident of your birth, and all your privilege and people looking out for you allows you to operate the way you do.

(Janai having an evil brother who is Not The True Heir To The Throne and Trying To Steal It is just part of the show's overall obsession with this narrative -- see also Viren coming from a less privileged background.)

Of course it's still funny to see Ezran be continuously characterized as So Compassionate, So Loving but when it comes to say, Not burning his own people alive or Extending the hand of kindness to one of his oldest childhood friends or her father, he just turns that shit off. This could be interesting hypocrisy if I thought the show was trying to intentionally paint him this way, instead of just wanting him to not be a total pushover because he's THE KING!!! ALL BOW BEFORE THE KING!!!!

The unbelievable frustration caused by a scene where Claudia is begging to not have to use dark magic -- Terry coming in and saving the day with natural magic -- Claudia staring at the peaceful solution and realizing she needs to change -- BUT IT'S STILL A FUNDAMENTAL DISPARITY IN HOW HUMANS CAN EXIST IN THIS WORLD? Is Claudia supposed to die because dark magic is too wrong to use? Now we have the reveal that humans are being actively denied magic I'm hesitantly hopeful they may get some justice in this regard, but it doesn't change the reality of humans right now. What are humans supposed to do? Rely on others for help? Oh, sure, most of the elves and dragons we meet now are just so nice and helpful to humans, because of the show's 'bad apple' approach to prejudice I've mentioned before, but we know that wasn't always the case.

Like, this actual reminder that the difference in power between a single dragon and a human settlement, and unlike the last time we're on the side of humans this time so you can better appreciate the horror of it ... it's depressing to feel like "Only by grace of your betters do you survive." It's echoes of Janai's 'forgiveness' of the human who put out the fire of that elf who assaulted her. "Aren't you lucky we're so NICE?"

This is all compounded by what I meant at the start of my review, that they've written themselves into a corner, especially wrt dark magic. In universe Soren sees no choice but to ask his father to do dark magic, something all the characters scold each other for constantly. Out of universe, the writers had a huge fuck off dragon come along to commit genocide against the humans and the only realistic solution is .... having Viren do dark magic, something the narrative constantly reinforces as bad. They ultimately frame this act as heroic, and according to a writer (I believe) on the discord, he speaks the spell forward to represent how this act of inherent good overcomes the "inherent evil" of dark magic (quotation marks theirs, interestingly.) I think the writers, for the most part, clearly like Viren and Claudia a lot, and like giving them 'big moments' with dark magic ... but this is part of the reason why the show has continuously reinforced a NEED for dark magic without giving any viable solution for the average human who doesn't have natural magical powers or is friends with dragons and elves like our main heroes. Ultimately, it feels hypocritical of the show to keep going on about the evil of dark magic (now very firmly an addiction metaphor) while having no solution for humans in tricky situations that aren't "magic you and only you can do, for some reason" or "queen dragon who somehow still isn't dead dear god coming to save you" or, y'know, "dark magic." Only one of these is really viable for the average person.

Like, you make it an addiction metaphor, but where's the alternative? Vampires need to drink blood to survive but vampire series often show vampires refusing to drink human blood as an addiction metaphor ... they drink animal blood instead, or something, and you get the metaphor. Right now, in TDP, it's either, do dark magic and suffer, or don't do dark magic and ... suffer more? Okay. I'm not saying life has to be fair or that there isn't value in accepting loss, but when Viren scolds Kpp'Ar for having all his fun with dark magic and then very callously dismissing Viren's fear for his son, I felt that. Viren isn't begging for a beer here. He's begging to save his son. Addiction metaphors need to match the scale and reality of what is being shown to you.

Sorry, I'm now going to harp on more about the Your Betters Are Born Better stuff now because I was actually enjoying (you know, tearfully so) Viren's death until his final lines. WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I GASPED!!!!!!!! HOLD ON!!!!!!!!!!! Like, let me get it out of the way, I get it echoes his last exchange to Harrow and his loyalty to Harrow is tied to his loyalty to Katolis, and they're saying "He was power hungry but now he is acting in a way that is purely, totally selfless for maybe the first time in his life," which is fine. The problem is, I have sat through six seasons of this show kissing royal ass. I have seen Aanya (shudder) mock him for not being a real noble-born ruler. I have seen Ezran's divine authority be reinforced time and again, and seen Viren throw himself submissively before his King to submit to his judgement as King, not as someone he once hurt. I have been reminded time and again that less privileged people who want the power necessary to succeed in a world biased against them are power-hungry lunatics unless they submit themselves enough to the Supreme Order of the world. So to have Viren's last words be him reinforcing that the most heroic thing he can ever be is A LOYAL SERVANT is just ... horrible. If they'd just kept the framing of Viren's death on his love for his family, it would have been way, way better.

Altogether I uh guess the season was mostly fine. They actually did a better job tying disparate narratives together with common themes which I appreciate. I liked the magefam stuff. I hope Soren eventually learns the stuff Viren chose not to tell him. I hope there's realistic forward growth on the attitude towards dark magic and why humans feel they need it, like some acknowledgement that Katolis was only saved because of Viren (make that two nations he has explicitly saved.) Maybe even Ezran can take a break from being unbearably sanctimonious to properly acknowledge his sacrifice. That would be nice!

I really hope humans get some justice for how they've been actively denied a valuable resource. It seems a self-fulfilling prophecy (they punished Leola for giving humans magic, this made Aaravos go darksided, Aaravos gave humans dark magic, humans are very set against the magical community for the way they've been treated so they're more callous about using dark magic) so I hope the ultimate lesson won't be "humans don't deserve this" but "humans only ended up here because they were treated like they don't deserve it, but they do, by right of existing as beings in this world." If Callum (+ Ezran) end the series as the only or some of the only humans with magic powers, I'm going to eat drywall.

[wishful-thinking64]

One Hell of an Unpopular Opinion #03

Characters like Barbie Wire, Chaz, Crimson, Octavia, and Stella only exist as plot devices to garner sympathy for other characters. _______ I knew fully well that Chaz and Crimson were going to merely be plot devices for Moxxie the more I watched Exes & Oohs. And sure enough, Chaz was killed at the end of that very episode and Crimson is yet another wacky cartoon villain that the narrative expects for you to take seriously. Both of these characters existed so that the audience could gain sympathy (or at least pity) for Moxxie being raised in a Mafia family and having been abused as a child along with being betrayed by his ex-boyfriend (who also happened to be Millie's ex-boyfriend for some reason.) Other than Moxxie's Mafia family upbringing making zero sense the more you think about it, Viv has basically done this exact backstory before in the form of Angel Dust (with the whole mobster backstory who was also abused by his father.) However, the Exes & Oohs episode and title actually stems from one of the HH mockup episodes that was originally about Charlie and Vaggie coming across Charlie's ex, Seviathan (yes, that's what Viv named him), and his sister, Helsa, while they were at a dinner party.

Now, do I think Chaz and Crimson could've had the potential to be good characters? In all honesty, no. Especially not Chaz. The guy is a harmful stereotype of pansexual people and how, "They'll sleep with anyone," which no, they won't. I'm not pansexual myself but that thought process is as gross as it is fucking stupid. The only person who I've seen even re-writing Chaz has been Loves Art23 (I mainly know her for YouTube videos being critical on Hazbin Hotel + Helluva Boss along with other shows like the disaster known as High Guardian Spice) and I think she's done a fairly good job so kudos to her for making him work. Personally, though I'm scrapping him as that gives me one less character to worry about when re-writing HB. Crimson would have to be heavily and I mean HEAVILY reworked/re-written in order for him to make any actual sense. That and I'm tired of every character having some variation of the same daddy issues in the Hellaverse. Which means he's also gonna get axed from me. Moving onto the ladies I mentioned, let's start off with Barbie Wire.

Having been foreshadowed since the pilot of I.M.P. (as seen when Tilla was still Barb's and Blitzo's older sister rather than their mother) Barbie Wire was an anticipated character by fans for years! And then her actual appearance finally happened in Unhappy Campers, an episode hated by practically everyone who saw it, and no one really cared about her showing up, other than the fact that the writers thought that having her seduce a BARELY legal adult would make for a good joke, when in reality, it only made everybody uncomfortable and several people dislike Barbie because of it. Sure, near the end of the episode she had that "emotional" scene with Blitzo that wants the viewers to feel bad for him and Barbie before she left but in the long run it didn't matter as fans barely even talk about it because of how uneventful it truly was. So, with that out of the way, would I keep Barbie Wire around for a rewrite of HB? To that I say, yes! There are several paths Barbie Wire's overall character could go in. If you're mainly sticking to canon, then what you have to work with is a former circus performer who lost her mother in a fire caused by her twin brother that left his own best friend to rot and be disabled for the rest of his life. It's very likely that this very fire, caused her to be out of a job and probably even homeless for a bit which could explain why she ended up becoming both a drug attic and a drug dealer. Homelessness is one of the few things that nobody wants to experience. It causes people to be filled with a sense of overwhelming loneliness and desperation as many of them either believe that there's nothing they can do or they do anything and everything that they can to get out of it even if that means resorting to crime. If you wanted to have her be loosely based on canon instead, you could make it to where she never learned about who started the fire and actually stuck with Blitzo well into adulthood. Have her become one of the members of I.M.P. and later down the line have her learn through someone like Fizz or maybe Cash (her and Blitzo's father) what actually went down that day. Have her be rightfully pissed off at Blitzo for screwing over multiple people along with being the one responsible for killing their mom. Anyway, let's proceed onto Stella and her daughter Octavia.

As much as the narrative wants me to hate Stella with a burning passion cause she hurts Stolas, I can't do it for multiple reasons but I'll list my top three. #01.) Stella's just as (if not even more so) stuck in this arranged loveless marriage as Stolas is. #02.) If the man I had no choice in marrying not only cheated on me with a man from one of the lowest classes in all of Hell but IN OUR OWN HOME & SHARED BEDROOM NO LESS? OH, FUCK NO!

#03.) This woman had to spend 9 months having to nourish and care for a baby inside her stomach that she had with a man that didn't even want to sleep with her. On top of that, she had to have become pregnant with Octavia when she was a young adult since current day Stolas and Stella are only in their mid 30s. I need you to let that information sink in.

In short, I can't hate Stella for loathing Viv's pathetic self insert bird twink with every fiber of her being.

Having said that, would I have Stella in my HB rewrite? Well, considering that I plan on keeping the war that happened in the bible that caused Lucifer and several angels to fall from grace, one of which being Stolas. Kind of. Allow me to elaborate, I would keep Stella as Octavia's mother but I wouldn't have her marry Stolas. I'd have her be a surrogate mother that way Stolas still gets an heir and Octavia could still exist. Speaking of Octavia...

We all know that she exists to make Stolas look like a better person as several stans of this show love to say how much of a good dad Stolas is when he isn't. He neglects Octavia frequently in favor of Blitzo and only pays attention to her when she's gone although EVEN THAT doesn't last long as shown in Seeing Stars where HE KNEW Octavia was missing on Earth but rather than ACTIVELY look for his daughter, what does he do? HE SITS THROUGH A STUPID LIVE COMEDY SHOW CAUSE BLITZO IS PERFORMING! HE COMPLETELY SIDELINES HIS OWN DAUGHTER IN FAVOR OF A LIVE COMEDY SHOW!

God, Octavia deserves so much better than to have a dad like him. I'm keeping Octavia for my HB rewrite so that this poor girl not only realizes how much of a bastard her dad is but eventually gets the found family she deserves. I don't plan for it to be through I.M.P. though. In closing, the characters of this show deserve to be better developed but especially the women in them.

_______

That was a long one to get through cause it's been on my mind for a while. Thank you all for reading through it and bye for now everybody!

[heretichromia]

Exploring the Relationship Dynamics Between the Abyssal Hunters

I had a few people either misinterpret or express confusion regarding this post that I made, so I want to make a different post covering the same (and more) material that's more rooted in explicit textual evidence which doesn't use emotionally-charged language. I'm going to try my best to stay neutral here and discuss multiple possible interpretations.

In short, I want to break down all that we know regarding the nature of the relationships shared by the four* Abyssal Hunters. In long, see below. And...I mean long, it's 5,000 words.

*Abyssal Hunters as a faction of Ægir; sorry, Andreana. Note: Minor Path of Life (CN) spoilers below. None of the major events are spoiled, but I do talk about a lot of the context that the event gives us on Ægir society and the backstories of the Hunters.

What we know from the text:

I'll keep this segment as objective as possible, and only state things that I can directly argue as nearly indisputable from textual evidence. Some interpretation work is going to have to be done here, however, and I'm open to anyone who disagrees with anything here pointing out the passages in the text that contradict my assertions.

Ages:

This is a subject the community as a whole is widely misinformed about, so I'm highlighting it separately.

We know from Path of Life that the expected lifespan of an Ægir is around 150 years.

Gladiia is likely in her late 30s. She has 17 years of combat experience, which we're led to believe began relatively shortly after she received independence from her abusive, neglectful, and controlling mother. She was appointed as Consul of Technology before becoming an Abyssal Hunter, though her module description characterizes her as having been unable to decide the trajectory of her life, which implies to me that she was not free of her mother for very long before the operation. We don't have reason to believe Ægir uses child soldiers nor appoints children to be Technology Consuls, so this places her minimum age at around 35 and her likely age as a little older than that. She was still characterized as a young Consul ten years after her appointment, so I don't believe she'd be much older. Late 30s is my best approximation; much older than that, and things begin making less sense regarding the multiple parental figures still present in her life.

Skadi is likely also in her 30s, though the actual bounds are wider than Gladiia's. She has 13 years of combat experience, making her 31 at the youngest. However, from Path of Life we know that she was the most skilled technician in her division prior to becoming an Abyssal Hunter. This means she probably had at least a few, if not several years of work experience out of the Academy. If she's younger than Gladiia, it's likely not by many years, and she could even be conceivably older than her. I think she's probably a small handful of years younger, if you had to ask me my personal interpretation.

Laurentina is the youngest of the Abyssal Hunters. She has seven years of combat experience, implying that she joined a decade after Gladiia. This places her minimum age at 25. We can imagine she's probably not too much older than that, since she never fully embraced a career as a sculptor before changing circumstances caused her to apply for the Abyssal Hunters. She's probably in her mid-to-late 20s.

Ulpianus is the oldest, and potentially by a considerable margin. He was the first Abyssal Hunter, becoming one twenty years ago, as well as one of the scientists who created the Abyssal Hunters to begin with. He was already one of the most preeminent scientific minds of Ægir by this point. Since Ægir can live to 150, this means the upper bound on his age is potentially very high. This man could conceivably be in his 80s or older without it breaking anything we know about the story. The lower bound of his age is probably somewhere in his late 40s at an absolute minimum, assuming that the Ægirian process for becoming an accomplished scientist is anywhere remotely similar to the real-world one. It's completely up to speculation where his actual age falls between those bounds.

Connections between the Hunters:

An important note to make here that isn't precisely a connection, but does inform them: Ægir as a society does not have a compulsion towards nuclear family structures. In fact, the opposite is true. From Path of Life, we know that Ægir are usually raised in groups in dedicated schools. Ægir seems to prioritize careers over interpersonal relationships, and direct blood family ties are much weaker. Ægirian women don't give birth to their children directly; the embryos are surgically removed and then grown separately.

Laurentina's close relationship with her biological parents was noted as being somewhat atypical, and they still didn't raise her themselves. Instead, they allowed childcare services to raise her while frequently taking her with them on their trips when they could. Gladiia's upbringing, where she was isolated by an abusive and neglectful mother, is also atypical. From her conversation with Clemenza, we learn that she was in fact strongly suggested to give up Gladiia to childcare services, but refused to do so.

Onto the actual connections:

Gladiia met Ulpianus in the earlier years of the Abyssal Hunter project, when she was a young, emotionally vulnerable woman who was actively seeking new familial connections (see: her module). Given how well Ulpianus understands the other Hunters (implied in Stultifera Navis and displayed in Path of Life), it's very unlikely that he wasn't aware of this. Ulpianus declined his student Underflow's application to the Abyssal Hunters because he didn't want her to become like him. It's likely, then, that he personally processed Gladiia's entry into the Abyssal Hunters.

We know from Specter the Unchained's module that the two of them spoke at least somewhat often, discussing subjects like philosophy. In the one conversation we see, Ulpianus is explaining to Gladiia his concerns about the direction Ægir is heading in these "protracted days of calamity," and she seems to either agree with or absorb his pontification. He certainly takes the lead in this conversation with the "young Consul," and while a mentorship role can be inferred from this, it's not directly stated anywhere.

From Gladiia's IS3 ending, we know that Ulpianus never directly indicated to her that he felt any connection between them, nor did he bring up concepts like seniority around her. However, his actual feelings concerning her were clearly more sentimental than he let on, as he unexpectedly sacrificed his life for the sake of his "junior." Gladiia hadn't realized he was so sentimental until it happened, but in retrospect she looked back upon it warmly, realizing she never truly understood Ulpianus.

We have fewer interactions between Ulpianus and Skadi than we do between Ulpianus and Gladiia, but we can infer something of a dynamic from what we do have. Ulpianus trusted Skadi implicitly. From Path of Life, we know that he treated her differently from the other Hunters in his company. Ulpianus was a brilliant tactician who gave complex plans to each of his soldiers, but when he got to Skadi—who frequently spaces out when listening to others, and by her own admission in the event doesn't like to think—he merely told her that he trusted her to carry out her duty. He understood her, and didn't belittle her for her weaknesses. He had faith in her, and was right to do so; Skadi completed every mission exceptionally.

In the Second Company, meanwhile, Gladiia and Laurentina clearly had a closer relationship than just their positions would imply. Gladiia considered herself Laurentina's teacher, instructing her not only in the art of war but also in life skills. Their first lesson was not in violence, but in dance (Specter the Unchained OpRec). Whereas Laurentina is now frequently associated with her dancing, not just in narrative framing but actively by Ulpianus in Path of Life, she had barely danced much at all prior to her dances with Gladiia.

Already by the time of her aforementioned conversation with Ulpianus, Gladiia had developed a fondness for her subordinate. She even smiled when she spoke of her glowingly, something she almost never does. Gladiia, as critical as she is of almost everyone, can hardly find fault with Laurentina. From the aforementioned OpRec, we see that even Laurentina expects her to lecture her more than she does. Frequently, when confronted with her peculiarities and the choices she makes, Gladiia will approve of them warmly. The OpRec also has a wonderful passage of them just talking and spending time with one-another. It's very warm and gives a lot of small insights to their relationship and their relationship with the arts (a subject they're both very attached to) that I can't really explain effectively here without exploding the already extremely high word count. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't already.

In short, though, the relationship between Gladiia and Laurentina is very warm despite Gladiia's frequent brusqueness and coldness. In Ægir, they would see plays together—but because of Gladiia's insistence upon minimizing distractions while experiencing art, would sit apart. In Specter's post-Under Tides OpRec, Laurentina had to practically beg Gladiia before she showed her any more warmth than would be warranted to any other subordinate, as Gladiia kept her emotions tightly to her chest. Laurentina's emotional intelligence and close bond with her allows her to see through Gladiia's practiced emotionless exterior. Like Ulpianus, she understands Gladiia well enough to see through the strong facade she fronts to get glimpses into the deep well of anxiety beneath. In Laurentina's story in IS3, their bond is described as so close that she doesn't need to speak with Gladiia to understand her. She continued to dance with her as their primary method of silent communication for months after Gladiia had ceased speaking because of how much she hated how the Seaborn assimilation had changed her voice.

Of course, Laurentina and Skadi also share a deep bond, which is probably the most well-known one. Though how well they knew each other prior to the attack on Ishar'mla is still somewhat unclear—though it's clear from multiple sources (e.g. Specter OpRec, Path of Life, etc.) they weren't strangers—the important bulk of their relationship concerns their time spent together at Rhodes Island on land. Tortured by the Church of the Deep's horrific experiments and driven insane by the originium that Bishop Amaia injected into her spinal column, Laurentina was in an almost unrecognizable state when she was reunited with Skadi (Specter OpRec). She'd developed a second personality called Specter as a result of her experiences, one that was fully unfamiliar to Skadi, and the real Laurentina seemed to be locked away inside her own mind, in endless sleep, unable to awaken.

Skadi took care of Laurentina. She was not easy to care for. Beyond just requiring intensive care to keep her alive, Specter was mentally unstable. She would be unable to leave her treatment room for long stretches of time, and if the way she spoke to Skadi during her OpRec once she'd 'fallen asleep' again is any indication, some of the things she'd say to Skadi were truly vile. To continually bear this cannot have been an easy burden to shoulder, but Skadi would nonetheless come into her room constantly, sing songs to her, and tell her stories. Laurentina heard it all, though she couldn't speak. Though she teased her for it mercilessly when she awoke after Under Tides, she expressed legitimate gratitude to Skadi for all she'd done taking care of her.

If their bond was not intensely close before, it is now. Laurentina, now awake, teaches Skadi to dance in Unchained's OpRec, just as Gladiia taught her before. Just as she can see through Gladiia's facades, Laurentina understands Skadi enough to be able to see through hers to the genuine, warm, and caring person she is. Skadi, meanwhile, goes to great lengths to make sure Laurentina is okay. She cared more about her wellbeing than she did about obediently listening to the orders of her superiors; when Gladiia came to take Specter from Rhodes Island, she protested, and followed Gladiia to Sal Viento to take her back.

Skadi and Gladiia do not have nearly as warm a history. Both are rather emotionally unintelligent and wear masks of indifference around each other. That isn't to say they don't care about each other, though; if anything, we have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Gladiia did not hesitate for a moment about risking death for Skadi's sake in Under Tides, feeling a duty to protect her from both the First to Talk and the monster that dwells inside her head. They share a bond of camaraderie that's constantly reinforced in every event.

In Stultifera Navis and its supplemental material, we got more inklings of the development of a deeper relationship between them, though it's naturally strained because of their natures. Skadi, who always calls Gladiia "Second Captain," accidentally called her Gladiia in SN—to which Gladiia brusquely remarked that she was getting rather comfortable around her. She corrected her mistake and hasn't made it since. In the oft-mentioned now Specter the Unchained OpRec, when Laurentina teaches Skadi how to dance she remarks that Gladiia would like to dance with her. Skadi brushes this off as a mean-spirited joke, but it's much more likely that Laurentina knows they both feel an unspoken fondness for the other and is steadily poking at them to share it with the other.

Lastly, and certainly least, we have Laurentina and Ulpianus. There's...almost nothing here. We know that they're not strangers, and from Path of Life we know that Ulpianus at least understands Laurentina well enough as an individual, but as far as I'm aware there's not much to suggest what sort of relationship they may have had beyond just comrades, if any. Ulpianus seemed to become disinterested in continuing his conversation with Gladiia once she started gushing about Laurentina, but that's more likely a case of him being averse to talks about feelings in general than it is any distaste for Shark herself.

---

Possible interpretations:

From this, we have a pretty good idea of the general shape of how these dynamics work. There's a lot of room to talk about the intricacies of their relationships, and I...can't cover every single possibility here.

I'd love to. If you ask me, I can keep yapping. I didn't write all of this because of some solemn dedication to archiving these fictional fish. Please, litter my inbox if you have questions. I can yap endlessly.

Instead, I'll focus on some of the predominant interpretations that I've seen across discussions and fanworks. Namely, the idea of the Abyssal Hunters as a family and the idea of some of the Abyssal Hunters as romantic partners.

I'll be covering interpretations that are both supported and not supported by the text to varying degrees. I'm going to outline how well I believe the text supports these interpretations, which is obviously going to be subjective, but I'm going to try to keep my own personal bias out of it. I have my own preferences, but I will be as neutral as I can be here.

The Family Angle

The Abyssal Hunters are a found family. That's not so much subtext as it is text—again, see Gladiia's module about how she failed to find the warmth and belonging she sought from her biological family, and instead searched for a new family. They have dynamics between them that are clearly at least meant to mirror existing family dynamics.

But a found family is not the same thing as a biological family. It does not necessarily feature the same dynamics as you'd find between actual family members. The "family angle" is the interpretation that the relationship between all of them is in fact completely familial in nature. While found families do not preclude romantic and sexual relationships between their members, a familial relationship between these characters implies that their bond is strong in a way that is neither romantic nor sexual in nature.

This, in itself, is neither confirmed nor denied by the text. It's consistent with what we're shown, and is perhaps one of the more 'pure' interpretations of these relationships—in the sense that it doesn't read more into the characters than the information presented. The Abyssal Hunters are characterized in expressly familial terms, and so this interpretation says that this is the extent of their dynamics. For clarity, it is neither more nor less correct than other interpretations for this, and is not personally my own. If there's anything limiting this interpretation, it's that Ægirians don't have nuclear family ties in the same way that we do, but that doesn't in my view contradict a familial interpretation as much as it modifies how it's perceived by the characters.

There are, of course, a lot of different ways you can approach the family angle. I'll outline some of the more sensible ones that can be concluded from the text.

One of the more common interpretations is that of the three female hunters as siblings. Again, there's no real confirmation of this in the text—only sentiments that the bond between them is thicker than blood—but there's nothing in the text which contradicts this. They certainly could play into typical sibling dynamics fairly well, with Gladiia as the serious, beleaguered older sister who whips the younger siblings into shape, and Laurentina as the brattiest child of the family who's nonetheless more emotionally intelligent than her stubborn sisters. It's one I see a lot, and I don't really see an issue with it.

Another common interpretation is that there exists something mirroring a parent/daughter relationship between the Captains and their subordinates: Ulpianus/Skadi, and Gladiia/Laurentina. From what's been outlined above, there's definitely food for this sort of interpretation in the text. Gladiia, for instance, is definitely motherly towards Laurentina. I do not believe this is a coincidence; as someone who was failed by her mother in horrendous ways, she's taken on a motherly role towards those she cares for and whom she believes she has a responsibility for. I think this, in itself, is a fine interpretation.

I think it gets much weaker when it's taken a step further into a literal parent/daughter relationship between them. These are adult women. At most, the age gap between Gladiia and Laurentina is a little over a decade, and they were adults when they met. She might feel a motherly responsibility for this woman, but I do not believe she'd consider a fully adult woman only around a decade her junior to be her daughter. Friendships between people in their mid-20s and mid-30s happen all the time in the real world. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, anything like real parent-child relationships. The age gap between Ulpianus and Skadi is likely wider, and thus it's more reasonable that Ulpianus would see someone Skadi's age that he met in her 20s as someone who could have been his daughter. Even in that case, their dynamic would be heavily qualified by the fact that he has always known Skadi as a fully adult woman.

One similar possible dynamic that I almost never see is the idea of Ulpianus as a father for Gladiia. They're of similar ages, and if he saw Skadi as someone who could have been his daughter, he surely see Gladiia as the same. Gladiia, as well, desperately needed a parental figure in her life and never got one. They clearly have a senior/junior, possibly mentor/student relationship in the text, even if neither of them explicitly acknowledge it as one. This is the logical next step, which many have taken for the other plausible parent/daughter relationships, but I never see this one.

The Romance Angle

People like shipping. I'm people, too. I like shipping. It's pretty natural that, when it comes to characters we like that have close relationships like this, there's going to be people who are primarily invested in slapping two or more of them together like Barbies. Some of these relationship dynamics are more plausible than others.

Here's where some of the objectivity might break down. I'll try my best to limit my personal bias, but it's extremely hard to speak objectively about topics that are so obviously subject to personal interpretation.

First, I'd like to emphasize that Ægirian social dynamics, likely including romance, are alien to us. The likelihood that these characters would feel exactly the same about romance as we do in a predominantly monogamous society structured around nuclear families with a marriage at the core is...very low. Ægir and the nations of land are fundamentally different in ways that make understanding one-another difficult. Listen to some of Specter the Unchained's voicelines expressing her frustration about how she doesn't have the means to convey to the Doctor everything she'd like to. While we can (and should if we'd like to) have fun with applying our concepts of romance to them, we should always keep in mind that they might not actually share them as characters.

On the more fun side, this opens up a world of possible arrangements. We can speculate, for instance, that these characters might be much more open to polyamory than others might. Or, perhaps, their courtship looks very different from ours, and we can explore how that might look through fiction. One relationship existing does not need to preclude the others even in our society, much less theirs.

The most obvious potential romance that most people would identify among the Abyssal Hunters is Skadi and Laurentina, and I have to agree that it's one of the most plausible, if not the single most. I...don't think I even need to linger too much on this one, because most of it's already been laid out. Their story reads like a tragic yuri plot. The romance is practically already written; if you showed me the exact same story that these two have, but they kiss at the end, it would not remotely feel like it came out of nowhere. It's one of many dynamics between characters that would be readily interpreted as romantic by a wider audience if, say, Skadi were a man. It's already one of the most popular Arknights ships as-is! It fits their characters, and makes sense as an interpretation.

It isn't necessarily the only interpretation of these characters, of course. As discussed, there's a wide array of ways you can interpret their bond, and many are just as supported by the text. While there's plenty of subtext that can be said to be romantic between them, that subtext can all be interpreted in platonic and familial ways. This is a Chinese gacha game; we're not going to get explicit confirmation of any of these relationships, and all romantic subtext will be written to resemble other kinds of subtext. That means that other subtext that was legitimately not meant to be romantic can scan as romantic. There's no strong argument here for authorial intent regarding the two of them either way.

...You can tell how strong the potential for a ship here is that I felt the need to use one of the two paragraphs I spent talking about it to discuss how it's not necessarily the only possible dynamic.

The second most likely, in my eyes, is Laurentina and Gladiia, which I'll elaborate further on than Skadi/Laurentina because of its rarity as a ship by comparison; it's legitimately plausible that most who might read this haven't considered it at all. Of the pairs possible within the trio, they're the two with the oldest history, who clearly have a deep and intimate bond. The exact nature of this bond is subject to interpretation, of course. As discussed earlier, Gladiia is quite motherly when it comes to Laurentina. A familial interpretation of the two of them is common, but as uncommon as a romantic interpretation is, I think it's both easily supported and already has plenty of material in the text to feed it. You can easily read the time they spent together in Specter the Unchained's OpRec as a date. That their dynamic has motherly characteristics does not stop it from being romantic. Plenty of romances in popular fiction have motherly elements to them; that behavior can simply be Gladiia's chosen language of love.

An issue that I can imagine is the power dynamic between them—not necessarily even as a moral argument about the ship, but as an issue between their characters. Laurentina was, of course, young when she joined the Abyssal Hunters, and Gladiia became both her superior and her mentor. I would be surprised if Laurentina was much older than 21 at the time, and I would not be surprised if she was in fact 18. Gladiia, meanwhile, would have been probably in the range of 28-30. While almost the same exact age gap would be present between Laurentina and Skadi, who would have met her at a similar time, the fact that Gladiia served as her mentor definitely colors the relationship in a different way.

As someone who clearly felt a responsibility towards Laurentina, I find it very unlikely that the nature of their relationship was immediately romantic. Even though Gladiia was immature in many ways and inexperienced compared to others of her age as a result of her isolated childhood and arrested development caused by her mother's abuse, she still likely would have seen a romance as unacceptable between the two of them. That may have even contributed to the arm's length she seems to sometimes keep Laurentina at, to the latter's chagrin.

However, critically, they aren't that age anymore. Laurentina is firmly an adult who can make reasoned decisions for herself, and frankly often showcases more emotional maturity than Gladiia does. Their situation is radically changed. Gladiia is still her commander, but she's her leader more because of mutual trust than any necessity to follow the orders of the Ægirian military. They're no longer student and teacher; they're much more akin to equals now. There are now things that Laurentina can teach Gladiia; Gladiia is now the one who most desperately needs character development. The barriers that could have stopped their feelings from becoming a romance have eroded, and there is now the potential for one to form that is completely fitting within the bounds of the text and our understanding of their characters.

...

Okay, it's time to discuss the subject matter of the post I linked at the top of this one. Ulpianus and Gladiia.

...Almost everything I've just said about Gladiia and Laurentina applies doubly here.

It's the same dynamic. A junior who becomes an equal. It's much more common, in my experience, probably because it's heterosexual. Like with the other dynamics, there's nothing in the story that outright contradicts it. I do think its claim is weaker than the last two, though. I find it much harder to believe that Ulpianus would have harbored romantic feelings towards Gladiia.

She was much younger than him at the time they met, compared to the age gap between the other Hunters and Laurentina, and—as mentioned—he was likely very aware of her emotional immaturity, vulnerability, and desire to form real connections for the first time in her life. Ulpianus is, from what we can tell, a very thoughtful man who understands his comrades very well and reckons solemnly with the consequences of his actions. As I put it in a previous post, he's a man who "constantly pontificates on duty, responsibility, and what 'ought to be.'" I don't believe a principled man like Ulpianus—who is stubborn about principles to the point of contentiousness, who considers emotions to be secondary to duty and righteousness, who is prepared to throw away everything for what he believes in, including his life and his humanity—would do anything that could be considered taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable young woman. That seems incredibly contradictory to his character. Even if she's grown physically, I think it's easy to read from his actions that he still sees her as someone who's still immature. I think he would have a much harder time seeing Gladiia as an equal peer than Gladiia would Laurentina.

Now, to play devil's advocate somewhat, I will say that there's material within this to work with. The love of a man who won't even confess that he cares at all for his younger student, much less act upon his desires is a setup for what could be a great fan-made story. I don't personally think it could ever end with the two of them together while staying true to their characterization, but that's up for interpretation. This is, however, not the way I see this ship characterized at all. If anything, they're most popularly depicted as ex-lovers or the husband/wife of a nuclear family. I've probably belabored the point enough that I don't need to break those concepts down, so I'll leave it there.

Briefly, I want to pay some lip service to the idea I floated earlier of a...fish polycule. I don't believe that Skadi and Gladiia have the most romantic flags at present out of the trio, but (especially in the event that both of them are romantically involved with Laurentina) I can easily see them growing closer and eventually breaking down the barrier of communication between them that stops them from expressing their fondness for one-another in ways that aren't professing they'd want the other to kill them if they became a monster.

There's not a lot of material in the text for this, but that's hardly stopped anyone before. It certainly hasn't stopped me. I ship Gladiia with Lavinia/Penance. I don't need them to acknowledge each other's existence to see a line there; I'm not about to judge anyone for pairing off two characters who have had considerable screen time together, where one nearly died for the sake of the other.

Lastly, I feel like I should at least mention e.g. Laurentina/Irene and Gladiia/Kal'tsit. Mostly because this post isn't about those dynamics. I could talk about Gladiia/Kal'tsit. I could talk about the parallels in Gladiia's first IS3 scene, where Gladiia's recollections about her mother's neglect are immediately juxtaposed with Kal'tsit's concern for her. I could further elaborate on Gladiia's complex relationships with the concept of motherhood, and how Kal'tsit relates to that. I won't. But I could.

I don't even know if I ship Gladiia/Kal'tsit as a romantic couple. I just like their relationship a lot, whatever form it takes.

---

Endnotes.

Thanks for reading! I don't have a sweeping conclusion to finish with; the point of this post was just to compare and contrast popular fandom depictions of these characters with the actual material found in the text.

I hope you enjoyed, or learned something. I know there's so much goddamn text in Arknights that it's kind of impossible for anyone to reflect thoroughly on every single part of it. If you have any questions, criticism, or suggestions, my inbox is open!

[yelena-bellova]

Heartfirst: A Ted Lasso Story - Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight: Saturday Morning

Plot: Jamie and Y/n spend an unconventional day off together.

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: f!reader, language, mention of child abuse/neglect

A/N: Annndd we’re finally in it in it. A little bit of backstory, a little bit of trauma bonding and a whole lot of fluffy angst. Enjoy!!

(I also fell way behind w/ the taglist and since this series is maybe PG-13, I’m dropping the 16+ 💕)

—————

Someone was knocking on the door.

No, not knocking. Pounding.

Y/n slipped out of bed silently, as if the intruder was already inside her apartment. Bleary-eyed and stumbling in the dark, her hands fumbled for the baseball bat she kept behind her closet door. She’d had it since college and she couldn’t believe she was finally going to have to use it.

The banging continued as she walked through the apartment and down the stairs, growing louder the longer it went unanswered. Whoever was coming to abduct or rob her was clearly in a rush to do so.

Y/n steadied her breath and adjusted her grip on the bat, daring to peek through the peephole and see what she was up against.

“Wha-“ she uttered, lowering her bat and unlocking the door. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

On her stoop, Jamie was bouncing in place, “Can I use your loo?”

Y/n squinted, putting up a hand to block the bulb of Jamie’s stupid headlamp. “What?”

“Roy and I are on a run and I’ve gotta take a piss,” Jamie explained hurriedly, “You’re the only person I know in the neighborhood.”

With a heart rate well over 120 and a mind sluggish from sleep, it took Y/n a second to process his words. “I thought you were a fucking burgler,” she groaned.

Jamie whipped his hand frantically, “Is that a yes?”

Y/n was tempted to shut the door and let him take his chances with a public urination charge. Her friendlier instincts won out and she stepped to the side, letting Jamie race up the staircase to her bathroom. She shut and locked the door once more before trudging back up and setting her bat on the kitchen counter.

A moment later, Jamie emerged, calm and laughing to himself about something. “What kind of burgler knocks before robbin’ ya?”

Y/n was in no mood for his sense of humor. “It is 4-fucking-AM,” she pointed to the stove clock, “I am a single woman who lives on her own and it is 4-fucking-AM.”

“Alright, alright,” Jamie held his hands up in surrender, “Coulda texted you. I’m sorry.”

Y/n leaned against the back of her couch and wiped her hands over her face. Jamie made his way to the stairs, but was struck with a grand idea before he could take the first step.

“Do you wanna come with?”

Y/n glanced up from her palms, “What?”

“With me,” Jamie continued, “Roy. Go for a mornin’ run?”

“What part of 4-fucking-AM isn’t getting through to you?” Y/n asked, floored by his oblivion.

“Yeah, but you’re gonna be up anyway now,” Jamie shrugged, hopping from one foot to the other, “Get your blood pumpin’. Some endorphins.”

Y/n stared at him and wondered if she tried hard enough, could she kill him with eye contact alone?

“It’ll be fun,” Jamie smiled, jutting out his neck a little.

As much as it pained her to admit, he was right. There was no chance in hell she was getting back to sleep with all her senses dialed to 11. It was either tossing and turning in bed for an hour before she admitted defeat and started her day, or do something productive.

Y/n rolled her eyes and brushed past Jamie to grab her running shoes. “4 fucking AM…” she grumbled as she passed him once more.

Jamie made two victorious fists, too pleased with himself to acknowledge the fact that he’d robbed her of a precious Saturday sleep-in. She’d enjoy herself once they got out.

Grabbing a hoodie and locking up her apartment, Y/n followed Jamie out to the street where Roy was waiting on the sidewalk. Under the light of his own headlamp, he looked as confused as Y/n had moments before when he saw her trailing behind Jamie.

“The fuck are you doing here?”

“Convinced States to join us, yeah?” Jamie answered as Y/n yawned.

“I’m gonna fucking push you into the first lake we see,” Y/n glared at the back of Jamie’s head.

Roy looked between his trainee and the woman he barely knew, but respected for the threat alone. Nodding, his eyes landed on Y/n, “You can stay if you keep up.”

“No problem there,” Y/n sighed, taking off into a jog. If Jamie was going to ruin her day off, the least she could do was beat him.

Sharing a glance of amusement, Jamie and Roy ran after Y/n, into the early London morning.

—————————

It turned out to be a fair fight between Y/n and Jamie. Jamie hadn’t underestimated her, per se, but he figured her exhaustion would slow her down. She’d held her own right up against him and impressed even Roy.

“You’re fuckin’ fit, you are,” Jamie said after, the two of them having gone for tea afterwards. He quickly realized the double meaning of the word, “I mean, not like that. I mean, you are, yeah, but I mean-“

“Oh my gosh, words,” Y/n groaned, reaching with one hand to Jamie’s mouth, “Stop.”

Jamie swerved to avoid the hit, chuckling after. “You’re a proper asshole when you’re tired,” he snickered.

“Well, when I get woken up at 4AM,” Y/n glared over at the man, “No, I don’t feel particularly kind.”

The two of them strolled through Richmond, Roy having left them mere minutes ago. They’d run on and off for about an hour before Y/n had to sit through the rest of their regiment. She’d taken a great deal of joy in sitting back with Roy and yelling commands at Jamie.

“I think Roy’s gonna invite you every mornin’ now,” Jamie mused, taking a sip of tea.

Y/n faked a gasp, grasping Jamie’s bicep, “Getting to hurl insults at you? Every day? Oh, well, that’s it. Better hand Keeley my resignation.”

Jamie laughed, shoving her off him before spotting and leading them to a bench. Richmond on a Saturday morning was bustling with people, but it was a peaceful kind of frenzy. The kind you could watch and enjoy.

“Admit it,” Jamie said, sitting down, “You had fun.”

Y/n sighed, pulling her tea to her lips. No such thing would be admitted.

“Why are you even still doing this?” She asked, looking out into the park where a group of kids were kicking around a football, “Zava’s gone. You’re back to being number one. Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

Jamie ran his fingers over his chin, she wasn’t wrong. Zava had made his unannounced exit two weeks prior. The whole reason Roy had offered to train him was to get him back to being the best. He may not have earned it, but the title had been bestowed back to Jamie. Mission accomplished.

“Think it’s more than that,” he answered, “More than Zava. I think…I know I can be better. And I wanna get there. See what I can do.”

Y/n nodded in reply, that was something she could understand. How many times had she pushed herself in school? At work? Not to beat anyone, but to know she had done her absolute best?

“Maybe it’ll pay off in Amsterdam,” she commented before taking a sip of tea. The exhibition match was just one week away.

“Ah,” Jamie smiled, “You excited?”

Y/n tilted her head from side to side in a shrug, “I guess. I’ve never been.”

Jamie’s face transformed in a split second, from content to near disgusted.

Y/n leant back, “What?”

“You’ve never been to Amsterdam?” Jamie was darn near incredulous at the mere notion.

“No,” Y/n replied, her voice jumping an octave under his judgement.

Jamie scoffed and turned away from her. “How the fuck do you live here this long and not go to Amsterdam?”

“And yet somehow, I still walk the earth,” Y/n chuckled at how bothered he was, “I’m guessing you’ve been.”

Jamie’s lips popped out very duckface-ish. “‘Course I have. Practically a fuckin’ tour guide.”

“Alright,” Y/n said, “Gimme your recommendations.”

Settling back against the bench as if he meant to stay a proper while, Jamie ran through his index. He picked through the pleasant memories, stag parties and one emergency diverted flight that ended in a particularly rowdy five star hotel evening. None of those amounted to anything stacked up against one trip taken much earlier in life.

“Gotta go to the Anne Frank house,” he began to list off ideas, “It’s super sad, but you gotta do it. There’s a really good place nearby to get stroopwafel, gotta go there. Eh, a boat ride down the canal. The tour guides driving ‘em give you all these fun facts about the architecture and the history and stuff.”

Y/n listened, it was the first time she’d seen Jamie properly excited about something. He was passionate on the field, but this was a childlike joy.

“You do remember there’s a match, right?” she laughed, “I’m only gonna end up having, like, one night.

“Then fuckin’ pack it in,” Jamie shrugged and gestured ahead of them like the country was laid out before them, “It’s Amsterdam.”

Y/n raised her cup to take a sip, “How do you know so much? You’ve really been that many times?”

“My mum took me when I were about 16,” Jamie answered, “Took me to all the historical sights and stuff. Guess it all just stuck.”

“Hm,” Y/n nodded, “What about your dad?”

What prompted her to ask, Y/n couldn’t know. She’d noticed that Jamie’s mother came up in conversation sometimes, but his father never did. Her subconscious curiosity had gotten the better of her.

Jamie felt his chest tighten at the mention of his dad. Y/n couldn’t have known anything about their relationship, he knew this. He just wasn’t sure how to reply when it was a subject he didn’t want to pick up. At all.

“Not really a thing,” he chose the safest answer, “He took me before me mum, but…wasn’t nearly as fun.”

Y/n watched his expression shift, how his eyes went from watching his fingers slide over his paper cup to the air in front of them. How Jamie was always fidgeting, but was now doing it with purpose. Worse, she recognized something about all of it.

“I’m sorry,” she backtracked, “That was way too personal, I shouldn’t have-“

“No, it’s-“ Jamie quickly held up a hand. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel bad for her innocence. “It’s fine. He’s just a,” Jamie shook his head, “Fuckin’ asshole.”

Y/n gazed down at her tea, sensing there was more that he wanted to say. Looking away not only saved her dignity, but it allowed him some quasi-privacy to say it.

“What about your folks?” Jamie finally looked back at Y/n, nudging her elbow a little.

That was worse, Y/n decided. Far worse.

“Uh,” she stalled, there was no choice but to answer, “We don’t really talk, to be honest.”

“Why not?” Jamie didn’t hesitate to ask.

Y/n inhaled deeply, blowing the air out with puffed cheeks. It was a piece of her history that she’d left in America, sending it into silent submission the second she stepped foot in London.

“We just…” Y/n shrugged, “Don’t have a relationship. Never have.”

Jamie’s brows dropped in confusion, “What’re you, like, adopted or somethin’?”

“Nope,” Y/n’s lips popped around the syllable, “They’ve just…never had any interest in their kids. Me and my sister, we kind of raised ourselves.”

“Fuck,” Jamie muttered, realizing he had definitely dug too deep. It was too late to back out though, their secrets were spilling themselves out. Better to lean into it than try and patch the all too massive leaks.

Y/n bitterly chuckled over her tea cup, “Yeah.”

Jamie absorbed what she said, leaning on his knees now. It was like he had to take a defensive position up a past that was nowhere near, yet all around him. If Y/n was going to be honest, the least he could do was match it.

“My dad and I,” he started, picking at a loose corner of the cardboard around his cup, “We kinda got in a fight. Earlier this year.”

Y/n turned to face Jamie, thinking he meant an entirely normal type of argument.

“Came back to the locker room after we lost a match,” he continued the story, “Talked a bunch of shit. Got ugly and…” Jamie hesitated, his fist feeling the phantom pain of the confrontation, “Yeah…”

Y/n’s lips parted in gentle shock, he didn’t need to finish for the meaning to come across.

Jamie could feel her eyes resting on him and found the strength to meet them. The tight smile across his face didn’t match the story, but it felt necessary. He sat back, hating the silence they were wading in.

“My parents never yelled. Not because me and my sister were perfect angels or anything, but…they just didn’t care enough to get that emotional,” Y/n admitted before she could even realize the vulnerability in which she said it with, “I mean, there was nothing we could do to even get them to pay attention to us. No recitals, no science fairs, no achievements…nothing. So long as they kept a roof over our heads and kept us breathing, they felt they were doing enough of a job.”

Jamie scoffed, bitter for both of them. “Me dad couldn’t be bothered to show up to any matches. Not when I were a kid.”

“What about when you went pro?” Y/n asked.

“Only in Manchester,” Jamie answered, “Screamin’ at me on and off the pitch that I were doin’ it wrong.”

Y/n traced the curve of Jamie’s jaw with her eyes, watching it clench. He made sense. For the first time since they’d met, he made total sense. You couldn’t go through a childhood like his and not come out with something to prove.

Their conversation became an exchange. One would share and, to make the other feel not so vulnerable, the other would chime in. “Once me and my sister could cook for ourselves, get jobs,” Y/n countered Jamie’s revelation, “My parents were even more done. It’s the main reason I came to England. To get away from them.”

Jamie was fully engaged now, his body turned to face Y/n as she matched his honesty. He knew all about running away.

“I worked so hard in school to get As, extracurricular stuff, anything I could,” Y/n gestured to the air with her cup, “So I could get out.”

“Yeah,” Jamie interjected, his memory sliding back to mornings before dawn spent on the pitch near his childhood home. He’d been just as relentless then as he was now. “Can’t tell you how many fuckin’ hours I spent just…tryin’ to get good. Tryin’ to do something he couldn’t touch.”

Whatever tolerance Y/n and Jamie had start with had long since morphed to a sort of comfortable acquaintanceship. It felt like, without ever moving from their bench, they had made some grand leap into kinship. They were both members of a club neither of them had asked to be in. With their shit spilled out on the ground before them, there was so very little left for them to hide.

“Y’know they’ve never visited me?” Y/n said softly, catching the shock on Jamie’s face out the corner of her eye, “Not once. I’ve been here since I was eighteen…not even for my graduation.”

Jamie watched with sadness as Y/n tried to hide hers. Once they found one another, it felt like there was nothing else to do but…laugh. It was one of those, this is our life laughs. Here we are, our families don’t love us, and it’s not right but here we are. Gentle and faded, but still unbelieving.

“Think we did pretty good,” Jamie said, “Yeah?”

Y/n’s smile came back, she’d allowed Jamie to cross so many of her self-drawn lines and she’d believed it had simply been out of convenience. No, there was something about him she’d only ever recognized in herself. Resilience. “Resentment’s a tremendous motivator, isn’t it?”

Jamie smirked at Y/n, wondering how he’d gravitated towards her knowing just the best, only to find out they had the worst in common. They were both a little broken, and it certainly felt better to be broken with someone else than by himself.

“I’ll drink to that,” he smiled, the two of their paper cups knocking into one another.

————————

Heartfirst Taglist: @lalla-04p @optimisticsandwichgladiator @makingmunson94 @taytaylala12 @storysimp @sokkigarden @lightninginab0ttle @poohkie90 @alipap3 @verra-nerevarine @shineforever19 @spaceagechimera @burnafter-reading @qardasngan @cyberpvnk-enthusiast @sogoodtoheritsvicious @buckybarnex @angelsunflxwer @blueanfield @thewildestwonderland @sablecities @oxxolovemelikeyoudooxxo @strawberryacethingz @tortilla-maria1 @katdahlali @for-fuck-sake-im-alive @glitterquadricorn @jamieolivia27 @imvibin69 @katlizada @lil-tracys @fanaticalfantasist @heyitz-julia @cactajuice @peachyy-tea @notalxx @rockchickrebel @anxiety-prime-max @mentalistfan

[dingodad]

personally the vriska calling him a pedophile bit wasnt out of place for me. Canonically vriska doesnt shy away from saying that scratch is a sexual predator, she does state outright to his face that he gets off on manipulating little girls in the comic.

i think "would it be in character for vriska to say that" and "does it make sense in the context of the story for her to say that" are two subtly but crucially different questions, though.

like, on the one hand: it has always been textually clear that doc scratch is not LITERALLY a pedophile. he's a completely asexual organism. by using that word to describe him, you're making the subtextual textual. and this kind of "saying the quiet part out loud" is something the HICU have done very deliberately since they took the helm of hs2; they are intimately aware, i think, of the fact that they are fans in charge of deconstructing homestuck for the entertainment of other fans, and that in service of that aim sometimes you need to be willing to have mature discussions out in the open. a lot of the time this has worked for them quite well, especially in terms of getting old readers back on board with a story which has in the past been overly subtle to the point of excruciating boredom. but sometimes it teeters close to the edge of "characters talking like they're fully aware they're getting therapy", and i think this example leans somewhat toward the latter. like, is there really anyone reading hs2 at this point who doesn't already have some understanding that scratch is a predator? who exactly did it serve to make that already blatant comparison that much more overt?

on the other hand... i get the impression that vriska is actually aware of this distinction, on some level? like emphasising the fact that scratch is a child predator is almost a sort of shield for her. the name of vriska's game in this chapter is minimisation; while it's super cool and heroic to admit that part of your tragic backstory involves a sick spider monster and a badass lady pirate, by trying to paint scratch as nothing more than a pathetic kiddy fiddler what she's really saying is that because he never actually molested her then she was never really abused, that she was never really a victim and therefore he was never actually a significant presence in her life at all. that's how she lives with it, by role playing as the predator to forget the fact that she was ever prey.

i think what i question about this is possibly that vriska would even know to use that word at all? writing dialogue that actually feels authentically like stuff trolls would say is another thing i think hs2 has had a rough time with ("that is a completely normal human sentence"?). the gay joke in the tavros chapter was funny because it had been a long time since we heard caliborn and jake do the same gag but it feels like they tried to capture that same energy with vriska calling tavros a "pussy" in this chapter and it fell flat. and it felt just as unnatural for a troll to say the word "pussy" as it did for her to say the word "pedophile". i think what makes alternia and its traumatic knock-on effects so effective is that it's often more insidious than it is explicit; trolls barely have the language to describe all the institutionalised neglect and abuse that is happening around them all the time because to them it's just how the world works! yeah sollux has that line about sex offenders and schools, but i think that basically serves to illustrate my point, because for the most part we all seem to understand that trolls don't have what we would be able to identify as "school" either: sexual abuse and education are concepts that, in the world of homestuck, exist entirely in the abstract; tropes to be evoked but not things that ever actually happen.

that being said, alternia is designed to reflect the structure of homestuck as a whole, and the reason alternia doesn't have sex offenders or schools is because homestuck in general does not explicitly concern itself with these topics. we understand that escaping homestuck and settling down on Earth C means settling down in the "real world", replacing the threat of time-travelling demons with real struggles and real problems, and as a continuation of the homestuck epilogues hs2 naturally IS going to continue to touch on sex and politics and all the other stuff that was delegated mostly to the subtextual in the original comic. i think the structure of this chapter even kind of alludes to this; tavros and erisol beckon vriska to relax for a moment and play childish games with them like she used to do when she was a kid on alternia, but by choosing to forge on ahead with her personal growth vriska is immediately confronted with the fact that becoming an adult is NOT like a webcomic, it's NOT all allegories and RPG battles; it can be sick and it can be hurtful and it can stop you right in your tracks just as you thought you were "making progress" toward "winning".

i just feel that by having vriska apply Earth C vocabulary to an Alternian experience right off the bat, we've skipped over a key part of her transition from homestuck to the real world. would this chapter have been any easier to stomach if it had been about vriska coming to grips with the fact that scratch was a predator in the first place? no, of course not LOL. i think my gripe here might literally just be with the word choice. like i believe the writers have it in them to express what they were trying to express here in a much more interesting way than simply having vriska say "lol he's a pedophile". yes, addressing something literally that has only ever been mentioned before in symbols and whispers is part of the impact of this update, but i don't think that has to come at the expense of the dialogue actually feeling like it belongs in the mouths of these characters

[aalghul]

Not to jump back on the bullying Tim bandwagon but there’s this trope of characters treating Tim’s backstory like it’s more tragic that any of the others and it’s literally driving me nuts.

Characters will go on this long tangent about how much Tim’s neglect messed him up and how angry it makes them and then they’ll just brush over literally everyone else like their childhoods were all just fine. Jason will go on this whole monologue about how appalling it was that Tim was left to fend for himself how amazing he must be to survive that and I’m always like huh do you have amnesia bud because that’s legit your childhood too + looking after your sick mum + extreme poverty + domestic abuse. Its like they’re only just discovering the concept of child abuse through Tim which even ignoring their backstories doesn’t make any sense since they’re all vigilantes.

no this is such a common phenomenon in fics I don't get it. using any of the main bats to make tim specifically look like he's suffered something unimaginable to them feels like a joke. tim missed his mom. jason lost both his parents to a system designed to doom them and was homeless for months. steph's dad was an abusive villain. cass' dad raised her like a weapon. what are we doing right now.

[pinkcrocss]

Is A-Train "redeemable"?

I have been thinking about this discourse that people have been having, following A-train's actions so far in season 4. And I know we've watched A-train teeter on the edge of good and bad for the last 4 seasons (generally falling to bad more than good). But i think the revelations about Frenchie's character kinda add an interesting spin to this question.

We need to consider how much our personal bias towards the characters we have grown to know (their motivations, their trauma's, their back stories), is impacting moral judgments we pass on other characters across the board.

Atp, every member of the boys has crossed "the line" in terms of black and white morality, but we give them a pass because we are convinced that they are all truly good at heart, and that their cause is just.

However, when you actually break down the actions of said characters, it kind of paints a different picture.

What has A-train done, that we feel he has to atone for? (this is just going off my terrible memory, so forgive me if I miss some things)

He killed Hughie's girlfriend (through negligence)

He killed popclaw (at the behest of homelander)

He's generally pretty arrogant and doesn't care about the horrible actions of his comrades, until it affects him

He killed bluehawk (most people agree that was justified)

Since season 2, Frenchie's past as a hit-man was hinted at (with little Nina explicitly stating that he had also killed children in season 3). It's clear Frenchie never had a particular moral code when he was a hit-man (no women/children type limits). He was simply a hired gun.

We sympathize with Frenchie because we know he had a difficult upbringing with his abusive father, as well as his loyalty to his friends (Cherie and Jay), the boys and especially Kimiko. Him serving as a comic relief often, also adds to this empathy bridge.

But season 4 has actually shown us a glimpse of just how many lives Frenchie has taken in cold blood. A whole room full. Why are we rooting for Frenchie's peace of mind, while debating if A-train is redeemable?

Frenchie has killed more people than Atrain (supe or not) and as far as I know, A-train has never killed a child.

Would it be easier to understand the gravity of Frenchie's crimes if Ryan or MM's daughter was one of his victims? Because his victims are all nameless, we act like his crimes hold less weight.

And then he goes on to start a sexual relationship with one of his victims, while hiding the knowledge that he was perpetrator of his greatest trauma. I think maybe we overlook the sadistic nature of that act because we interpret Frenchie as a "lover at heart", a true romantic that was swayed by his feelings and couldn't help that he had fallen for someone he had wronged. Bruh. When Colin eventually calls Frenchie a psychopath, he's not wrong.

And what about starlight? Her hands aren't clean. Remember the civilian she killed in Season 2? How is that any different from the situation with A-train and Robin? Yeah, it was an accident. In other words, negligence on her part. She needed to save Hughie; but why does Hughie's life matter more than that man. Her and Butcher were trying to carjack him and he had offered to call for help. He had a right to try to defend himself, and that bullet wouldn't have hurt her. That man was a father.

By the logic of why the boys are doing what they do, why we justify their murders of supes who have harmed them and their loved ones; if the child of that man grows up and hunts starlight down, would we need to root for that child to kill her?

Not so different from the shining light girl that keeps trying to kill Kimiko. From what was revealed of their backstory, Kimiko was the one who lured the girl into shining light. That's actually a common tactic of human traffickers, to use their victims (usually women and children) to lure in more victims cuz they seem less threatening. And obviously we can't fully blame Kimiko. She was trapped, brainwashed, and a child trying to protect her younger brother.

However, that girl also has every right to hate her. From her view, her life was forever taken because Kimiko chose not spare her (kinda similar to Gamora and Nebula). When Hughie said to A-train, "everything started with you!" we side with Hughie and we agree. So everytime Kimiko faces against that girl, why are we rooting for Kimiko? Wouldn't kimiko be A-train in that instance?

At this point, the only member of the boys who is still maintaining some Moral code is MM, and it's no coincidence that the show has made him seem pretty useless so far this season.

Btw, this post isn't a defense of A-train nor is it truly an indictment of any of the characters I used as examples. It's just an inconsistency I've noticed with the general fan discourse of who's "good" and who's "bad" on this show. Who is worthy of "forgiveness". Who's "redeemable". Redeemable to whom tho?

P.s. I'm not here to argue. Don't come for me cuz I critiqued your fave. I'm just thinking out loud. Feel free to respond/disagree, but if you're rude I'll just block you.

[filmnoirsbian]

It's genuinely crazy to me that so many people think abusers should get a free pass if they were harmed first. Okay, so they did what they were taught to do. Does that lessen the harm? Does that make the victim unbrutalized? Does their sad backstory erase the bruises and trauma they've caused? Can the reason ever justify the act? Okay, sit down kid, I know your mom just tried to strangle you because you put a dish away in the wrong place. I know you've been living in a war zone your whole life. I know you've pissed your pants in fear at school when you knew the end of the day was coming and you'd have to go home to her. But listen, she was beaten by her mother first. Doesn't that make you feel better? Doesn't that make you, her child, who depends completely on a woman that genuinely has tried to kill you, and has hurt you even deeper than that--doesn't that make you want to forgive her? Hasn't she had it so hard? Forced into hurting you because she decided to have children before untangling her own traumas and then, wouldn't you know it, she suddenly had two perfect punching bags to work it all out on--forced! Forced into deciding to have children and then forced into abusing them, because how could she turn that opportunity down? Don't you want to coddle her forever? Don't you know she did the best she could--sure, maybe she never tried to get therapy or medication or even listen to you once in a while when you gathered what little courage you could as a small, beat-down creature saying that she was hurting you--but hey, no one's perfect. And she was hurt first, remember? Holding grudges isn't good for you, you know.

Get fucked.

[nightcolorz]

ok armand's backstory is super tragic in the books but the show makes it even more devastating with The Implications. imagine marius leaving armand (his slave who he abused ever since he was a child) for the Evil Satan Cult and instead turning bianca (white rich woman)and choosing her as his new companion. makes me sick insane etc

OH MY GOD YES IM ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT THIS!!! In the books Armand is also technically Marius’s slave, but the way it’s portrayed from Armand’s perspective encourages u to forget about that. But the way the show highlights how Armand was a slave and shows how it influences the way Marius treated him annnndddd made Armand a person of color adds such a disturbing layer to an already disturbing dynamic. (Which i love lol)

I loooveee that u brought up Bianca bcus the whole dynamic with Bianca is sooo fucked up and no one ever talks about it. In blood and gold Marius explains that he was lonely and wanted a vampire companion, who he originally wanted to be Bianca, but he felt super mf guilty about this bcus Bianca is a young well off bright white girl and by turning her into a vampire and taking her for himself he’d be depriving her of her chance at a prosperous life and humanity. And the way Marius gets over angsting about how badly he wants Bianca but how he can’t take her cuz it’d be fucked is by BUYING ARMAND!! Marius buys Armand bcus he considers him *less of a person* than Bianca and therefor someone he can use and abuse without any guilt. So now that Armand is a person of color, that dynamic It’s basically like, “I can’t harm this sweet white girl even tho i want to so bad, that would be horrible!!! Wait, Oh my god yay!!! A brown boy <3 I can do as many terrible things that I want to him because he isn’t human to me <3” like holy shit that is sickening. And it’s such a nail on the coffin how once Marius decides to discard Armand bcus he’s not worth saving to him he immediately turns Bianca and decides that she’s his companion now, like oh my god.

making Armand a person of color was honestly one of my favorite (if not my fav) change that amc made with the characters. In the books Armand is always portrayed as having this ambiguous social oppressor that causes him to be seen as less then human or less worthy of inherent respect + dignity as other ppl, especially in his human lifetime, and it is so prevailing throughout his life that Armand is used to being treated like he’s nothing, so Armand being a person of color just makes sense to me. Not only that, but his entire backstory where there is so much emotional weight put on how Armand was stripped of his cultural identity and his birth name and his connection to religion by being sold into slavery so he’s lost the ability to understand who he is ?!?!? Like it’s kind of insane to me sometimes that all of the aspects of Armand’s backstory in the show that are very much racial trauma happened the exact same way in the books 😭. It makes a little too much sense lol

thank u sm for the ask I love angsting about Armand’s backstory more then anything!!!! ❤️❤️

[best-nun-tournament]

Grand Final

Krauss, Eva, Rudolf and Rosa Ushiromiya (Umineko) vs Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire)

Propaganda under break

Krauss, Eva, Rudolf and Rosa Ushiromiya

The four children of billionaire Kinzo Ushiromiya. Every year, they return home to Rokkenjima Island for a family conference. With Kinzo's health declining, to the point where he hardly ever leaves his room, the only topic on their minds is how to carve up his fortune.

Krauss is the eldest, and Kinzo's successor. Even if he's not the smartest of the siblings, his position as heir and imposing physique let him push them around. He even used to beat his younger siblings. Now, they suspect him of abusing his position as Kinzo's caregiver to embezzle their rightful share of the family fortune.

Eva is the second child, and incredibly resentful about it. She despises the fact that despite being so much more intelligent than Krauss, he's always above her just because he's older and a man. She's devoted her whole life to usurping Krauss' position, and then devoted her son's life to becoming the next heir instead of Krauss' daughter. When not scheming against her brother, she loves finding ways to torment and cruelly provoke her siblings, sister-in-law, and the servants.

Rudolf is the third, and with little hope of becoming heir, became a conman and a playboy (though he eventually settled down as a married man and white-collar criminal). Suffering from his sibling's bullying, he turned all their physical and emotional abuse on his sister Rosa. Though unlike Eva, he's stopped being cruel to her as an adult.

Rosa is the youngest sibling, and she's had a terrible life. Even as an adult, she's still terrified of Eva and acts dumb around her for fear of provoking her. But if she was given the opportunity, she could easily make them pay for what she's suffered.

Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion Lannister

Cersei HATES Tyrion. Hes not a big fan of her either on account of her absolutely hating him. Cersei (and her twin Jaime, who is actually a good brother to Tyrion) were born a few years earlier than Tyrion, and blames him for "killing their mother," because she died in childbirth. Everyone in their family (except Jaime) hates Tyrion because he has dwarfism, but Cersei hates him more than anyone else and has wanted him dead since childhood. (spoilers beyond this point for the books and show both) When Cersei's son is killed, her immediate instinct is to blame Tyrion and throw him in jail. She does everything in her power to have him killed.

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The incest for starters. The fact that Cersei doesn’t see Tyrion as human. All the backstabbing. And that they made their own family problems everyone else’s tragic backstory and present out of their own lust for power

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here's a quote from one of tyrion's chapters: "When your sister cries, you were supposed to comfort her... but this was Cersei."