#i did not include characters that were only relevant for one season UNLESS they were secret siblings or parents

[fanofstuff01]

Okay this post was originally supposed to be longer and going into more depths of the subject but I decided to separate it in parts. Because I cannot write that long of an essay in one day lmao

But anyway here's part one

Wohoo

Why Adam from Hazbin Hotel Not Coming Back In Future Seasons Doesn't Make Sense (To Me)

Part One: Logical Problems

Now this section, even though it is still my favorite in the parts, can be fixed easily if Vivienne just gives a logical answer to all of it. But it is just my perspective and what I saw from this show.

Let's get started yippie

-

A: Him not coming back contradicts the show in my opinion.

-You see, when Sir Pentious died to Adam's holy light, all the other characters react like they think he's one hundred percent gone. And it was previously stated by Vivziepop that sinners cannot die unless it's from an angelic weapon, otherwise they just respawn somewhere else in Pride hence why the exterminations exist.

So this implies that Sir Pentious died permanently here, from an angelic attack and then became a winner, in other words respawned in Heaven.

Then.. Why can’t Adam, someone who we know (for now) that died to a weapon designed to kill souls permanently, come back exactly Vivzie? This doesn't make any cucking sense for me. Why are you showing us that a soul can rise after being perma killed, but then treat as if the other Alex Brightman died permanently and now there's no way for him to come back?

-"But maybe they didn't know that Sir Pentious could come back, they just learnt that angels could be harmed. (Yes someone literally said this)"

Oh you mean these characters, who include the Princess of Hell and a literal ex exorcist, don't know about one of the core reasons why exterminations are held in the first place?

Suure.

-"You wouldn't be sad and attack the person who did it if someone killed your friend even though you knew they'd be back? Their reactions don't essentially translate to them not knowing about the permanent death thing."

I would and I can definitely understand them still being incredibly devastated and going feral about his death even though it’s temporary, but then why does the show treat Pentious' death like something these characters think is permanent? Why does Charlie refer to his death as “Ultimate sacrifice”? Hell, this entirely contradicts the sense of finality and sorrow his sacrifice had. 

And to add to both questions, why would Adam come to the exterminations with a weapon that doesn’t kill sinners permanently? Specifically one where he knows that there’ll be folks that will try to fight them and folks he would be more than pleased to wipe out permanently? 

-I know I sidetracked to talking about Sir Pentious more than Adam here, but since he is the only soul we know that changed the place he was in afterlife he is the most relevant character when it comes to this discussion about Adam in my opinion.-

-”We don’t know if angel souls are equal to sinner souls when it comes to this. Maybe the angels simply cannot be killed unless it is permanent, and the show actually hints at this given everyone thought that the angels were invincible.”

This is the only argument I can get behind actually. But it is not because it’s a valid one for the right reasons, it is the only one that makes sense to me because the writers were lazy on this too. 

Then what happens when an angel is harmed with a non-angelic weapon? -Also maybe off topic but what makes something an angelic weapon? We see Cherri Bomb throw bombs at them or okay maybe angelic bombs are a thing, but Charlie shoot-kills the exorcists with the fireworks that come out of her fingers?- Do they just.. Respawn? Or it just doesn’t hurt them? Then wouldn’t a character as smart as Vaggie would’ve figured out that they can very well be killed permanently if they are able to get hurt? 

Not answered. And it’s not helped by how the show openly portrays winners, which may I remind you Adam is one no matter how powerful he is, as the complete opposite of sinners, which would take you to assuming the angelic steel works like it does on sinners for demons. It just doesn't make sense to me.

And it wouldn’t make sense in the next section either.

B: Him not coming back doesn’t make sense in the story or the worldbuilding in my opinion

Just a little disclaimer, I’m not all means a professional media critic and do not say what I say here comes from that distinction. It's just me sharing myself lol.

Also I may use the terms incorrectly due to my broken English skills.

-Okay. So what is Hazbin about? Demons getting redeemed and therefore getting into Heaven for becoming better people, right? Also showing us that everyone can change and they shouldn't be seen as who they are at the moment and they all deserve a second chance.

At least that's what I get from the show. Now..

Why isn't the previously good now bad, being punished at the same level the previously bad now good is being rewarded? Why are you saying that becoming bad would give you an easy escape through death, while becoming good can get you to somewhere better?

Being on Hell is a PERFECT way to punish corrupted holy souls. Because you often become corrupted in the way of arrogance in Heaven, and now you're humored by the universe and by the people you used to mock and see yourself above as but this world's ways don't allow that.. Okay?

Speaking of, this also frustrates me on the world's mechanics and how they work. Sure, it can be that way, but.. Sorry if thinking about a "Divine Judgement" that makes you rise for being good but doesn't make you fall for being bad doesn't make sense in my book..

I can't express my point in this one quite well like I did with the other one but it just melts my brain dude. Like on one hand, on the positive hand, you're saying that if you're on the bad side you can change for the better and that's what matters, but you can't change from good to bad and have the same levels just negative and simply.. Die??

I just.. Can't. Sorry if this part is messier.

-

So this is it.

Will be multiple parts stay tuned ig

@things-arent-what-they-seem66 @beef-brisket

yea im delulu sue me

[sumquiasum]

I think these are fun so

[flamedraco]

Day 3 of Writing a Minecraft Diaries AU

I made an attempt to use lore forge to help me keep track of things but my brain recoiled so hard at information overload that I decided I'm going to stick to my tried and true method of just writing shit down in a notebook and hoping for the best. It'll help visualize family trees better if I can actually draw diagrams.

Finally finished the outline for the plot of season one, now it's just a matter of figuring out relevant information and outlining chapters, then starting to write them. Also most of the characters have been decided and their stand ins accounted for. So I'll include the cast list down below tho do be aware this could change later once I actually get around to the chapters. Again, if you don't recognize the names listed it's probably either a really obscure member of the DSMP lore, an OC, or a name I came up with for an obscure member of the lore.

If I'm going to do this I'll probably break up the seasons into their own books unless I manage to reduce season 1 down into fewer chapters. But I don't think that's going to happen since I'm already working on the outline for the seventh chapter and we haven't even gotten to the part where the werewolves are supposed to be involved. And I cut the werewolves out for fucks sake.

I'm still debating on if I even want to continue into season 2 or not. Diaries lore is massive and has a lot of moving parts, things set up in season 1 specifically for season 2 and things that I might need to remove or add. I have the plot summary but depending on what I decide to do regarding season 2 and the potential of another book...I guess that really depends on how the chapters are received and if my brain decides to stay DSMP hyperfocused for another year or so. Because if I'm trying to convert the ENTIRETY of Diaries into an AU that's probably going to be three multichapter books just on it's own and I'd probably rewrite the entirety of Season 3 since it was never finished and only had 37 episodes. This kind of project could take me an entire year, probably longer.

I do know that I want to try and do this first book tho. That's the only reason why I rewrote major plot points, have an overview, am creating chapter outlines, and have the series pulled up on my phone, two tabs of the wiki, and my doc open as I take notes with my notebook close by for if I need a new name for an OC.

There's a lot going into this planning right now. Converting Diaries into an AU is proving difficult. Especially with how certain characters change the plot and characters I'm having to cut out (if you see a certain handful of characters not mentioned I probably cut them out due to story changes). I've already had to rewrite a lot of things regarding the finale due to how I've changed the plot and the characters that are involved. Because keep in mind, just because these characters take on the role of another does not make them the same character. Wilbur is going to act as a completely different protagonist from Aphmau. Quackity is not the same type of person that Garroth is. Also if you don't see your favorite DSMP character mentioned, don't worry. There are places for them to show up if I continue into the next season with another book. And if they aren't here it's probably due to them not fitting into the roles that I needed. My choices aren't meant to offend anyone, they were made for the sake of the story and who I feel fits better where.

Take the cast list with a pinch of salt because this could always change later as I work on the chapters. And the lists themselves are taken directly from the Season 1 Character List from the Minecraft Diaries Wiki. If someone important isn't mentioned here than they'll probably still show up in the fic it's just for some reason they're missing from the Wiki. Unless I cut them. Because I did cut some characters. There's also the chance that the character mentioned in the list was NOT mentioned in the overview on the Wiki so they're a minor enough character for me to not have included them here due to not having a stand in yet. Some characters might also just be listed as unnamed because I feel like I might not mention their name.

Again: List is subject to change in the future.

ALSO: Relationships between characters may be changed due to the characters now standing in their place, for example: Kenmur and Emmalyn are a ship in Diaries, but I am not shipping Phil and Techno together in any form other than PLATONIC.

WARNING: Some characters in the cast list placement below may contain spoilers for both MC Diaries and, as such, the fic I am going to write, specifically in regards to the Shadow Knights section. Proceed at your own risk!

Cast List: MC Diaries Character Name - DSMP/OC Name

Phoenix Drop Aphmau - Wilbur Garroth - Quackity Laurence - Sapnap Nicole - Karl Emmalyn - Techno Lucinda - Hannah Brendan - Foolish Zoey - Nox Cadenza - Ena Kawaii~chan - Tina Donna - Tiffany Brian - Darius Kyle - Tristan Logan - Elderic Dale - Frankie Emma - Rosella Molly - Lydia Levin - Miriam Alexis - Alanna Zenix - Purpled Dante - Puffy

Scaleswind The Lord of Scaleswind - Unnamed Matilda - Lethia

O'khasis Zane - Dream Katelyn - Niki Jeffory - Ciaran Garte - Unamed

Bright Port Lord Burt - Lord Dawn Azura - Aliara Visher - Caradoc Paul - Johnson

Meteli Hayden - BadBoyHalo Kenmur - Phil

Wyverns Ungrth - Sgaeyl Raven - Crow

Shadow Knights Zenix - Purpled Gene - Schlatt Sasha - Samantha Vylad - Tommy Laurence - Sapnap

Other The Stranger/Aaron - Sally

If I missed someone there might be a reason for it, or I just missed them. Either way, this is the general cast you can expect to see in the book at some point or the other. Some of these are minor characters, some of them are major characters, and some are just side characters.

I think I might start work on the first chapter soon but I'll try to get more chapters outlined before I start working on the first. I want to try and get a picture in my mind of how many chapters this beast will have and how many things I can cut.

[darkfictionjude]

Etymology nonnie here!

I love the parenthood mechanics in IFs too. Like, I don't care about having children in real life, at least not enough to seriously consider it. But I love to play as a parent in IFs. Yet, the mechanic is so rare.

Thicker than is one of my favorite examples of it, because the way it's used involve such emotional punches I'm not sure I'll ever recover. That said, as much as I love how the mechanic is used in that game, I do recognize it doesn't have a major role compared to other IFs that include it.

Honestly, for the Roman brothel IF idea, it wouldn't shock me much. I don't remember the name of the project, but I found an IF where MC is a prostitute who adopts a kid the first day of their job. And the IF will focus in part in raising that kid.

I don't know precisely why I love the parenthood mechanic so much. But I do. I just know I do.

So much so, my IF WIP includes it. I don't want to say much about it since this blog is not about my writing, but I thought it was relevant to point out.

I did think for a bit about how WWC could work if it included the mechanic... And honestly, unless you went for: MC has a one night stand and pregnancy ensues/MC is left to take care of a kid and decided to adopt them; I don't see it ever working based on how the story is going. Of course, even though those scenarios are the only way I could see it happening (and both would happen in the space between seasons or in season 2), I do recognize it would be a terrible choice narratively. MC is not in a position to be parenting anyone yet. So, hypothetically, the only way I could see parenting fitting into the storyline would be on a potential season 3 (for which the two ways of acquiring a child I mentioned earlier become irrelevant, as those were proposed by me only based on what we know of the story so far and its future).

Yeah, I think an hypothetical season 3 would be the only way to actually include parenthood into WWC. And yet, I am not convinced. The Crown family is already more than interesting enough to be able to justify the addition on one or more babies. There are way too many issues already, it would be cruel to being another kid when everyone is in such a bad psychological state.

There is always the chance to fantasize about MC and the RO's having kids. Or, if one has the will and puts the necessary effort, write a fanfic about it.

I’ve already been asked about mc having children and I’ve said that’s not something I’m interested in for them 😭

Plus given that the time jump is between 1-3 mc is still so young, I don’t want to make them a parent at 22. Especially when they’ve just started to live their life. It doesn’t fit in the story I want to make and doesn’t make sense for the plot also if mc has a penis I would need to include a whole ass character as the other parent and I don’t want to waste time doing that

Mc gets a taste of freedom and immediately gets pregnant? Nahhhh to me it would feel like punishing mc for their promiscuity when I want them to feel liberated in their choice to perhaps explore that aspect of themself so no kids for mc as far as I write them. That’s why is say that children in WWC are for your headcanons and whatever fanfics y’all write 😌

[sleepy-moron]

I saw some people be like "Will can have a satisfying ending to his personal arc of self acceptance without being in a relationship with Mike" and while that's genuinely something I agree with.......I have a few problems with this. Mostly I think they've accidentally wrote themselves into a corner because basically all of the alternatives have issues.

1)

Assuming that all of the current "canon" ships are endgame (i.e. people who have actually dated in the show not including Steve and Nancy bc Nancy is dating someone else) and going off the idea that there will be no new major characters next season Will and Steve will be the only characters to not get with their love interest....and Steve still got to have parts of his plotline be unrelated to romance in s3 s4. Being sad and gay while pining for Mike was basically Will's major plotline for both seasons. Yes I'm counting his friends ditching him to hang out with their girlfriends as gay induced angst for the sake of this argument. Will has been planned to be gay since the beginning, and unless Robin existing as another gay character has also been planned from the beginning, they were going to have what could have been their only gay character not get a happy ending that includes romance when all the other party members do. Not saying that romance is necessary for happiness but having one of three queer characters in your ensemble show not get a romantic plotline while basically every other major character does is shitty.

2) They should have introduced a love interest for him already if they intend to give him one besides Mike. Vickie was barely in this season but at least she exists and gets some establishing characterization. Since we aren't supposed to get new characters next season that means the new love interest is basically gonna be some cardboard cutout they give Will so people don't accuse them of not giving a gay character a happy ending. Never mind the fact it's blatantly using the new guy as a replacement goldfish for Mike, I just would want one of my main characters to wind up in a relationship with another character that's actually relevant rather than some dude who shows up for 30 seconds. I don't care if it wasn't obvious he was a love interest for Will, I literally just wanted the character to be introduced. Also means that Will actually getting over Mike is more than likely gonna be completely ignored or mentioned like once in the season, or they're going to basically have him still pine for the whole season then have a 180 at the end.

3) Will not getting a happy ending is just straight up shitty writing at this point. The kid has done nothing but suffer for the entire fucking show and for him to just be in unrequited love for the rest of his life, trapped in the upside down forever, or straight up fucking die is not a satisfying conclusion for the character.

At this point assuming byler isn't endgame Will is either going to get a replacement goldfish boyfriend at the last second, be one of like maybe 3 main characters that end the show single, pine for the rest of his life, or wind up dead (or an equivalent depressing ending) they did this to themselves

[princessbatears]

I'm a storyteller both by trade and by hobby, and I understand a lot about how effective television storytelling works, in particular. My background has given me a different perspective than most people with regards to the finale, particularly what happens between Din and Grogu. Normally, I don’t get involved in fandom discussions, but I was encouraged to share my take on this. Spoilers below the cut in case I miss some tags, lol.

When I watched the episode this morning, I wasn't prepared for what happened. Like many of us, I expected a terrible cliffhanger or a neat conclusion like we got in the last season. Instead, Din encouraged his son to become a Jedi, leaving himself (and the rest of us) more than a little devastated. It was brutal. But also brilliant. Din and Grogu's individual and family arcs in this season came to a close in a way more beautiful than I could have expected. At the beginning of the season, Din kept Grogu at his side and protected him, but he was determined to pass him off to a Jedi. In part, this was because he believed it was Grogu's own good, but also because he wasn't ready to accept his fatherhood. We see this in the episode with Ahsoka. Even though he didn't want to say goodbye, he was willing to thrust Grogu upon her. When Ahsoka refused, Din was genuinely relieved and finally admitted to himself that he loved him and wanted him to stay a part of his life. That was further confirmed by the lengths he went to in order to get him back from Gideon.

Meanwhile, Grogu's gone through his own arc. We learned from Ahsoka that he hid his powers out of fear. We also learned that he's very afraid of being separated from Din, who he sees as his family. It's completely understandable. He's young and been through a lot. But that fear also makes it harder for him to train, so Ahsoka rejects him. Grogu himself continues to be a little reluctant to use his powers, needing encouragement from Din (unless it's to steal cookies). When he's captured, he fights the best he can to get away, but that fighting doesn't end up doing him much good because he can't control himself. It's my impression that, by the end of the season, Grogu's realized that he needs to be able to master his powers, not just to protect himself, but to protect Din, too. He's finally ready to step into his strength and become all that he can be, which is why he decides to go with Luke.

Din did not want Grogu to go. Everything in his being screamed that. He even say to Luke, "He doesn't want to go with you." However, when Luke explains what's going on, Din realizes that he must put Grogu's needs before his own. It's in Grogu's best interest to be nurtured in the ways of the Force, as he's always suspected, but now letting Grogu looks different than it did before. It wasn't Din rejecting his love for his son or pushing the responsibility of him onto someone else. He even did several things differently from when he tried to give Grogu to Ahsoka. First, he promises they'll see each other again. Personally, I don't think this is the end of them being together, even though Din says Grogu belongs with Luke (also more on that soon). Second, Din tells him not to be afraid. He wants Grogu to become confident in himself and all he can be. Third, he takes off his helmet to show his boy his face and let him touch him. While this is a huge sacrifice on his part because others also see his face, it is proof to Grogu that they are family and that they will always be family. Fourth, Din sets Grogu down on the floor and lets him walk to Luke. This is vitally important. In the past, he's tried to physically hand him over. This time, he lets Grogu make his own decision once and for all. Grogu walks over to look and asks to be picked up, indicating he truly wants to be trained. Din recognized him as an autonomous being with his own will, and respected and encouraged that, like a good father does. Was it easy? Absolutely not, but it was the right thing to do.

I'm not sure what Season 3 will look like as far as Din and Grogu's relationship goes. Maybe Grogu won't feature as prominently, maybe there will be a time jump, maybe something will happen and Luke will bring him back? I have no idea. None of us do. However, what I do know is that heart of the show is the relationship between Din and Grogu. I believe Filoni and Favreau know this, as does Disney. Grogu has made Disney actually relevant again, he's made them an insane amount of money, and I don't think they're going to let that cash cow go any time soon. So, everybody, please don't despair. It's going to be okay! ❤️

I'd also like to take a moment to discuss Luke. My feelings on this have evolved as I'm processed the episode over the last few hours. Initially, I wasn't very happy. I felt like a lot of people do. Why does it always have to be Skywalkers? Why couldn't it be somebody—anybody—else? Why did that have to do that weird CGI thing with his face that wigs me out? (That, admittedly, I'm still not a fan of, lol.) But with some time, I've realized that Luke makes sense. There's the inescapable fact that Star Wars is about the Skywalkers. They're the central characters of this universe. If Movies 6-9 hadn't been as godawful as they were, I think many of us wouldn't resent this fact so much. We're jaded, understandably. However, I don't believe it's fair to judge The Mandalorian's choice to include him based on other creators screwing him up in a future timeline. So far, Favreau and Filoni have been nothing but respectful of the Star Wars universe and its characters, and I'm choosing to trust them with this. But that aside, Luke is likely the only Jedi in the whole galaxy who would take Grogu as an Apprentice. Ahsoka didn't want him, too scarred by her own experiences and traumas. She also comes with the baggage the Temple placed upon its students, which was, if you have any "dark" qualities, you're untrainable. Meanwhile, in the original trilogy, Luke learned how to become a Jedi even though his legacy was those "dark" qualities. He overcame his own anger and fear and started new Jedi traditions. He's the perfect person at this point in his life to teach Grogu how to master his powers. He is obviously aware of how important Grogu is to Din and he'll take good care of him until the family can be reunited.

Personally, I loved this finale, especially the last few minutes. They absolutely destroyed me on a human level, but excited me as a writer and storyteller. By shaking the show up like this, it keeps the audience on their toes and reminds us that anything can happen. Din and Grogu's relationship is why people are so invested and throwing this huge kink that creates a massive conflict that the audience is desperate to have resolved. Aside from one of them actually dying (which would have me throw the show in the garbage), very little else could create such a reaction, which is the whole point. I can't wait to see what the creatives throw at us next year! 😃

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 5 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Guardians

Helloooo! Did you think I was done? No!

My PhD thesis chapters were approved last week, so have some celebratory meta. I haven't seen the latest Season 4 episodes, so do forgive me for not being up to date.

Welcome to the next part of my analysis of the basic concepts of Miraculous Ladybug. Today we are talking about Master Fu, Order of the Guardians and how little everything here makes sense. I highly recommend reading previous parts to fully understand this one, but I'll try to quote most parts of earlier posts.

Order of the Guardians

Order is an international and ancient organisation (New York Special showed us the guardian from North America and he was dressed like Su Han). Presumably, Miraculous jewels were created by these people. Guardians are responsible for the preservation of jewels and knowledge about them. They also distribute Miraculouses to worthy people around the world to combat mostly magical threats, but sometimes jewels are used against normal threats too. It's implied that Master Fu used Miraculouses during WW2 when he was in Paris. Perhaps he performed some spywork with Marianne, but the magical nature of his interferences was discovered and he was forced to flee, before returning to France many decades later.

Why does the Order need so many people to take care of a 3 Miracle Boxes? If its only purpose is to preserve knowledge, keep magical secrets and distribute Miraculous jewels then wouldn't it be more logical to have Master-Apprentice system? It's much easier to keep magic knowledge a secret and train a few people in martial arts than doing the same in the self-sufficient temple full of people, keeping in mind that a good part of them are teenagers and children, who are bad at keeping secrets. Also a single person can travel around the world much easier to give out Miraculouses. Imagine that we have a few active guardians traveling the world with Boxes. What do other people at the temple do in the meantime? They teach the next generation about the powers of each Miraculous and Mirakung Fu, but besides that?

Master-Apprentice system gives us more personal conflict between Fu and his mentor and makes his relationship with Marinette and Adrien more nuanced. In this scenario Fu accidentally caused the death of his Master at 14 because he wasn't careful. It makes sense for him to take on only 1 or 2 students if this is how things were done with Miraculous Guardians. This Wang Fu is very cautious and protective, he spent the majority of his life afraid of hurting someone else and never took an apprentice as a result. But now he is ready to try again, since he is not getting any younger and he likes these 2 kids. He wants them to succeed. Maybe Master Fu, becomes the father figure for Adrien in this situation and a guide for Marinette. Just think about it. This way writers avoid the need to develop all these extra characters (Su Han) and traditions related to the Order. All inconsistencies I mentioned before and later in this post are gone now! Hell, even memory loss and the changing of the Miracle Box shape could make more sense. We also raise the stakes post-amnesia, if it happens of course (the whole Season 3 finale didn't make sense, so stay tuned for my next meta). Marinette and Adrien are on their own now, there's no one who can give them answers. It's very fun scenario, which has potential to be brilliant. Any thoughts on that?

The existence of Order of the Guardians is not quite a secret, at least it wasn't in XIX century China. Master Fu in "Feast" says that guardianship was considered "a great honor". It implies that people who lived close to the temple of the Order knew about Miraculouses and what exactly guardians did for the greater good.

The existence of other Miracle Boxes around the world makes sense from a real-life perspective. Writers have the ability to create many stories set in the same universe and use them for merchandise and an almost unlimited amount of content. Judging by the unholy amount of specials in production, this is exactly what the creators are going to do. It probably won't go down well, but who knows?

However, it doesn't work in our main story. The main conflict is Paris-centred. Gabriel's motivations revolve around Emilie's resurrection and Season 4 gives us more reasons to suspect that Adrien's mom wasn't as wonderful as everyone says. Hawkmoth still remains the main villain of the show and most likely it's going to stay that way. There's no point in moving the main story to different places for the sake of introducing more Miracle Boxes from around the world. Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't needed to fight something halfway across the world unless Hawkmoth also changes locations.

LB and CN are centrepieces of this franchise. They brought success and money to ZAG. Creators constantly need to remind the audience that this new piece of media with new characters who will never be mentioned again is connected to Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Writers have to come up with reasons to include our heroic duo into the story even if makes no sense.

New York Special had to introduce American Heroes whose names rarely come up in the fandom because people stopped caring about them or their stories shortly after the release of the Special. I barely saw any content dedicated to them. In order to bring LB and CN into the story, you have to include Hawkmoth too. Gabriel suddenly needs to get his hands on the Eagle Miraculous and goes to USA. Marinette and Adrien suddenly have a class trip to New York. Unfortunately, their presence in this story is required only to expand the world of Miraculous and attract fans of the show, so that they could keep an eye on new content related to newly introduced characters.

In the end, it's not their story. Events of the special don't affect main story of the show and the development of the love square is merely an illusion, because Adrien and Marinette are no closer than before. In season 4 LB and CN are growing apart and their test of trust in NY Special doesn't matter. Perhaps, some people don't see it that way and it's their right, but I find it hard to see NYS as a valid contribution to canon. I mean, even people in large portion of the fandom state in the tags on AO3 that "specials are not canon", "specials didn't happen" or "ignores both specials". It speaks volumes about continuity and preferences of your fandom.

Shanghai Special didn't give us more information about the Order, which is located in China, history of Miraculous jewels. We still don't know much about how Gabriel and Emilie found Peacock and Butterfly. Maybe, Marinette's family had connections to Miraculous jewels. Maybe, Adrien does some snooping and discovers research his parents made while Gabriel is away. All of these are relevant to the main story. However, we got something much different in the end.

Marinette chases Adrien across the globe and they make new friends. Fey becomes Ladydragon and now has a direct contact with Marinette through her uncle. Gabriel's desire to get his hands on the Prodigious comes out of nowhere. Apparently, he had been planning this trip for years, presumably even before Adrien was born. It probably happened at the same time as Agrestes found 2 Miraculouses. He bought bracelet-key (which is also a Miraculous apparently, but its Kwami is a Guardian of the Prodigious and they existed separately for a very long time - and let us not dwell on this mess) from some shady mafia boss, who can easily find out just who Gabriel really is (fashion designer billionaire) and use this information to blackmail him. This Special didn't answer important questions, but it gave us a new superhero character.

The real question is whether Miraculous as a project will survive long enough for writers to create content for every minor character they introduced in all specials. This is only a beginning after all.

Miraculous is not a global show and it can't be globalised in a way that makes sense, at least with Ladybug and Chat Noir in the centre of action. Case closed.

Mirakung Fu

I liked the idea of Mirakung Fu introduced in "Furious Fu". It makes sense and things rarely do in this show. Miraculous grants its holder superhuman strength, stamina, endurance and ability to fight. This means that essentially transformed heroes are guided by magic in combat. There's nothing personal in the way Miraculous holders fight. You can predict their moves and learn how to fight this magic guidance, which is what Su Han does.

However, if the holder has any special training, skills or knows any martial art in their civilian life then they become more dangerous opponents during transformation because now their fighting is a mix of magical moves and their personal knowledge, tricks and style. Therefore, Adrien and Kagami as skilful fencers have more chances of winning against someone who knows Mirakung Fu than Marinette, for example.

Memory loss

At the end of season 3, we find out several things:

apparently, now Miracle Box can change appearance to suit its guardian;

when Guardian passes down the Miracle Box to someone else, they lose memories not only about everything related to Miraculous, but also about pretty much everything in their life (Fu doesn't recognise Marianne, instead he experiences the love at first sight)

Master Fu trains Marinette to be the proper holder and next Guardian off-screen. He says that her training as the holder is complete in "Feast" and wants her to become the next Guardian. Fu told her lots of things, and yet, he never mentioned the fact that he would lose his memory after relinquishing the box, nor the fact that Marinette would lose her memory afterwards. She finds out about this from Wayzz after the battle with Miracle Queen and the letter that Master Fu gave her. That's not proper training! How on Earth do you forget to mention this memory loss? How?

Master Fu's amnesia is a convenient plot device that removes him from the narrative almost completely. That's mostly all there is to it. Why? Because it doesn't make sense.

Fu was around 7 or 8 when he started his training. The disaster at the temple happened when he was 14. He stated that his training was never complete, which means that he never passed any magical ritual, never swore an oath or was bound by some kind of spell that made him subjected to the rule of memory loss.

Miracle Boxes belonged to the order, not Fu. Their design reflected their country of origin because these Miraculous were made and kept in China. They were just standing there on the shelves not magically bound to anyone in particular. When Feast attacked, monks just tossed Wang Fu the miracle box and grimoire. No one at the temple lost their memory after Fu took the box with him (Su Han is the proof). Su Han not only remembers Fu and his mistake but everything that happened that fateful day as well. In "Furious Fu" Marinette explains Su Han that Master Fu lost his memory in the very first conversation they have. However, after Ladybug and Chat Noir fight Su Han on the roof and escape with the Miracle Box, the latter searches for Fu and attempts to take his staff from him. In this scene, Su Han acts like Fu knows very well what is going on and who he is.

Su Han should be aware of the memory loss rule as the Celestial Guardian. He remarks on the different shape of the Mother Miracle Box and calls her "incorrect", which means that Su Han should have been able to easily tell that previous Guardian lost his memory and the Miracle Box is now bound to someone else. But he doesn't say anything. Moreover, since Su Han is supposed to know about amnesia, he seemed awfully chill about forcing this 14-year-old girl in front of him to give up the box and her memories. Hell, Chat Noir wasn't on board with this. But we get zero reaction from Su Han.

During the first conversation between Marinette and Su Han, he doesn't ignore what she is trying to say, instead he actively comments on every word. Even if Su Han didn't listen when Marinette told him about Fu's memory loss, than he still should be able to understand that Fu doesn't recognise him, because of common sense and the "incorrect" shape of the box. But nothing of the sort happens. Because writers apparently forgot that "memory loss" is supposed to be known to everyone in the Order. On-screen it looks like Su Han is not aware of the "amnesia rule".

"Furious Fu" makes the concept of memory loss a plothole no matter how you look at it. Just like "Timetagger" and "Chat Blanc", as well as "Kwamibuster" this episode is not consistent within itself. It does not surprise me, however.

Grimoire and Guardian Staffs

Let's talk about the Miraculous Grimoire. Good things first.

There are no illustrations of Miraculouses in camouflage. Kwami can't read its contents, only guardians can. Certain elements are written in riddles as an additional precaution. The book contains only the information people have learned so far, which means that Miraculouses have more unexplored potential ("Mr. Pigeon 72"). It describes powers of each Miraculous, provides information about weapons, has instructions for potions that don't make sense (see previous parts).

Unfortunately, everything is about to go downhill from here.

Guardians are taught how to read the writing in this book. They can read it just like people learn to read texts in a different language. This means that one can read Grimoire like any other book (you don't need to consult some guide to decode each letter or word). Master Fu proclaimed Marinette an almost fully trained Guardian. He should have taught her how to read the Grimoire then (he doesn't know the code very well, but he knew enough to understand the general meaning and content of the book according to "Collector"). He didn't. We don't know why. He shows her powers of every Miraculous but doesn't teach her the code.

Master Fu knows that Grimoire now belongs to Gabriel Agreste. He knows that it's dangerous for someone else to have it. If they knew how to read the Grimoire, they could discover all secrets of Miraculouses and harm Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes. It's very important to keep the information about the code top secret because Fu is not the only one with the source material.

What does he do then? Master Fu proceeds to write a French translation of Grimoire for Marinette, a translation that he doesn't even need. He carries it with him at all times on a tablet (without any precautions) just like the Miracle box after "Feast". Naturally, it means that in "Miracle Queen", Gabriel and Nathalie easily managed to get their hands on the tablet and Miracle Box. It allows the plot to happen, sure. But it doesn't make any sense.

"Furious Fu" created another curious plot hole. It will probably be ignored, of course. Su Han has a staff with a magical compass that allows him to find any Miracle box, but not the Miraculous jewels for some reason. How does the staff work? Can it locate the box without the Miraculous? If yes, then it seems useless. What's the point in the ability to locate an empty box? If it can locate the box only with the Miraculous jewels inside, it implies that the staff can track the location of every Miraculous too. So, Su Han could just locate the Butterfly and Peacock without any problem. But he talks about reassigning Ladybug and Black Cat to adults and defeating Hawkmoth like locating the Butterfly is not possible. This situation makes the Guardian Staff a simple plot device that creates plot holes and its only purpose is to explain how Su Han found Marinette.

Also, I have a few more words to say about this. Master Fu had a Guardian Staff that was never mentioned before. I wonder why? That's because the staff didn't exist before "Furious Fu" was written. Writers just went: "Do you know what would be cool? If Fu's cane was really a secret Guardian Staff with a compass all along that he decided to keep even after he lost his memory? It would make people wonder whether Master Fu is faking amnesia, and everyone will definitely call him an awful mentor after this even though we kind of tried to make him a good and responsible person."

Fu didn't give it to Marinette and didn't mention it to her. Why? When he gave up his memory, he should have written about this in his letter at least. Why did he decide to keep it? He can't use it anyway now.

Please note how in the flashbacks Fu didn't take any staff with him when he escaped the temple. Su Han seemed to know how Fu's staff looked like. It means that Master Fu didn't make this staff himself, because it belonged to the Order.

Su Han wasn't even surprised that Marinette didn't have the staff as the current Guardian. Was she not supposed to have it? He never questioned the fact that the former Guardian without memories has the staff. Su Han actually returns this staff to Fu after he is deakumatized and Fu acts like they have never met before. Why did Su Han gave the staff back when he knows what it is and to whom it should belong (to him or to Marinette as the current Guardian)? The staff is useless in the hands of the civilian. Does Marianne know about its secret? We'll probably never find out, unfortunately.

Guardian Staff of Master Fu has a compass too and therefore this also makes it a plot device, just like Su Han's staff.

[juiceastronaut]

Okay so. I watched Q-force. And I have no idea what I think about it.

Imma just be rambling so I'll break down the characters and my likes/dislikes about them before giving my plot breakdown at the end. Only the main/prominent ones because I don't have time.

Steve Maryweather-Easily the best character out of them, with Deb being a close second. He could've very easily fallen into the trope of being someone who was incompetent but expected the world anyway, but he doesn't. He graduated top of his class, and despite his quirks is a genuinely competent team leader, and wants the best for his team. He wants to prove that he and his team are competent enough to get recognition, and has a genuine faith in the people around him. It was refreshing to see him hold his team in a genuine high regard, where a lot of times it's like "We're shit but lets do this thing now" He's a genuinely well-rounded character, and (and forgive me if this isn't the best way to frame this) it feels like being gay is an important part of his character, without encompassing the whole thing. I thought Benji and his relationship was super cute and I was sad when they broke up. I was afraid he was going to be, like a second but worse Twink with the stereotyping but gladly fell away from that.

Deb-I thought her and her wife were super cute (though I hate how the wife is designed ngl adjafkldajfd). I liked Debs character, but I feel like she had a lot of racial stereotyping that wouldn't be inherently obvious unless you were looking for them, her being the strong one, and also the "mama" type at the same time. No one treated her with disrespect, and her lesbianism seemed to be more authentic but I feel like there wasn't a lot of thought put into what these tropes were and why they were bad. Her being black and making her the mama type, as well as the big strong type could be read as tasteless. Again, I really liked her character but these were some things I noticed while watching.

Twink- You know, I didn't really like him at first, I thought he was the epitome of all the bad stereotyping (though I'm just glad him and Mary didn't get put into the same category). His humor isn't my taste, and it just kinda seemed like someone for half of his lines went "what twitter stan language can we put in here?" And sometimes it was a bit too random for my tastes. However! I do like that his drag was considered important and was an integral part to a lot of missions they went on, and not just "Ah look at that dumb gay trying to find reasons to dress in drag." His talents and expertise were both respected and, save for Buck (which his whole point was supposed to be offensive anyway) no one undermined Twink for his femininity. His back story is also kinda random but did play a role in the missions as well. Still, personally think he's the worst character. Plus, he's French so minus four-twenties amount of points.

Stat-You know, in a show where everyone was stating what letter they were every few seconds I was surprised that I had to look up that Stat was trans. I...liked her character for the most part, except the part where she was fucking a robot. Kinda weird ngl, outta left field, and with her being trans I wonder if her having that sort of relationship is problematic for her. Love her design tho, love me a hacker girl. She's also listed as "ambiguously gay" tho showed to have mostly girl love interests but, okay.

Buck-He's the straight guy, emotionally repressed haha and he's bigoted. Did think it was funny later on when he was more "accepting" but managed to be even more infuriating about it. Tied with Twink as worse character but you know they tried to do stuff with him.

Vee-Really liked me a boss lady, but kinda weird how they bait-and-switched us with her actually being a lesbian, then go "no she's straight tho" in regards to Karen. I thought her and Mary's relationship was cute, wish I saw more of it. But she did feel like a random plot device in later seasons, what with her disappearing and reappearing when it was plot relevant. (Tho she HOTOHOTHOTHOT bikini episode WOOOWEEEE)

....

Okay, so now the plot....which. it had one?

It felt like it was flip flopping back n forth about whether it wanted to take itself seriously or not, and it seemed to decide on serious more towards the end, but then it would have this random plot element that would be so out of left field it would pull me out of my suspension of disbelief. See the whole "Back cracking to unlock memories" plot point. This back and forth on whether it would be a comedy or not I think weakened both categories it tried to play into.

If I had to compare the show to anything it would probably be Futurama, but the thing with Futurma is, its set in the future, so you're suspension of disbelief is allowed to stretch a bit more because all the wacky quirky stuff can be attributed to future shenanigans. Q-force, to my knowledge, is set in the modern day, which makes the wacky stuff that much wacker, because it's set in our modern times, which you apply the rules of everyday life to.

A lot of the problems that I had with Q-Force is, in the attempt to write specifically about the "gay experience" revealed that the writers have really only had a very specific experience of interacting with gay ppl, what I call the "Urban Gay" experience.

The fact they're in West Hollywood, and all the things that were listed as "universal gay experiences" but were only things that you'd be exposed to if you were in the city. I think a flavor of "white gay" can be implemented here too, which Q force has exactly one black woman, who manages to be the only lesbian.

That coupled with the fact that, there's a difference between having Twink naturally being a drag queen, the whole team being gay to some degree, and the fact they interact with the gay community often without Drawing Attention to all of those things and self-congratulating itself on concluding it. Funnily enough, Q-Force had examples of doing this right and doing this right. Right way: In the second or third episode where Mary found that guy with the flash drive to the uranium in it and seduced him in the gay bar. Relevant that it was gay without overtly drawing attention to it. Wrong-Way: Having Pride go on while Girl Boss was trying to take over the world.

And, for the show that promoted itself as representing the gay experience, there were...two gay men, one lesbian, one trans person, one straight guy and...no bisexual people. Also no nonbinary people. Like of course it's unrealistic to include every single identity but you're one bisexual person who appeared for one episode and was promptly blown up. And also showed to be...more off than the other characters, what with the stealing of silverware and all. Just, bisexual people are already forgotten enough as it is and not including them in the show, but you include two gay men just kinda reads as tasteless to me (as a bisexual person, obviously).

Which makes it so weird that Stat was left "ambiguously gay" when she could've easily been bisexual (which still would be problematic because of the robot-fucking but at least you got the B in there somewhere in the main group)

Overall, it tried to market itself as the "be all end all" of what it was like to be gay, but ended up excluding the exact people that get excluded in real-life lgbt spaces. This combined with the indecision with what kind of show it wanted to be managed to make it fall short. If you arent the very specific type of gay person who lives in a city environment and doesn't fit the stereotypes showed you're not going to feel "seen" by the show.

Weirdly though, I didn't hate watching it, and I would probably watch another season if they managed to make one. The parts that did work, I think worked really well, and even the bad parts just read as tasteless, and not actively terrible. If they focused less on making "hey I'm gay" jokes every three seconds and just let each character be what they are I think the show would be stronger for it. And I think they'd find less problems overall if they did that too. In the mean time I'll just be here side-eyeing the whole thing.

Edit: I forgot to mention, and this is a problem a lot of adult TV shows fall into, that because they got the clear to show nudity/sex they felt like they *had* to show nudity and to a lesser extent sex every episode. So just that whole "Haha adult=sex obviously."

Oh! And this generally goes for the whole "shove it in your face" part, but a lot of the characters who are bigoted were shown to be. Very blatantly so. And not to say there isn't blatantly bigoted ppl of course they are but I don't think that's where you see a lot of bigotry nowadays. This was sort of touched on during the show but more of a jokey manner, but I think it would've been more realistic if we had more "girl with a gay best friend" kinda bigotry as opposed to the "I'm literally hurling slurs at you" bigotry, especially since they're in Cali.

[alyblacklist]

Do you think the keenler storyline is going anywhere? I used to be sure that it was, I mean why else would they have them kiss and have sex. However now that Liz has been gone for five episodes and she is being quite mean to Ressler (the whole pointing a gun to his head and pretty much telling Cooper about them sleeping together) I feel like a relationship between them will never happen and the writers are just trying to make us forget or dislike Keenler.

Ok, on to the asks about Ressler/Keenler in 8x09 where things were said, but only through contact lenses and earpieces. Thoughts below the jump, because it’s a long post that will (hopefully) address all of these at least in part.

I do think it was Liz speaking through the doppelganger at all relevant times. They haven’t given me a reason not to think that at this point. She knew things only Liz could know. So I assume (unless we get new info) that everything Mia Collins said to Ressler was actually Liz telling her what to say to him (and likewise to Aram and Cooper). I did express to BlacklistRoom on Twitter that they were evil for having faux-Liz call Ressler “Donald” on screen before real Liz does. And at first, I thought maybe that was some sort of signal to Ressler that things were amiss because real Liz wouldn’t do that, but in the end I think it was just the writers playing their usual games. NOT because they hate Keenler or Keenler fans (they’re the ones who made Keenler canon, for God’s sake), but just because they love to toy with fan emotion. They give you a Wing Yee birthday nugget one ep, they throw in a loose “Donald” in another from the lips of a faux-Liz. They know exactly the emotional points to hit if they’re paying attention to social media (and they certainly are, to a point). 

I did catch that accurate observation on Twitter that the doppelganger did not have her finger on the trigger while pointing the gun at Ressler’s head. I’d like to think the actress and crew are careful enough to catch such things as her finger was nowhere near that trigger (and she knew how to shoot that unnamed FBI agent during the chase) so I hope that was purposeful, perhaps as a small signal to the audience that Liz never really intended to hurt Ressler, even though he of course couldn’t see what was going on behind his head. A nod, at least, to the idea that Liz doesn’t really mean to hurt him.

Before I get too much deeper into my personal impressions of the scene, I want to specifically address the anon who wonders if she’s alone in finding it hard to root for Liz or Keenler in all this.

Of course you’re not.

Darker Liz isn’t for everyone. If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me Ressler deserves better than Liz over the past five years, I’d be able to buy you dinner (even at NYC prices). Never mind how many have abandoned the ship over that exact issue or related issues over the seasons. But I also think you know that I don’t share your viewpoint. Maybe that’s why you send me asks, or maybe you’re just using my inbox as an outlet to find those who agree with you. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter (although I admit if it’s the latter, publishing your thoughts on your OWN page rather than in my inbox might be preferable because as much as I enjoy asks to a point, I’m a little tired of ship hand-holding asks. I like what I like and trying to explain it or defend it gets a little tiring.)

All I can say is after five years of deep investment in this fandom and these characters, it takes a LOT more than an absent female lead and a bumpy episode to capsize my ship and send me into the pit of despair. For me, this is the expected price we pay for the ship being canon now versus only at the very end of the show. The Blacklist has never been about showing smooth, happy, relationships. Angst, drama, tension is the name of the game. You have to decide for yourself whether you can stomach that on a week to week basis and especially this season because they warned us – “good AND difficult” – difficult!  - for Keenler. I reconcile the conflict by the fact that Ressler still WANTS Liz and BELIEVES in Liz despite her flaws and if he does, then so do I. The man has some blinders when it comes to Liz, certainly, but not the sort that they love to mock him for on screen. He’s not thinking solely with his male parts brain, he’s thinking with his actual, in his head brain and he LOVES this woman despite her crazy and I love that about him. He’s smarter than most people give him credit for. And I am also of the view that real life and ships do not need to be equivalents. You can love two flawed fictional TV characters without being a person who wants to see those things manifest in real life. (I also ship Wanda and Vision for the record).

So I think we can all agree that this episode – and Liz’s absence generally – has been more “difficult” than good Keenler-wise. Ressler himself told us in those early episodes before her departure that it’s different if you see her, and it certainly is. We’ve been robbed of Liz’s thoughts and emotions entirely ever since she last graced our screen in Ep. 8x04. (And of Ressler’s reaction to said departure, for the most part). At the same time, I think Liz recognizes that too as she hasn’t to our knowledge directly engaged with Cooper, Aram OR Ressler since she left except through surrogates. Purposeful choices on the part of the diabolical writers.

As I said in my earlier ask response tonight, I remain of the view that Liz is in control of her actions and is doing her own risk/benefit assessment in how she responds to the situations she finds herself in. 

I do NOT think that means she has lost all emotion or feeling for Cooper, Aram OR Ressler, but as she explained to Townsend, “Reddington has an army on both sides of the law. I can’t do this alone. I need a partner.” She believes that the Task Force – all of them – are tied to Reddington in their own way, including Ressler, and she doesn’t expect them to violate those arrangements/principles for her. She’s moving outside the boundaries of those relationships to shed light on the secrets that she believes are being kept. Did she involve them this week?  Yes, but I think only because Townsend forced her hand on dealing with his sister. I doubt she would’ve sent her double to the Post Office otherwise. (I totally agree that the Post Office needs better security protocols btw – the idea that Liz can continually breach their defenses has become absolutely laughable at this point).

But, part of that is personal relationships.  She needed Ressler to give her the door codes and he did. Why? Not because he’s her patsy or her f--- boy or whatever derogatory term someone wants to slap on him (!), but because he loves her, flaws and all. The whole letting her go/letting him go thing has always had double meaning, back to S2. 

Cyranoid Liz: You should let me go. Ressler: Those days are over. Cyranoid Liz: Why? Nothing’s changed.

Has nothing changed? He let her go in S2 and then she shot Tom Connolly and he beat himself up over it. Then, the “I can’t let her go” (Ressler pointing the gun in S3 outside the Russian embassy), followed by that car chase and then Red in the next episode, Eli Matchett:

Red: Ressler is a law-enforcement robot. The FBI winds him up– Liz: That’s not true. He’s a person. He’s a good person. Red: Look at me. You need to let that go, Lizzy. I have survived for a very long time now, and I assure you, I didn’t do it by relying on the goodness in people.

I’d submit it has and it hasn’t. All these seasons later, she is once again having a hard time letting him go and so is he (with respect to her).

Ressler: Why’d you call? Liz: I don’t know. I guess– because every time we say goodbye, I’m afraid we might actually mean it.

Both with eyes open wider this time and yet, still wanting the peaceful night, free of all the distractions. 

Yes, he let Liz’s double go physically without much protest. Emotionally? He hasn’t let go of Liz. Not one bit. And Liz saw that, through her cyranoid. He’s still on her side. He still wants to believe in her, no matter what she’s putting him through (and poor Ressler, he’s really enduring a lot – though I hope the tide will turn on that at some point).  He had no reason to open that door, and yet – he did. He doesn’t want that one night to be just ONE night and deep down, I don’t think she does either.

“I won’t give up on you.” 

He hasn’t, yet. “But I still need to do my job, Keen.” She better not push him too far because the day he does is the day I worry. He’s desperate not to repeat the mistakes of the past, he’s desperate to trust her this time. Not because he’s thinking with his small man-part-brain, but with his HEART. He loves her. He’ll do anything he can for her within the limits of his conscience. They are each others’ second chance.

I don’t view Keenler or Ressler’s feelings for Liz or Liz’s manipulations of Ressler as fatal to the ship because I accept that this whole thing – Liz’s mission – is the battle for her soul  that the writers have teased for years . Which side will win? Hopefully the right one. The hopeful one. The one that makes second chances happen.

Cheers.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still... 

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel. 

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up. 

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go. 

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P 

[captlok]

Pacifism Isn’t A Character Trait

Or: MLK Day is Upon Us so Let Me Do You a Learn

Or: As An Aang Stan I Got a Bit Over-Zealous But Lemme Explain Why For A Hot Minute

Plus some History and Tumblr commentary that even non-ATLA fans can chew on

And by ‘hot minute’ I do mean this is going to be a long meta, so strap in.  For those of you who just might be tuning into this debacle, I, a person who has not used Tumblr, much at all, except for the last half year, ran into some trouble. 

If you wanna skip the whole TLDNR interpersonal stuffs and get straight to Why Aang is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, I will embolden the relevant parts, and italicize the crit of Korra, if you want that alongside.

I was excited that ATLA was seeing a resurgence due to the Netflix remake. I wasn’t even trying to apply any steep expectations for it. (learned not to do that the hard way with the last live action adaption, and to a much lesser extent, ATLOK, since it had good . . . elements, *ba dum tsshh*) 

So, these are a couple aspects of the issue: (1) Even on the internet, I am extremely introverted and until recently mostly came for content, not socializing. My main online interactions thus far have been in forums and artist-to-artist on DA. Tumblr is still very strange to me because it splits up its ‘threads’ so you can’t see all the replies if a certain pattern of users responds in their own space. I’m not even 100% sure it’s in chronological order, and replies are not nested next to each other so you can look in the comments and someone will be replying to something you can’t see in that window. And also since it is a bizarre hybrid of a blogging system, posts are somehow considered ‘owned by’ or an ‘extension of’ OP in a way forum threads are not. (2) ATLOK was good in a cinematic and musical way, to be sure. It also had some good concepts. I can go into it just appreciating it for the worldbuilding and be somewhat satisfied. But the execution was terrible. I was on AvatarSpirit.Net for years, and If I had maintained my presence on ASN to current day and had gotten around to downloading their archive now that the forum is dead, I would include some links to other peoples’ detailed analyses on just how flawed both the plotting and Korra’s frustratingly flat learning curve was especially in the first two seasons. But, that is a task for another day, and only if people are interested. 

No, what I’m addressing today, on the issue of Korra as a writing exercise, is how Mike and Bryan said specifically they wanted to make her ‘as opposite to Aang as possible’ and in so doing, muddied the central theme of the original ATLA series.

Now, again, I was mainly an art consumer for my first major round of ATLA fandom. Tumblr is an alien beast to me. But, after I write my first major Aang meta, talking about how amazing it is that he has the attitude he does, and how being content in the face of this overwhelming pain and suffering is an ONGOING PROCESS and an INTENTIONAL DECISION and not a simple PERSONALITY TRAIT, I start hearing that Aang gets a lot of hate from the fandom. Now this would be bad enough if it were merely people not liking his crowning moment of pacifism because they don’t understand the potential utility (I’ll elaborate on that in another post) or the ethics involved.

Aang is easily the most adult member of the Gaang. But he apparently gets hate for his few moments where he actually acts his age, a preteen, and maybe kisses a girl in a historical timeframe in which ‘consent’ discussions were probably nonexistent. Even in the present day, we are still practically drowned in movies that reinforce this kissing without asking trope. And even some female bodied people complain that asking kills the mood! But somehow he is responsible and reprehensible for this, even though the first time she kissed him back. I’m only going to get into the pacifism discussion today, but that was just another layer of annoyance bouncing around in the back of my head.  Other peoples’ crit of Korra that was stewing in my subconscious, plus this Aang bashing, which thankfully I had not directly read much of, made up the backdrop of gasoline for the match that set it off.  Even that seems a pretty melodramatic way to phrase what I actually said, which was: Aang, on the other hand, lost dozens of father figures and was being steamrolled by Ozai who was gloating about genocide TO HIS FACE, yet he still reigned in all that quote, ‘unbelievable rage and pain’ (The Southern Raiders). We Stan Aang, the Superior Avatar. No I did not f**king stutter. #AangSupremacy In another meta, someone complained that I was too defensive of Aang as a character and didn’t apply literary analysis enough, which I quickly rectified.

What set this off? Someone was kind of indirectly praising the line from Korra,  “When I get out of here, none of you will survive” To them it was emotionally resonant or whatever, and I have to point out that no, it was a martial artist not having control of their state of mind, as is the bedrock of the practice. It was never addressed by the narrative, which is a severe oversight.  I had a conversation with someone in the chats, making this distinction between Korra’s character traits and life philosophy. If she were to kill people while enraged and she was fine with that, that’s one thing. But if she regretted it, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. People argue that she comes from a warrior culture, unlike Aang.

Never mind that warrior monks are a thing. That’s what Shaolin monks are. You can be a pacifist and skilled at fighting. Those things are not mutually exclusive, which is the whole point of Bagua, Aang’s style.  And also, Katara’s style. 

That’s one reason I like Kataang so much- their congruent styles. Both of their real world martial arts are dedicated to pacifism, even though ATLA specifically doesn’t spell that out for Katara and her learning arc. 

There was a meta where someone briefly tried to argue that knowing “martial arts” is against pacifism. No. Quite the opposite. I’d argue that you are not a true pacifist unless you know exactly how to handle yourself if someone attacks you.  If you are not in a position to make conscious decisions about how much force to use, rather than merely operating on survival instincts, that is not pacifism. Or at least, not any energy or effort towards pacifism as a practical everyday tool.  I’ve made a few attempts to learn some tai chi and aikido, and it’s improved my physical and mental health, but some other things have gotten in the way. #lifegoals

I’m not going to tag the unfortunate soul whom I was replying to, because they’re probably tired of all this, but I’ll be sending them a PM to say that I’ve made this into a different post, because as I mentioned before, threads are somehow considered “owned” by OP, so it’s been pointed out to me that I should separate it.  I also said, I have basically ZERO respect for Korra uttering violent threats when the writers already minted a far more emotionally devastated and yet still resilient and centered character earlier in their franchise. People always try to excuse away people who genuinely like Aang more.  As if it’s just nostalgia or whatever. For me, no, it’s absolutely not. It is respect for a character who stands toe to toe with real people who are kind in the face of overwhelming injustice. (I have another meta on that). 

Both OP and people in the chats try to make excuses that she wasn’t raised as a pacifist, and that would be fine if they had addressed it with Tenzin and she had stated outright that she was rejecting pacifism and mind training. As it is, we are left with this nebulous affair where the lines between ideology and personality traits are blurred. 

We are told she “has trouble with spirituality” but what does that even mean? Does she have trouble with focus? Does she have trouble relating to the canonically real spirits? And pacifism specifically nor inner peace that it flows from is never even talked about as an extension of spirituality, which is canonically tied to airbending.

“Aang didn't have to deal once with the loss of his autonomy in atla” OP claims.

This was after I had noted that Aang was getting kicked around by Ozai and was most likely going to die.  Similarly, someone in the chat rejected the idea that a 12 year old trapped in a stone sphere that is heating up under a cyclone-sized blowtorch feels powerless. 

Sorry but that’s flat out ridiculous.

No one wants to admit that both of these people were faced with similar situations, and when push came to shove, one showed his LIFE PHILOSOPHY through conscious effort, and the other was abandoning the basis of martial arts, which is, no matter what the situation, keep thinking. Hold the panic at bay. Non-attachment would have served her well in this situation. Tenzin should have told her this. Before, or afterwards. It should have been addressed in the writing.  

People see this as “bashing” Korra, and oh well, can’t help that. If I think the writers didn’t follow through on their themes, that is my concern.  OP said I was “offended.” No, not really. 

I wasn’t offended by the post itself, or its commentary. Thought I made that pretty clear.

This is not dramatics. Let me be blunt.

As a ideological pacifist, and an actual practitioner of meditation, based on Buddhism, NOT just the fan of some show, I am for calling out writers who write one way from the survivor of genocide, and then stray from that ‘thoughtless aggression is immoral no matter HOW hurt I am’ to ‘let’s not address this character’s aggression in the narrative whatsoever.’ OP attempted to derail by accusing me of being racist or sexist against Korra. Also ridiculous. It honestly should have set me off more, but it didn’t. 

Meditation is about reigning in your emotions. Managing your anger when it gets out of hand, and digging down to the roots of it. Being responsible for your own behavoir. Acknowledging ownership of your own actions. Not blaming anything YOU DO on anyone else or any circumstances in your life. Like an adult, or should I say, an enlightened adult.

Or at the very least, that is the ideal ypu strive towards while being imperfect in the present.

. . .

Now.

I’m going to quote a passage in a Google Doc of mine, even though I’d really prefer if you asked to read the whole thing, with context.

“What do humans do when it is necessary to, or greed makes a nation want to recruit?

They go to the army to get trained, right?

Granted, having someone scream and get spittle on your face is, in the grand scheme of things, poor preparation for having bullets whiz past your chest and grenades shatter your ears. And, what do you do to prepare you for the pain of getting your leg blown off? Hopefully, nothing. Like taking a test where you only got half the study guide. But, it’s about the most ethical way to go about it, right?

Not everyone even sees action. So any more more extensive mental preparation for physical pain than that, and you’d have people definitely protesting.

Well, as it turns out, pacifistic protestors themselves, if they were in the right time and place, also very intentionally do this type of mind training. Except, when they did it, they actually did sit still and took turns roughly grabbing each other and throwing each other down and in some cases, even kicking and bruising each other.

Turns out, those pacifists are, in some ways, more hardcore than the army.

Why is this?

Because a pacifist’s aim, unlike a unit, who wants to gain the upper hand in a situation, is to grit their teeth and grind their way through all those survival instincts, and totally submit.

In this, they aim to get the sympathy of the public, who clearly sees they are not aggressive, or a danger, no matter how much the footage is manipulated or suppressed.

In this, they hope to appeal to their attacker’s better nature.

Make them stop and think, wait a second, are these people a threat like we’re told they are? I’m attacking someone who’s letting me beat them up. Or a bunch of people. All forming a line, and letting us peel them off. Or sitting, and bowing their heads. If I’m on the ‘right’ side of things, the law, why am I doing this?

It’s not like a bully, who’s just a kid.” They’re more self-aware.

And might I add the situation influences a pacifist’s actions too. There’s no reason to let a single or a few random attackers beat you up if you can evade or disable without permanent damage.

Pacifism is a dynamic set of responsive actions informed by values. Not a proscribed set or a checklist.

But in terms of organizing against state power, and recording wrongdoing, which unlike during the Civil Rights can happen from all angles from smart phones nowadays, these are the motivations.

“So, the pacifist knows this, and that’s why they go through all that trouble of training themselves to, not only submit, but not turn tail and run, either.”

See, a character trait is something like being a morning person, or ways of handing information, or a given set of emotions a character feels. Once you cross over into actions, you must make the distinction of whether an impulsive character agrees with their own uncontrolled actions, or is embarrassed or remorseful. Those are life philosophy. Now sure, one type of person or character may be more likely to subscribe to pacifism, but there is no gatekeeping on what you have to feel or how you look at things. You can be easygoing, or feel all the rage in the world, but as long as you at least attempt to have a handle on those desires and feelings to where they do not cross into actions, you are still doing the work of metacognition, which is what martial arts and its accompanying mind training are for.

It’s what we see Aang do.

He’s informed us, during the Southern Raiders, on how much rage and pain he feels.

Pain points, TRIGGERS, that were directly struck at when Ozai gloated over him.

He joins with all the past Avatars for several moments, and just like every other time he is in the Avatar State, he is enraged. He wants to exact revenge on the unrepentant grandson of a baby murderer.

We see it when he turns his head away, face still screwed up in anger.

For another example, I could cite my difficulties in being aware and reining in my tongue sometimes. I know the roots of these issues and I seek to let them go.

It’s just that process takes way longer than Guru Pathik would have us assume.

In fact, I would even say that Aang’s portrayal throughout the three seasons is not strictly a realistic representation of at least the sad side of grief. I addressed that a little when I talked about real life figures. But what it IS, is a metaphor that cuts very deep to the heart of pacifism. As I showed in that Doc . . . There is no limit of suffering a pacifist is willing to go through, internal or external, for the preservation of peace.

This was demonstrated during the Civil Rights, and with Gandhi and all his followers beforehand, inspiring them. The pacifists’ method of swaying hearts is probably the reason BLM exists in such numbers as it does today. Will the types of narratives that correspond with their full stories of the way they collectively planned and trained for and approached conflict make it into fantasy media? I’d say, probably not. For a host of reasons.

It could be hoped for, I guess.

But we DO have Aang.

As for myself, whether speaking sharply is an “action,” per se is up for debate- certainly it doesn’t seem to violate the non-aggression principle put forth by the vision of a “stateless society.”

For another example, let’s take my explanation at the beginning. I am examining how circumstances affected my actions, and now am attempting to fix it, if indeed it needs to be fixed. 

At least one person said that it not so much what I said, but how and when I said it. I don’t actually think I’ve said anything “wrong” per se. So I have to figure it out. 

[I’m considering splitting up this next part into a second post, as it only slightly relates to pacifism itself and is just kinda some more commentary on Tumblr itself- Tumblr discourse, as it were]

[I’ll put more brackets when I’m done in case you want to skip this part as well]

An interesting social difference between Tumblr and other places is this command you often get, “don’t chat/reblog/message me back.”

This is interesting for several reasons. For chats and reblogs, other people may be following the “conversation,” so it’s actually pretty rude and presumptuous to tell a person not to respond to whatever you said, because other people watching still may be interested in your take.

In a forum setting, if someone involved in a conversation doesn’t have anything left to say, usually they just don’t respond.

This method would work perfectly fine for Tumblr, but for some reason, maybe its super odd format, probably due to the “ownership”/“extension of self” I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, people don’t tend to do this.

Now, in comment sections, sometimes you’ll run across an amusing sort of “mutually assured destruction” where two people both say this to each other. You’d better stop responding. Omg just give up. Why are you still arguing. Etc.

But see, no matter where this behavoir pops up, and no matter who starts in on it, those who do this usually want to have the last say on the matter.

Instead of merely not replying, they want to assert verbal control over the conversation.

Tumblr, in its weirdness, is also sort of like a mutant comments section. You can post comment section threads as your own post.

Which is one reason why I’m puzzled when people say ‘don’t read the comment sections’ when Tumblr is so popular.

I’m an oddball in that I browse comment sections for fun.

Probably due to alexithymia, I didn’t really comprehend the emotional toll it takes on many people, so the warnings to “stay out of comment sections” read to me like “hey don’t eat that dessert.” After I’m done with the ‘meal’ of an article or art, I like to see what lots of different people have to say about it. The fluff. Anything vitriolic I either blip over, or extract anything useful, or if I judge the person is reasonable enough, I might engage.

Sometimes I mis-judge on how reasonable someone is, and I shrug and move on after being cussed out or whatever.

In this, I suppose I succeed much of the time in being a verbal pacifist.

[But let’s get back to the more serious stuff.]

We’re talking about what is done in life or death situations, here.

For myself, I may in the near future be working more with dangerously mentally ill people. I’ve had a little exposure to it through various means. Nurses are obligated not to retaliate against patients, and those who have, have been fired in some situations. Again oddly, this is not primarily what triggers my anxiety. Unfortunately enough, this requirement has also resulted in nurses getting seriously injured and violated. I hope to influence whether “no harm” techniques such as tai chi and aikido and arm locks may be allowed. The voluntary philosophy I was luckily already on board with is enforced by bureauacracy, directly relevant to my potential profession.

Were someone to get involved in a dangerous profession, such as a police officer, their moral duty would also be to own up to any spur of the moment anger or fear they acted on. 

It’s just that their bureaucracy acts differently, in excusing their actions.

Ideally, they would be taking steps far in advance, to avoid this often-cited fear of death reaction. As training pacifists like Aang do. 

And yes, army people are trained differently than police officers because the army, often, even when threatened, is supposed to avoid engagement or deploy deterrents that are non-lethal almost all costs, unless ordered otherwise. Whereas American police are given pretty much complete discretion and often not taught de-escalation techniques. Even police from other nations are better trained in that regard.

Enter the ironically named @avatarfandompolice whose account description should really speak for itself. Combative, dismissive, and their attention-hungry bread and butter is to find people they think it’s acceptable to ridicule.  They basically tried to say trauma was a valid excuse to take out your anger on other people, and in this situation, potentially kill. 

Now, does this hold up in the real world? Yeah, sometimes. Especially if some law breaker or law keeper has not been given the anger management tools, they perhaps could be excused, or better yet, rehabilitated.

But especially if anyone finds themselves in dangerous situations, or intends to put themselves in such, it falls to them to do this preparation.

As an aphant, I am at a bit of a disadvantage, compared to an average martial artist, being unable to visualize an attacker. But I still attempt it.

As the main “police officer” of the world- the coincidentally blue clad figurehead that is supposed to keep order, it is apparently fine for Korra to not do the work Aang did to keep level. To blow it off as too much trouble: clearing the First Chakra of fear. For herself or others. And its resultant anger. Had she had access to the Avatar State, the authority figure pretty much would have killed people.  This is what the “fandom police” and a certain chat goer ultimately support. Maybe they didn’t understand it that way, and since the second had blocked me, they will also never see this explanation. Unless I were to share it in Google Doc form I suppose.

So, I responded. “Remember kids, you are not responsible for your own behavior if you have the excuse that someone else did something bad to you.” A frighteningly common sentiment on this site.

When it’s low stakes like CAPSLOCKING or internet fights, that’s not such a big deal. But what happens if this attitude leaks into the real world? This isn’t even about Korra or Aang anymore, it’s about toxic mindsets. I didn’t know fans taking pro-Korra posts as anti-Aang was a common in the fandom. I’ll say again I’ve only just gotten really active on Tumblr like the past few months. This is about pacifism itself. MLK and his hardworking, training followers (yes some of them sixteen and POC and not super-powered like Korra) facing down firehoses and staging sit-ins long trained for would shake their heads at this defense of reactionism. 

Pacifism is not a Personality Trait.

It is deliberate actions and preparation taken over a period of time.

Then the “fandom police” tried more of this, and these two conversations ensued, the comments with another user resulting in the title and main thesis of this essay:

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638777472806273024/avatarfandompolice-response-to-my-independent

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638806142933467136/the-plight-was-not-what-i-was-getting-at-it-was

[kittyprincessofcats]

I love both shows (Spop and Su) but I wanted to ask about some things you’ve said:

“Can’t believe “It’s okay for fans to be disappointed when oppressive dictators who’ve murdered millions and have tried to kill the protagonists before get forgiven without having to face consequences” is a so hard to understand for some people, but here we are”

“So did Steven Univerae end with the Diamonds in prison where they should be, or did I do well to stop watching when I did?”

With that logic can’t the very same thing be said and applied to She ra regarding Catra?

“So did She ra end with Catra in prison where she should be, or did I do well to stop watching when I did?”

Hi there. First of all, I want to say sorry for taking so long answer this. January’s been a very busy month for me and I literally just didn’t have the time to write the kind of reply I think this ask deserves.

Next, I want to make a few things clear just so we’re on the same page:

I love both shows as well and nothing I’m about to say is intended to be seen as hate against Steven Universe. SU meant a lot to me and I was a big fan of it for many years. Change Your Mind disappointed me a lot as an episode and as a finale, precisely because I didn’t want the Diamonds to get any sort of redemption, but just because it was a dealbreaker for *me*, that doesn’t mean I harbor any ill feelings towards the fans or writers of the show. None of this is meant to be a personal attack against anyone who worked on this show or likes it.

I stopped watching SU after CYM, so this post will ignore anything beyond that. I have not seen the SU movie or Steven Universe Future and I don’t intend to. Please don’t try to convince me otherwise. I’m not comfortable watching more.

I wrote the posts you quoted because I got quite a few rude messages after I said I didn’t like Change Your Mind and that I don’t want to keep watching SU. The first one was a response to people who were giving me a hard time for not liking the Diamond redemption – it wasn’t me saying that /no one/ should like it, just that my feelings on it were valid as well and people shouldn’t badger me about it.

In that sense, YES you could say the same thing about Catra! If someone wanted to stop watching SPOP because Catra’s redemption made them uncomfortable (maybe because they knew someone like her in real life or something similar), that’d be absolutely fine! I’d never send them the kind of messages I got or try to pressure them into continuing a show they’re not comfortable continuing. Because respecting real people is more important than a show or a fictional character.

I’ll be honest: I’m a little tired of justifying my feelings about the SU finale to people. But I believe you’re asking out of genuine curiosity and I haven’t made too many posts defending Catra yet, so I’ll try to analyze this step by step for you – and anyone else who might be curious.

So, without further ado: Here’s my essay on why Catra’s redemption works for me but the Diamonds’ doesn’t.

Short explanation: Because if you compare the scale of their actions, their motivations, what’s supposed to make them sympathetic to the audience, their build-up, and how their respective redemptions are handled, then the Diamonds aren’t an equivalent to Catra – they’re an equivalent to Horde Prime. And if SPOP had suddenly redeemed Horde Prime at the last minute after building him up as the big bad, I wouldn’t have liked that either.

Long (very long) explanation under the cut

Okay, let’s get into this in detail.

1.     The scale of their actions

Let’s look at the evil stuff these characters have done first.

The Diamonds: Created an intergalactic empire, conquered millions of planets (destroying all life of them in the process) for millions of years, created a strict caste system in which all gems only have one function to follow and where Pearls are essentially slaves who have to obey every order, persecute and send shattering robonoids after gems that don’t fit into the system or fuse outside of their caste (off-colors), created a human zoo and kidnapped people for it, shattered anyone who wasn’t loyal to them, bubbled all the Rose Quartzes, created the Cluster and the other fusion experiments out of the shards of their fallen enemies (essentially torturing them for all eternity), corrupted all the gems on Earth, including those that were loyal to them. And that’s just what we get told upfront in the show. We’re talking about intergalactic dictators with no respect for life who will ruthlessly kill anyone who gets in their way.

Catra: Helped Hordak conquer one (1) planet. Bad, yes – but not nearly on the same scale as devoting eons to conquering entire galaxies. Also, Catra isn’t the one who founded the Horde in the first place; she just happened to grow up there (likely because she was taken from her real home as a baby) and was raised with their ideals. The Diamonds, on the other hand *are* the people who started their empire.

So yeah, the Diamonds aren’t Catra – they’re Horde Prime. He’s the one who founded the intergalactic Horde and destroyed millions of planets. (There’s even a whole parallel about how both Horde Prime and White Diamond think they’re perfect and everyone should be like them…)

Now, you could argue that Catra opening the portal was a crime on a larger scale. But even that would have likely only destroyed Etheria – one planet, not millions. The scale we’re talking about is still way smaller than Horde Prime’s or the Diamonds’ actions.

Catra’s other “crimes” in the show are things like being a toxic friend, manipulating and lying to people. Those are things I’m going to ignore for this post, since you specifically asked if Catra shouldn’t be in prison for her crimes. Being a toxic friend is bad and all, but it’s not actually something illegal that you can get thrown in jail for, so it’s irrelevant for this discussion. And it still wouldn’t be on the scale of the Diamonds, who, let me repeat, have destroyed countless galaxies.

2.     Motivations for their actions

“But what about *why* they did all of those things? Isn’t that relevant?” It is, and I’m glad you asked. Let’s have a look.

Catra: Catra grew up in the Horde through no fault of her own and was mistreated and abused her whole life to the point where survival and safety became her primary motivations. She was treated as second best to Adora, filling her with a desire to prove herself. She got told as a child that she’s only worth “keeping around” if Adora values her, so she tied her self-worth to Adora’s approval. She feels betrayed when Adora leaves the Horde, because she interprets it as Adora caring more about strangers than about her. She stays with the Horde because they’re the devil she knows, because she wants to prove herself and because she’s hurt about the only person who ever showed her kindness leaving her. She grew up without a proper parental figure and without ever learning what healthy relationships are supposed to work like, so it’s understandable why she has no concept of it. She opens the portal because she sees her abuser working with (and seemingly being accepted by) her enemies and that knowledge makes her feel powerless to the point where she’d do anything to get back at them. She’s been abused and victimized her entire life and all of her actions are a direct result of that. Catra thinks that if she gains enough power, it’ll finally give her the safety and approval she craves.

In general, Catra’s story always makes it clear that she’s a victim of physical and emotional abuse who never learned what healthy relationships are supposed to look like and who’s lashing out in the only way she knows how. Some people might disagree on this, but I personally never had a point in the show where I couldn’t relate to her or couldn’t understand why she’s doing a certain thing. SPOP did a brilliant job of making sure that even at her lowest point, Catra’s actions are still understandable when you think from her point of view.

The Diamonds: … Uhm yeah, I’m drawing a blank here. Unless there’s some explanation in the movie or SU Future, we never actually learn why they did any of what they did. We get an explanation for some of their deeds – that they created the zoo because they thought Pink wanted it, that they corrupted the gems as revenge for Pink’s supposed death – but what the show never goes into is the real problem: Why they’re dictators in the first place. Why they consider themselves superior to other gems. Why they shatter anyone who doesn’t fit it, etc. They’re just dictators… because they’re dictators. We never get to understand their motivations.

And just to be clear – I think that in itself is perfectly fine. I don’t think SU should have had to give us any more explanation than that. SPOP also never explains why Horde Prime conquers other planets in the first place. He just does it because he’s evil and power-hungry and the show needs an antagonist. I think not giving a villain a deeper motivation is fine – if you’re not planning to redeem them.

3.     What makes them sympathetic

Catra: I pretty much explained this already. We’re told from season 1 that Catra was abused by Shadow Weaver, that Adora was the only person who cared about her, that she was always treated like she was second-best. Heck, there’s an entire backstory episode just about everything Catra’s been through. We’re meant to feel bad for her, even when she’s evil. We’re meant to cheer for her when she stands up to Shadow Weaver and defeats her. We’re meant to feel for her when Shadow Weaver stabs her in the back and Hordak sends her to the Crimson Waste. Her entire breakdown is meant to be tragic and engaging. When you’ve watched a character suffer so much through no/little fault of their own, when you’ve watched them stand up to bigger villains in a way that makes you root for them, it makes sense that you want them to eventually get their happy ending.

The Diamonds: I realize in retrospect that the writers probably meant for us to feel bad for the Diamonds, too. Like when they’re grieving Pink, during What’s the Use of Feeling, Blue?, or when they complain how stressed they are in Change Your Mind. But the thing is… it just didn’t work for me. After the show spent all that time showing us all the death, despair, and destructions the Diamonds had caused, after it was made clear that the Crystal Gems had lost multiple friends and allies to them, it just didn’t make me feel sympathetic that the diamonds had lost one (1) person. So what if someone shattered Pink for being a dictator? The Diamonds themselves have shattered millions of gems and now that it’s someone they care about I was suddenly meant to feel bad for them? I didn’t.

When That Will Be All first aired, I loved What’s the Use of Feeling, Blue? – because I thought the show was doing this brilliant thing where they show that evil people can still have loved ones and have feelings but that doesn’t make them less evil. Every horrible person in history had feelings and loved ones. That doesn’t excuse their actions. In retrospect I find it disappointing to know that we were meant start feeling bad for the Diamonds due to their grief for Pink, that we were meant to see Pink/Rose as the evil one for starting a rebellion against them, that we were supposed to believe Bismuth was in the wrong. Rebelling against a dictatorship is a good thing. Standing up for equality is a good thing. I don’t like that the show suddenly tried to spread this message that conflict is always bad even when you’re actively fighting against tyranny and oppression. What happened to the Crystal Gems and their cause? What happened to the Steven from season 1 who reassured Lapis that “They’re mean, and that’s why we *have to* fight them”? And no, the “but being a dictator is so stressful, please feel bad for us” part didn’t work for me either.

4.     A well-written redemption arc

For a well-written redemption arc, a character needs to actually regret what they’ve done and realize they were wrong. Then they need to put in the effort to be better from now. They need to… actually change. And then they need to do things that make up for their actions.

Catra: We get to see Catra go through an amazing character arc that culminates in her redemption and her eventual love-confession to Adora. The entire arc that was built for her over 5 seasons leads up to that moment and it’s so satisfying when it finally happens because it makes sense. We get to see her make big mistakes, get to see how she finally even scares Scorpia away, how Scorpia leaving breaks her, how Double Trouble gives her a harsh but needed lecture, how she understands that she and Glimmer aren’t so different, how she finally remembers Adora and decides to save her. We see her regret her actions as early as season 1, when she feels visibly bad after leaving Adora on the cliff in the temple. In season 4, she has nightmares about Entrapta and feels guilty for what she did to her and for opening the portal.

And from the moment she decides to change, she’s willing to make huge personal sacrifices to make up for her actions: She sacrifices herself to save Glimmer, gets tortured, mind-controlled and nearly dies in the process. The heroes saving her doesn’t come from nowhere and their forgiveness is well-earned because she was willing to put herself on the line to save someone else. She then keeps helping the heroes, apologizes to everyone she’s hurt, is again willing to sacrifice herself for Adora in the finale, and finally saves the entire universe from Horde Prime by staying with Adora and confessing her love to her. If we’re trying to be realistic about this – I’d say saving the whole universe from an intergalactic dictator would at least dramatically shorten her prison sentence? So no, I don’t think Catra should have ended up in prison.

The Diamonds: So the thing about their redemption arc is… they don’t really have one. We’re just kind of meant to forgive them out of the blue. Steven and the Crystal Gems ask the Diamonds for help to cure the corrupted gems and they manage to convince them, but there’s never any point where the Diamonds regret their actions. They only start to regret their actions towards Steven and Pink, but there’s never even an ounce of regret for what they did to anyone else. The Cluster? The deaths? The millions of destroyed planets and civilization? The humans and Rose Quartzes in the zoo? The presumably thousands of off-colors fighting for their lives underground on homeworld every second? That’s all swept under the rug in the finale. And therefore, the Diamonds can’t even get to the point where they make sacrifices for someone else or do anything that would lead me to forgive them, because they’re not even at a point where they realize they’ve done anything wrong. The show treats them like they’re redeemed in the end, but they’re not. Everything they’ve done just gets ignored.

5.     Being held accountable for their actions

Another thing that’s important for redemption arcs is that the heroes don’t just ignore what a character has done and act like it never happened.

Catra: SPOP never shies away from admitting that Catra has done bad things. Even after her heroic sacrifice, the other characters don’t just all forgive Catra at once. Adora still calls her out when she’s being selfish, some of other princesses are resentful towards her, Frosta punches her in the face, etc. One heroic sacrifice isn’t enough: You see Catra constantly working on herself afterwards and doing what she can to become a better person and make up for her actions. And most importantly, those actions are addressed in the show. (Arguably they could have addressed what happened to Angella again, but overall Catra’s actions get acknowledged in the show.)

The Diamonds: My other big problem with SU suddenly acting like the Diamonds are redeemed is that their actions never get addressed. People act like when I say I wanted the Diamonds to be held accountable that means I wanted Steven to shatter them in cold blood – no, I just wanted Steven to at least *say* that what they’re doing is wrong. Like I said, all of their actions other than corrupting gems and treating Steven & Pink badly completely get swept under the rug in Change Your Mind. It’s like we’re meant to assume that everything else will be fine now just because Steven managed to convince the Diamonds to do one (1) thing for him. What will happen to their colonies now? What about the humans and Rose Quartzes in the zoo? What about all the off-colors fighting for their lives underground on homeworld? What about the enslaved Pearls and the class system? None of that ever gets addressed in the finale – we’re just supposed to take that happy ending at face value and believe that all the other stuff will get fixed now, even though the show never says that!

(Before you tell me how any of that gets addressed in the movie or in Steven Universe Future – I don’t care. SU Future is a new show that takes place after a timeskip. The movie is also a separate thing. SU should make sense as a show on its own and it doesn’t. Change Your Mind was presented as a finale and therefore should wrap up the most important plots and it didn’t.)

For all we know after watching CYM, Steven doesn’t actually care about anything the Diamonds have done. He’s sitting on their shoulders and laughing with them in the end and we’re meant to take that as a happy ending. For all we know, there’s still an oppressive class system and gems getting shattered for not fitting into it on homeworld. The Cluster’s still suffering. The Pearls are still slaves. The Diamonds are still dictators and that aspect never changed – because it’s never addressed. When White Pearl regains consciousness, Steven says “Welcome Back”, but nothing in this episode ever implies that she’s not still WD’s slave. When Lars and the Off-colors arrive on Earth, the fact that they’re terrified of the Diamonds is played for laughs. The finale revolves only around Steven’s feelings while Garnet and Pearl never get a moment of standing up to the people who hurt them.

“But Steven needed the Diamonds’ help the heal the corrupted gems!”

Yes, that’s the in-universe explanation. But a writer still invented that rule. And even so, they could have added a scene where Steven takes the Crystal Gems aside and tells them “Hey, I know these people killed many of your friends, enslaved and persecuted you, but I just want you to know that I don’t actually like them or consider them family and I’m only doing this to help the corrupted gems. You’re my real family.”

6.     Identifying with their victims

I don’t remember who made that post, but there was a post on Tumblr somewhere that said that how likely someone is to forgive a villain often depends on how much they identify with the people that villain has hurt. And if I’m being very honest, that’s what a lot of my hate for the Diamonds boils down to:

The Diamonds don’t appear in Steven Universe until way later in the show. The way we first learn about them is indirect. We know the Crystal Gems fought a war against someone and are hiding on Earth from someone, but that someone doesn’t get a face until way later. By that point, we’ve already been told that fusions like Garnet are illegal on homeworld, that Pearls are considered lesser gems, and that Amethyst would be defective by homeworld’s standards. And all of those things made me personally sympathize with the Crystal Gems and their found family of misfits – and it made me angry at whoever did all of this to them. You can easily read the discrimination Ruby and Sapphire faced for their relationship as a metaphor for homophobia or prejudice against interracial relationships, the discrimination Pearl faces as racism or classism and how Amethyst is treated as ableism.

(Getting personal here for a moment: I’m gay and my parents are from a homophobic country that’s run by a dictator, so I strongly identified with Garnet and how she can’t go back to homeworld because she wouldn’t be allowed to exist as her true self there. Am I maybe reading too much into the show there? Yeah. But honestly, if the Diamonds’ redemption relies on people not identifying with the Crystal Gems – aka the literal protagonists of the show – too much, then maybe it’s just not a good idea. Yeah, maybe if I hadn’t identified with the CGs so strongly, I wouldn’t have minded the Diamond redemption – but it also means I’d have never loved SU as much in the first place.)

What I’m saying is that we first learn about the Diamonds from the point of view of the people they oppressed, persecuted, and tried to kill. We also meet the off-colors and learn about their plight, how they had to spend eons hiding from robots that want to kill them, how they believe the way they are is wrong, etc. We see the Cluster, the people in the zoo etc. and get told the Diamonds did all of this. And then Change Your Mind expects us to suddenly randomly forgive them with no build-up and be okay with Steven calling them “family” over the actual people who raised him.

Catra, on the other hand, is first introduced to us as Adora’s best friend. We get to meet her from the point of view of the protagonist who obviously loves her. Throughout their separation and their struggle, the relationship between these two characters drives the show. Their episodes together are emotional and well-written and make the audience root for them to eventually find their way back together again. We meet her as an abuse-victim who thinks her best friend left her, and we get so many reasons to sympathize with her before she ever hurts anyone.

(And yeah, it helps that the show never lets us personally meet any of the people from the lands she conquered. Yes, we feel bad for Scorpia and all that – but again, being a toxic friend isn’t actually a crime. And yes, we feel bad for Entrapta - but so does Catra, and Entrapta ends up being fine and forgiving her.)

7.     A satisfying ending for a show

This is more general, but SU didn’t have a satisfying conclusion imo, because almost none of the things that needed fixing were ever addressed. We’re meant to take “but the Diamonds say please and thank you now” as a good conclusion without getting to the part where they murder people every day. For all we know, Steven doesn’t even care about that part because the writers never made him act like he does.

And yes, I realize that the Diamonds are meant to be a metaphor for a conservative family that finally learns to accept their queer child (Steven), but that metaphor just didn’t work for me (a queer child of an unaccepting family) at all. Because they’re not presented as an unaccepting family: The show spent 4 seasons building them up as dictators and the ultimate big bad, only to drop the “they’re related to Steven” thing in there last minute and sweep the other stuff under the rug. We’ve also spent 5 seasons seeing the Crystal Gems, the people who literally raised him, as Steven’s family, so suddenly giving that title to their oppressors feels super wrong to me.

To give you a comparison, imagine the following ending for She-Ra: Near the end of season 5, Adora suddenly finds out she’s Horde Prime’s long-lost granddaughter. After calling him out for treating her/her parents badly, he finally regrets that part of his actions and promises to leave Etheria alone so Adora and her friends can live there in peace. However, he’s still going to conquer and destroy the rest of the universe and keep Hordak and the other clones mind-controlled. Adora is fine with this and you see her and Horde Prime laughing together in the end. Catra and all the other people Horde Prime chipped and tortured are seen being okay with him now because as long as Adora, the main character, is happy all the hurt Horde Prime caused anyone else doesn’t matter. When the Star Siblings show up on Etheria while fleeing from the Horde army, the fact that they’re scared of Horde Prime is played for laughs. The End.

… Sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it? I’m glad SPOP had the guts to just let Adora kill Horde Prime instead. Because some people are not redeemable, and that’s an important lesson, too.

Anyways, I’ve been rambling for too long. The bottom line is: The Diamonds are way more comparable to Horde Prime than to Catra. The scale of their actions is the same as that of Horde Prime, their motivations are never explained, we never get any reasons to sympathize with them, the main characters have all been victims of their regime, their redemption arc is nonexistent, they never get called out for their actions and the way their story is concluded is just badly written and leaves way too many factors unaddressed. They get forgiven without ever even being sorry and the Crystal Gems never get a moment to shine and stand up to them. So yes, I consider them irredeemable and was disappointed the show didn’t end with them getting imprisoned at least. (I was kind of hoping for a Homeworld revolution where everyone finally stands up to them, but… *sigh*.) If the show was going to redeem them, they should have at least done it properly by actually showing them have a change of heart and making them try to make up for their actions, instead of letting us assume that all happened off-screen.

Catra on the other hand gets presented as someone to root for from the beginning. She’s only in the Horde due to unfortunate circumstances, got abused and mistreated her whole life, is motivated by a desperate attempt to prove herself and make sure she doesn’t get hurt again, and never committed crimes on the same scale as the Diamonds. Her change of heart is believable and what her arc has been building up to for 4 seasons, she makes great personal sacrifices for Glimmer and Adora, gets held accountable for her actions, helps save the entire universe and is a character who has already suffered her entire life – so yes, I strongly believe that she deserves to live a happy, free, and peaceful life after the show.

[acephysicskarkat]

I don't want to start fights, but don't you think you may be going way too far with the salt? It's one thing to not be happy with the way a show ended(and so many people think S5 was great, so you are in a huge minority already), but to insult the showrunner because *one* ship didn't become canon is going too far, mate. Catradora was there from the start, and Catra had an amazing redemption arc. Then again, I am just one person, so idk. Anyway, thanks. -Callum.

I actually respect Noelle Stevenson a lot: bringing a show like She-Ra all the way to its conclusion, producing seasons 1-4 (which are in fact really good), working hard for BLM, all while being out and proud in an industry that still has plenty of bigots around - these are legitimate achievements that are worthy of respect.

However.

1) I don’t give a shit how many people liked S5. I am allowed my own opinions on my own blog. If you don’t like my opinions the block button is right there. Telling me that a lot of fans like the season is an irrelevant data point because my opinions are not subject to majority vote.

2) Catradora was part of the disappointment that was S5, but it was far from the only thing. The strong ensemble cast, one of the best things about the show, is underused; every redemption arc is utterly weightless (Catra’s isn’t the worst but it’s still badly undercooked, of which more later), Glimmer and Bow are barely relevant despite the BFS being the show’s actual beating heart (I know Noelle says Catradora was supposed to be the heart but it’s never felt like that to me), everything related to Catra and Adora’s relationship feels forced, out-of-character and clumsy, the resolution is tied to a bullshit save-the-world button with unclear results, long-running elements like Adora’s family or the Catra/Shadow Weaver parallels are ditched in favour of coming up with dumb answers about what Greyskull means, and the writing is just kind of bad.

It has good elements - I loved the Star Siblings, I liked having Entrapta actually deal with the consequences of her actions, Melog and Wrong Hordak were good additions, and “Peril of Peekablue” was excellent, on par with something like “Mer-Mysteries” - but the season was considerably worse than all the others.

Like, I actually went into S5 going “The most likely outcome here is Catradora canon, but hey, maybe this will be the season that sells me on it” and it wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t.

3) Catradora was there from the start, but it was also badly done from the start and S5 did not meaningfully improve it. It’s actually my go-to on how not to tell an enemies-to-lovers arc because the “enemies” part is really prolonged, heavily emphasised, toxic, unpleasant, emotionally wearing and vicious and the “to” is super rushed and clumsy (of which more in the next bullet point). From "The Promise” to the end of season 4, there are no moments where Catra and Adora’s emotional connection does anything to soften the hostility; if anything, it makes Catra worse because it adds a really cruel and personal note to the whole thing.

Then S5 executes on it badly because it relies heavily on papering over inconvenient events and character development instead of trying to build organically on what has happened before. Catra telling Adora, “You never gave up on anything, not even me,” is my go-to example of this, because she did. It was the S3 climax and a huge moment for Adora’s personal arc! And then the show even reinforced it by having Adora throw a robot directly at Catra’s face with pretty unambiguous intent to kill, or at least severely wound, in "Flutterina”. But it’s not dealt with; instead, we get one questionable line of dialogue about pretending it never happened. Having Adora admit she was wrong to give up on Catra and swearing never to do so again could have been a really powerful moment, but instead of trying to do anything with the thing we saw happen onscreen, it’s just shoved under the rug. It’s bad writing and a huge waste of interesting potential. (It’s also bad planting and payoff; we get the setup in S3, the reminder in S4, and then it’s outright retconned away.)

4) Catra’s redemption arc is actually kind of bad. It’s not as bad as Hordak’s, which I only barely consider a redemption arc because it’s super truncated and he never admits to even doing anything wrong, but it’s bad.

First, it’s super fucking rushed. Literal years of seething, constantly building resentment disappear offscreen; there’s never a point where she meaningfully grapples with it or comes to realise that being “Shadow Weaver’s favourite” was also a hellish experience just in different ways. She does her one big redemptive act, gets forgiven instantly by everyone (including Adora, for whom it feels badly out of character given the aforementioned giving-up, her suspicion in “Princess Prom” before Catra had even tried to ruin her life once let alone six times, etc.), and her resentment just...vanishes in one hand-hold. It was her defining personality trait and the underlying cause for most of her time as an antagonist; it really should have been, you know, dealt with, instead of just forgotten. It does try to deal with her anger issues and problems expressing vulnerability, but that’s like saying that now that Azula has agreed not to torture small animals everything is fine; it’s far from the deepest issue here and pretending otherwise does the character and the show a disservice.

Worse than that, nothing she actually did feels like it means anything because the show just shoves it all under the rug. I’m not asking that she spend an episode personally making it up to each person she’s harmed a la Zuko, not least because after her participation in the sack of Salineas that’s more episodes than a long-running daytime soap opera, but at the very least using her actions in seasons 1-4 for something could have led to some really interesting scenes and good character moments and all that potential is instead just wasted. Angella’s death is just plum forgotten despite how important it was last season; the parallels between Catra’s actions in “White Out” and Horde Prime’s chips are never explored; the Shadow Weaver parallels the show’s been building for four seasons and explicitly stated in the graphic novel tie-in are just ditched and nothing ever comes of them; everyone who might not forgive Catra in under five minutes is mind-controlled until the season is almost over, contributing to the sidelining of the strong ensemble cast. It just feels like they didn’t know how to square Catra’s actions in seasons 2-4 with how they wanted her arc to end, so they just opted to pretend those actions never happened, and as a direct result the whole mess lacks texture and weight and doesn’t feel like a satisfying development for her story. It never feels like she’s dealing with the consequences for her actions, because her actions don’t have consequences.

Noelle once said that the driving question for Catra was “what happens when you’re the toxic friend”, and now we have the answer: nothing. Catra faces no long-term consequences for being the toxic friend. Perfuma’s one minute of being angry is the longest gap between Catra seeming sad and Catra getting forgiven. Nothing she did matters in the long run except in the sense that she’s kind of sad about them in aggregate. None of her bridges are burned so badly they can’t be fixed. And that’s a bad answer, because in real life when you’re the toxic friend people do refuse to forgive you instantly when you say sorry. Relationships do get trashed so badly they never recover. The pain you cause matters, and the traits that made you the toxic friend take work to overcome...unless you’re Catra, in which case the pain you cause suddenly stops mattering and your issues can be dealt with in under an hour offscreen.

Or at least, that’s my attitude. Like, if you liked the season, I’m not saying you’re an idiot or have bad taste. But I hated it. It could maybe have been good if it had been two seasons, actually allow Catra’s arc to breathe instead of speedrunning the whole thing, done more with the ensemble cast etc., but what we got was a rushed mess and telling me that “lots of people liked the rushed mess actually” is not relevant to that assessment.

(Just as a side note, if you really don’t want to start a fight, I’m not sure sending passive-aggressive asks to the tune of “have you considered that your opinions are Wrong actually and mine are Right” is the best way to go about it.)

[centrally-unplanned]

(Spoilers ahead) Partner and I finished Season 2 of the Fruits Basket modern remake this weekend. I had only seen the, uh, 2001 original anime (2001? It was 20 years ago? Fuck), with no exposure to the manga, so a lot of the plot elements were new to me. I liked a lot of the show, but I have some big complaints about it handles its villain, Akito:

1: Akito occupies a very awkward place in this story. He (don’t worry, ill get to that) is the head of the main crew’s family and constantly inflicts abuse on all of its members, and is therefore the source of conflict for the plot, both in past trauma and present attempts as control and gaslighting.

Okay, so stories often have to walk a tightrope with abusive characters like this. Stories are normally pushed along and resolved internally - the main cast is going to experience the pain and drama, and fix it themselves, because that is the arc. For many plots that is easy, but if the story revolves around an abusive sibling/parent figure like Fruits Basket does, you will always be asking yourself the question “uh, why doesn’t anyone call the cops? or why don’t they just leave?” There is a tension between realism in the setting and the needs of the plot.

You can in fact resolve this tension in a lot of ways. If the abuse is primarily mental, slowly building, inflicted out of sight of responsible parties, etc, you can make this work. Lots of people don’t report abuse to authorities, or just move out of their house, but instead deal with it due to it being normalized. Other ways include making the characters teenagers - they don’t think of the world as having authorities outside of family (or school) and its much harder for them to reach outside of that bubble - the classic highschool bully problem. So Akito can work if he is subtle, slowly ramps, and controls his surroundings to hide his abuse from relevant authorities.

Anyway here is Akito pushing a 17 year old girl out of a two story window shattering her back and hospitalizing her for months:

And here he is threatening a 17 year old boy with life confinement in a literal cage unless he, uh, wins a duel with his cousin?

These are the worst moments but they are far from alone. This person is a raving lunatic, which fair enough that the 17 year olds don’t know how to handle that, but Akito himself is no older than 20. And the cast of characters who know everything that is going on includes:

-27 year old *published author* Shigure, who directly cares for both Akito and two of his abuse victims

-27 year old completely-independent business owner, Ayame, who is the *brother* of one of the abuse victims

-27 year old licensed medical doctor Hatori, who lives with and is the physician of Akito.

Hatori is violating every ethical obligation of his profession on the daily, dude is stone cold! This again could work if these characters were bad guys, but they aren’t - they are sympathetic protagonists or in Aya’s case even comic relief! The show wants you to think they are doing their best, Shigure even has a secret “plan” to deal with Akito that he has been planning for *years* and they all have "reasons” why they feel stuck due to the Zodiac curse yadda yadda. But you have to memory hole the fact that they are functioning adults in 21st century Japan, because otherwise Shigure and Hatori in particular reach levels of negligence to the children they care for that it tips right on over into being evil itself. 

These kids go to public school, guys!

Now I know what any defender would say - “its the curse!” The whole cast carries the curse of the Zodiac where God invited them in long-ago times to a dinner, Akito is the current manifestation of that God in some form, and so they are bound to him to enact that “dinner” metaphorically in some way by staying by his side (also they transform into their respective Zodiac animals when chest-on-chest contact occur from the opposite sex, because Anime). Again, you can make this work! Show Akito exerting a magical force on characters who stray too far from him, or a compulsion locking them to being forever near the Sohma estate where he lives. Something showing that yeah, the relevant authorities could not handle this and dragging Akito away in chains won’t work. But sadly the show just...doesn’t bother. There is a “curse” but we are two seasons in and any negative consequences of the curse beyond Akito Being An Asshole are Footage Not Found (Kyo is an exception, but not a relevant one), despite everyone pretending like there is. Everyone wants to break the curse? Fine, kill Akito. Then you all get to live in peace and transform into adorable animals when you’d like, curse broken. Just throw “doesn’t cuddle or do missionary position” on your OkCupid profile to make your love life work, no one is gonna bat an eye, and some people will be, lets say, readily down with your particular transformation fetish.

None of this is fatal to the show per se, you can suspend disbelief. But the show takes itself so seriously that you can’t help but think these thoughts, and it colors in particular how the older characters act. And it would be so easy to fix! They just didn’t bother.

2: Can someone explain to me, in the year of our Zodiac Lord 2021, how a character secretly being a girl is a “surprise reveal” worth ending a season on? The final shot of Season 2 is that our resident asshole Akito has some female-presenting nipples, which is apparently a Big Deal? (maybe the show takes place on Tumblr, *zing*) Its the villain, they are an abusive maniac and also metaphorically/actually a divine being. Why does doubling their X chromosome count affect or change anything? I can envision plots where that is relevant, but this was not one! Maybe the next season will build that into the arc, but they haven’t done that yet, so the moment itself falls incredibly flat.

Yet people obviously feel differently from me - as is my habit I checked the reddit threads for the final episode and they are replete with people commenting on how shocking a twist it was, how they looked forward to it as manga readers, etc. Its a classic suspense trick I think, of how you can just have an event be surprising without it being thematically relevant, and it will work as long as you add the right drama bells around it. This was just a pretty egregious example of it. 

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Between these problems, Fruits Basket has this aura of laziness around its none-core characters that does drag it down. Which is sad since I do actually like how it treats its core cast, even if it is stretched out over twice as many episodes as it needs. I am just guessing here, but beyond just “not caring” and doing it for the drama, I think it stems out of adapting the manga “faithfully”.

So Fruits Basket got an anime adaption in 2001, and the author (Natsuki Tayaka) haaaaated it. It was only twenty six episodes, a ~third of which got consumed just introducing the zodiac cast, so its plot had to be mixed around and truncated, and it was much more comedic and zany in tone. It was still very popular, so demand for a “better” adaptation of the full manga was high, which eventually happened in 2019. This time around Tayaka insisted on a high degree of control and faithfulness - I would bet it was essentially a “shot for shot” adaptation, and I have seen manga/anime comparison compilations to that effect.

The problem lies in how manga are made - they are almost never planned out start to finish. You pitch like a chapter, it gets picked up, and then its being published in tandem to its own production. That means that its pretty rare for the ending to be thought out, and the story figures itself out as it goes. Early manga Fruits Basket is pretty zany! Which means it plays fast and loose with its worldbuilding and its adult characters act silly most of the time. Once the high drama kicks in you realize that doesn’t work anymore, but you have already published it all months ago, no way to revise it now, so you just have to bite the bullet.

An anime adaptation would be a good time to clean that up! Its what Kare Kano did - a manga that starts as a cute highschool romcom and ends in sexual assault, for the anime they tried to create tonal consistency right from the start and change plot details around accordingly. But when the author, burned by a past studio, insists on Complete Accuracy...well then the anime has to bite the same bullets the manga did. And so you get Fruits Basket (2019), a show destined to never rise above its source material.

But hey, if Season 3 ends with Tohru just whipping out a gun, shooting Akito right between the eyes, and walking off into the sunset with a harem of zodiac hotties, then all will be forgiven.

[roddyretrograde]

genuine question since you're a self proclaimed peyton sawyer protector i'm assuming you don't mind defending your fave character but how exactly do you square peyton reclaiming a slur that isn't at all aimed at her in a cringe show of straight privilege passed as allyship bullshit? oh and shaming anna about not coming out as if it's as simple as standing up to the bullies uwu

Hi there! So I can't help but feel like this is a bit pointed, but as a Peyton fan, and a bi woman who is 100% a lesbian ally (along with the rest of the LGBTQIA+ community) I want to tell you that if you watched this episode you're referring too, and were hurt - your feelings are 100% valid. You're allowed to be hurt by things that are done in media with insensitivity or not as much thought that they should have put into this.

I'm sorry that this scene hurt you, and I hope that you don't think that every One Tree Hill fan, or Peyton stan thinks that queer women are lesser, or you're not worthy, or that the allyship we/they claim is false - because that's not how I feel, and I want you to be comfortable coming to my blog and talking to me, and educating me when I do something hurtful without intending too. That's not up to me to tell you my intentions though and that your feelings are wrong. I acknowledge that.

That being said, there is a bit of context to why I personally don't have bad reaction with this episode as a bisexual woman who watched this episode when it came out.

First, I did just want to clarify in case you didn't see the episode, but the slur was directed at Peyton. It was written on her locker in spray paint, and not removed by the school. It was Felix tagging her with a hate crime in order to scare Anna from hanging out with Peyton, who at the time didn't know Anna's sexuality - and therefore Peyton's reaction was that it was a hate crime against her because someone assumed she likes women.

This episode came out in November, 2004. I was 13 years old, and when I actually watched this episode it was couple years later and I was 15. My age is less relevant than the time period, because I just want to acknowledge that the access to not only LGBTQIA+ resources but the internet as a whole was insanely different than it is now. I'm aging myself, I know. But you have to remember that my only access to the entire internet was either my parent's family computer in the family room where I sat for hours with my brothers and parents watching TV or cooking at the same time, or the school library - and frankly, having a family computer was in itself a luxury. Smart phones were not a thing. I had a flip phone, which costed a ton of money if you even thought of hitting the internet browser button - so most people my age didn't. My phone just called, texted and played Brick Breaker.

Then you need to think about how we consumed media and television, and you have either watching live on cable, or if you're like me, you bought the box set of an entire season of a show you hadn't watched before (I did this at second hand stores and this is how I found One Tree Hill). There was no streaming, not a lot of choice, and in the early 2000's there were even less shows that included WLW characters in general unless you were watching something like The L-Word, which was a little too mature for me at the time (also imagine the horrified teenage embarrassment watching The L-Word with her two younger brothers in the room because that's where the DVD player was).

You didn't stream on your phone, you didn't have a computer in your room, Netflix still mailed DVDs to your house if you were one of the few people who subscribed to that service. Smart phones are a needed necessity for living now, but they weren't then.

So when I saw that arc, it was the first time I even heard the word Bisexual in my world. I saw a character that embodied myself and my internalized homophobia, and then I saw my favourite character of all time stick up against homophobia! Did she do it in the best way possible? No, and with more education as I aged, I know that. I know that there are words that hurt people, and I know why they hurt people, and I know that it was dramatic for the sake of the show.

But in that moment, Peyton Sawyer (and Lucas, because honestly he handled Anna's coming out with SUCH grace and it's his absolute best moment as a character in my honest opinion) stood up for Anna, and bisexual women as a whole, and I knew that I could love them because they would accept me and my sexuality. And so not only seeing a bisexual character for the first time ever on tv, but hearing Peyton say that the word is wrong, and that the hate is wrong, and that she wanted to do something for other women to not feel alone - that hit me somewhere good because I knew her intentions at the time weren't hateful against me.

Again, I want to acknowledge that as someone who has never had the D-word used against me, this is a place of privilege, but also something that as a closeted Bi teenager I didn't put myself in a position to be.

That also ties into your comment about Peyton wanting to push Anna to come out. I have to acknowledge that if I grew up in an isolated town with little to no LGBTQIA+ education, there's a huge chance that a straight girl in North Carolina knew just as little as I did. I also want to acknowledge that I, as a teenager, said a lot of stupid crap and terrible advice as someone who hasn't experienced something I'm talking about, or just brash and immature.

Peyton in this episode is 16, emotional, going through a lot of heavy stuff, and has the in-character personality of knee-jerk reactions. She sees someone hiding, doesn't want them to have to hide, and gives advice - again with good intentions - that isn't fully fleshed out. But it's also believable that she doesn't know what she's talking about, but also she has a whole character arc about not giving a fuck what people think about her, and has the privilege of actually being a straight white woman so she doesn't see Anna's point of view. But we also have to acknowledge that:

She lives and grew up in a Red State in the 90's and early 2000's

The LGBTQIA+ education in Tree Hill is literally just pamphlets in the counsellors office - As said by Principle Turner in the episode

She's never really had a reason to look up those pamphlets because she's not questioning her sexuality at the time (according to canon but canon is meh lol) 

She doesn't have representation in media to pull from the way we do today for empathy or understanding the stories of the Queer community

I love how vocal teenagers and young people are today. I include myself in that, and have since graduating college tried to immerse myself in the Queer community the way I never had a chance to when I was in highschool. I'm still coming out to people I love though, because my highschool experience, hell, even my tumblr experience when I was younger did not look the same as those experiences do now on Social Media. We didn't have it! There was no TikTok algorithms showing us like-minded people, or Facebook Groups, or Social Justice Influencers in the mainstream. Celebrities, including Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton, never talked about the issues that they do now.

You didn't put your sexuality or your flag or your pronouns in your bio. It was very different, and so I think seeing people be brave, even if it was uneducated, hit close for a lot of people that would maybe miss the mark now that there is more education around the topic going around. Intentions were pure, and that is why it resonated with a lot of queer women in 2004. And it's why I still really love Peyton all these years later.

I realize my experience, and my mindset is different from yours and a lot of people - but I just wanted to give you the background so that maybe you could see where myself and people who watched the show originally come from and that it's not a place of maliciousness.

If you've ever been called the D-Slur, I just want you to know that I'm sorry you went through that. Your feelings of being hurt are so valid and I hope that it never happens again. I love you. 

[drops-of-moonlights]

What are your issues with S3 of Winx Club?

Okay, so. I am going to get long and ranty and annoyed overall on this post. I shouldn’t even have to preface this, half of the people that follow me have critical thinking skills I hope, but you can have whatever opinion on S3 and all the things I’m gonna touch on this post, I do not care and you should not either, live your life however the fuck you want yadda yadda yadda. Now:

The first thing that comes to mind is the pacing, and just how fucking terrible it is. Every single event takes so long and its so slow for the first 18-or-so episodes (a lot of situations really did not require two episodes), only to be suddenly kicked into high gear and have 7 different “final” battles one after another. It felt like it was just happening to end the season already and so they could keep working on SOTLK, and like I get you’re working on both and all but you COULD have afforded to at least PRETEND you gave a shit, Rainbow.

Next topic is Valtor, who is my absolute least favorite villain in the series, and yes, I am including the S5-S7 villains on this. This is where it’s not much a fault of the character itself (well. not ENTIRELY a fault of the character), but a fault of both the narrative and (and for this I am petty) the fanbase. Valtor, to me, is the most generic villain in the franchise, a different flavor than Darkar but by no means less bland - Valtor is your standard “hot” prettyboy villain who tries to charm the protagonist to his side with the empty promise of answers, and THAT COULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING... if the show ever bothered to do anything with it other than Valtor creeping on a senior highschool student for 26 episodes. Because it’s all a farce, there’s not an actual connection between them outside of Valtor feeding her lies about her retconned parent’s backstory (we’ll talk about this more later) and both of them having God’s power inside them. My second point on Valtor is that he singlehandedly ruined the Trix’s characterization to simply be your standard evil henchwomen that thirst after Valtor’s dick because truly they all have terrible taste in men, and nothing else, and it’s annoying as all fuck, ESPECIALLY when you compare the Trix as Darkar’s lackeys a season earlier, where they stayed mostly the same personality-wise and only allied with the Phoenix out of necessity and survival. And the worst part? Valtor doesn’t do shit in the season! Like, at all! He only ever gets Chimera, Cassandra and Diaspro on his side, blinds Aisha and that’s literally it as far as confrontations with the Winx go - outside of fighting them when they get the Water Stars and the three last battles, he spends most of the show’s time fucking around random planets getting weird magic and sitting broodily on a chair, and apparently this makes him a good villain???? Okay, sure.

And since I mentioned them, let’s get on the Water Stars for a bit, and while yes, this is the one part everyone agrees on that was weak as fuck, it still brings attention because WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. All this time there was this antithetical force to the Dragon’s Flame, super-mega-ultra powerful little thingies that could douse the Flame’s power almost permanently, AND YOU ONLY BRING THEM TO ATTENTION NOW AGAINST VAMPIRE AESTHETIC. Do you have any idea how fucking useful they could have been against the Trix in S1???? If they had gotten the little squishy motherfuckers two seasons earlier the War of Magix would have been over quicker. And it’s not like Bloom would have been in much risk, she barely had any Flame left in her.

In a similar situation, we have Enchantix, which is my second most-hated form after Tynix for similar reasons. One, where in the fuck were all the Enchantix fairies during S1? Fairy Dust is supposed to be this OP magic, and could have also been very useful against the Army of Decay. Two, the way to earn Enchantix, for what is retroactively just the final base fairy form, is far too obtuse and complicated for the average fairy, not to mention incredibly limiting - you just have to hope someone from your realm is in a dangerous situation so you can fling yourself into danger and probably die, and all you get for it are some opera gloves and a pair of barefoot sandals. Like sure a super powerful magic upgrade also happens but still, it’s such a specific situation to find yourself in that it’s no wonder no one ever graduates Alfea, it’s literally borderline impossible unless you like traveling. My last point on the transformation, and this one is a bit YMMV, 3 of the 6 Winx did not actually earn Enchantix. Bloom counts for this, but it’s an actual plot point (though it was terribly handled) so I let it slide most of the time, but Musa and Tecna? Musa didn’t even get to sacrifice anything, she just suddenly got the form and that’s it, GALATEA was doing more of a sacrifice to let everyone leave the burning library without her than Musa was. Tecna also got Enchantix without saving anyone from Zenith, and before you even type it out, no, it was never said Tecna saved the entire universe by closing the Omega Portal. None of the three English dubs nor the original Italian ever say this. That’s entirely just fanon. I have headcanonned it away as “some of the prisoners were Zenithian” to justify it for myself, but overall it was very obviously just shoehorned in because as always, the writers don’t know what to do with Tecna.

“But Drops! What about Nabu???” I can already hear you type, and no, I do not like Nabu. I don’t hate him either, outside of the fact I reject the idea of Aisha being into men in any way, shape or form, but he is very much worshipped as the Golden Child in the fandom and I’m tired of it. You can see a better description on my feelings about Nabu (as well as how the fandom loves to demonize Sky for the shit he pulled in S1 but hold nothing against either Brandon or Nabu, who pulled the same shit) here.

There *is* a part of S3 I like, that being the Solaria Usurpation arc, but it’s the one sole thing that I legitimately enjoy in the season and I’m not gonna stick around the fuckton of episodes that interrupt the arc just for that.

But what I hate the most about S3, above all this, is how goddamn irrelevant it is. Outside of getting the Winx Enchantix, NOTHING about the season is remotely relevant lore-wise or plot-wise, and the show itself acknowledges this! Even SOTLK pretends S3 never happened and the girls just got Enchantix somehow! Because of the drive Rainbow had to end the franchise’s original arc with fancy shitty CGI, they ended up making the original last season of the show, what was supposed to be the best thing before the movie, into the biggest waste of time instead. You can really just watch the episodes each girl gets Enchantix and then the final episode and you wouldn’t miss anything at all.

So the TL;DR for all this is “I hate S3 because Valtor sucks, Enchantix sucks, the pacing is garbage and there’s really nothing nice in it outside of like 3 episodes”, and I refuse to rewatch it ever again.