#i have so many reasons for why i disagree with a majority of these takes but

[nobodyfamousposts]

Scarlet Lady Top 10 Favorite Characters: Number 9

for @zoe-oneesama

Number 10 Here

Now let’s be fair about this. This list is subjective and according to my own personal bias. It’s not about who is deserving or who is “Best Boy/Girl”. These are just the top ones I like and enjoy seeing in the comic. My favorites may not be your favorites and I quite frankly don’t expect them to be anyone else’s favorites in the same order or even on the same list at all. And just because someone is not on my list doesn’t mean I don’t like them or that I don’t find value in them.

This is just a list of the characters I like the most and my reasonings as to why. What makes me like them? What makes them stand out? Because Scarlet Lady has a LOT of really great characters who all deserve a shout out, so these are just ten of them that stuck out to me the most.

And while I am at least attempting to value them here on their own merit in the Scarlet Lady comic as opposed to Canon or its many MANY issues or the differences between the two, it stands to reason that at least SOME mention of Canon is going to be made. That said, I am trying very hard to not rate them based on my feelings from Canon but more on how I feel about them in this comic.

And because naturally I like my dramatic moments, I’m going to do the list in descending order from number 9 to number 1.

So without further ado…

…

…

Number 9: Alya

I love Alya in Scarlet Lady. So much so that I feel bad that she’s not higher on the list, but to be fair, she has some pretty tough competition. And it says something when that’s the case because it feels to me like everyone deserves a spot on this list…it’s just that some deserve it a little bit more.

Alya certainly warrants her spot on this list. She was one of the characters with the fewest changes from her setup in canon and yet ended up with such a major and lasting impact that her canon self can’t match.

But if I have to break down the reasons:

1. Alya is a good friend.

When mention is made of Alya being Marinette’s best friend, SL!Alya is the version that comes to mind for me. And honestly, she’s the image I long had and long wished for Alya of canon.

A friend who is supportive in all the right ways. A friend needing her own level of support. A friend who will disagree with you on points but still be your friend. A friend who can make mistakes and jump to conclusions but you can always forgive because you know she would do the same for you.

In Mr. Pigeon, Alya was willing to throw down with Chloe Bourgeois to defend Marinette’s honor and her hat design. And this was only two episodes after Lady Wifi, where Chloe had abused her power to get Alya suspended over a relatively minor infraction that had literally nothing to do with Chloe except that Chloe chose to be offended by Alya’s incorrect conclusion. Sure, it can arguably be for payback (given how keen Alya was to confront Chloe), but let’s be honest here: after being forced into a position where you are completely helpless at the hands of a bully and even authority figures are not willing or able to step in, most people would hesitate to confront the bully again regardless of whether they know they’re in the right. And Alya arguably didn’t have proof at the time that Marinette’s hat was actually her original creation.

And yet, Alya was going to act anyways. WANTED to act. For friendship. For vengeance. Not quite sure HOW she was intending to take down Chloe in this case, but I imagine it would have landed her in trouble again and she was fully willing to do so on behalf of her friend.

And speaking of her friend, remember Alya in Reflekta? She was excited of the idea of Marinette being a hero and part of me thinks she really pushed the “Marinette is Scarlet Lady” angle because she idolized Scar at the time and very much WANTED her to be Marinette—someone she also adores. Having two of her favorite people be one and the same would have been amazing for her! Sadly (or fortunately depending on your view) that was not the case, but Alya still got to have her moments of seeing her best friend as a hero, and her starry eyes sell it for me. As does Marinette later arranging an interview for her as Marigold—something especially important given in this version, one of the two primary heroes simply has no time for interviews while the other wouldn’t give a blog like Alya’s the time of day regardless of how much Alya did to help promote her.

Plus how in Troublemaker, she got the entire class to come to school dressed in Chat Noir gear to show support for the poor catboy and to help protect Marinette after the way her room and her multitude of pictures of Chat Noir were revealed on live television. Just to try and limit her friend’s embarrassment after her privacy was violated and her crush was outted.

See this? This is the friendship I wanted to see in canon. The ride or die. A counterweight. Supporting each other in reasonable and healthy ways. To be able to say with certainty that when the chips are down, they have each others’ backs. And Alya does.

Then there’s the Love Square—and if the change to the setup didn’t already improve how it went, then Alya’s involvement certainly did.

Part of the reason the Love Square struggled in Canon was because of how forcefully it was pushed with such shoddy foundation, and Alya was the biggest pusher. She forced so many situations out of some misguided attempt to “help” that only ended up creating stress for Marinette, cringe for the writing, and no actual momentum on the progress of the pairing. If you want a metaphor, then let’s describe it like this: If the Love Square is an actual ship and if Alya was a tug boat, she wouldn’t have been helping her ship “set sail” so much as dragging it underwater across the ocean and to its watery demise.

But in Scarlet Lady, Alya is supportive and encouraging—and not in the way where she blows off Marinette’s anxieties or Adrien’s obliviousness and forces them both into a position they’re clearly not ready for only to turn around and be annoyed that it didn’t work out. 

No, she was aware of Marinette’s feelings and interests to the point she recognizes Marinette has a small crush on Adrien even before the girl herself did. She also seemed to be aware of Adrien’s crush on her. So knowing this, she tried to help nudge things along. Note I said “NUDGE”. 

She knows a spark could be there. So when Alya had an opportunity, she helped to set things up in a way that would give Marinette and Adrien time together to explore that. Not to confess. Not to date. Just opportunities to be together, interact, and see what happens.

Heck, it feels at times like she’s more of Adrien’s wingman than Marinette’s. Especially given the whole bit in Stormy Weather, which remains to date one of my favorite strips of the entire series. Alya was the reason Marinette even made it there in the first place. And when she was picked for the modeling spot, she still tried to influence things to let Marinette take over. Similar to canon, yes, but a notably better feel to it. Better humor. Better outcome.

Which is ultimately what a friend should be trying for. For ALL of her friends.

And by the end of the comic, I can say that Alya is a friend to not just Marinette, but also Adrien and Alix and the other classmates. Yes, even Lila. Which says something given how much she initially despised Lila for the fake interview and how long she held that grudge against her. Going from outright dislike to grudgingly hanging out with to swallowing her pride and giving a real chance to actual collaboration on revealing a major truth.

Now that’s progress.

And speaking of progress…

2. Journalist Has A Point

Look, many a story will have THAT character. You know the one. Whether a detective, journalist, or conspiracy theorist, THAT character is devoted to uncovering the truth, whatever it may be—and usually in the form of plot-relevant secrets and useful information. 

So one of the biggest disappointments you can create is having such a character 

with all the drive and reasoning to investigate be in a prime position to uncover a major plot point, in which you give them all the resources and all the motivation to make the discovery…and yet have them do nothing.

Or worse, have the truth spoon fed to them instead when it’s convenient. No effort. No drama or antics. No surprise. No real reaction to the revelation. Just take away all the fun why don’t you?

Alya is a major fan of heroes and a journalist in the making. When these things mix, you have a ready-made source of humor and drama in a character with the dual position of he hero’s best friend who doesn’t know her secret and a wannabe investigator who risks discovering the hero’s secret. Normally, such a position would involve a number of antics over a multitude of episodes, with the friend being in a prime position to out the hero and the hero having to regularly come up with ways to distract and mislead the friend in question in order to protect the secret.

In canon, we get all of two episodes that even play with this setup. Two in the four seasons it takes for Marinette to just blurt it out to Alya. Lady Wifi and Pharaoh. That’s it. And of those two, Lady Wifi had Marinette completely unconcerned with Alya’s claim of knowing Ladybug’s identity. No drama. No conflict. No antics. No attempts at misdirection. No introspection or question if maybe revealing the city’s hero is even a good idea. No internal questioning if Alya should be told the secret—if she’s trustworthy or if she would be in danger. No continued attempts to uncover her identity as if Alya had just gotten bored with it. Nothing.

And if you know anything from my previous essays, you know that few things frustrate me more than having a great setup that practically writes itself and doing NOTHING WITH IT.

In Scarlet Lady, that setup is nixed from the start since Marinette didn’t start off as the hero. Instead, what we have is a situation where Alya idolizes the self-proclaimed hero of the city, completely ignorant to the truth that we as the audience were already immediately made aware of: that said hero is Chloe and she is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!

Marinette is aware of her being horrible. Adrien is FULLY aware of her being horrible. WE all know she is horrible. But Alya, like most of the city, is enthralled and supportive of her as the “Hero of the City”.

This change immediately created a whole new setup. Where Alya is a fan of a hero while being ignorant to that hero’s true nature. Where WE know and even other characters in the show know, but it’s impossible to convince anyone else of this truth. I’m sure you all know what it’s like watching any character in that sort of situation. It hurts. But not as much as it’s bound to hurt her by the end.

And indeed it does, as it kickstarts what initially starts off as a funny setup where Marinette and others stay quiet and try to be supportive while inwardly cringing as Alya creates and manages a blog dedicated to the worst person ever sans Hawk Moth and Gabriel Agreste.

Adding to this is that said person won’t give Alya or her blog the time of day. Chloe has no respect or appreciation for the level of commitment Alya has or how much Alya helped her to get her fame, and even calls Alya a “stalker” at one point. (Not that she’s technically wrong to be fair, but bear with me.) This is a testament to Chloe’s view of heroism as a whole and her expectations regarding the treatment she should receive. Nevermind that Chloe’s initial rise to the spotlight was in great part because Alya was the one to put said spotlight on her in the first place. Chloe doesn’t acknowledge favors, only what she is owed.

This puts Alya in a difficult position. Unlike Canon, she doesn’t have the support of a hero to promote her blog. She is a teenager with no preexisting status as a reporter and no real connections or backing for people to take her seriously. And in a world of already established media and tons of fans like herself no doubt also trying to make names for themselves in similar niche areas, she has nothing to really make herself stand out. What ends up working for her is the live footage she gets of the akumas and the battles, which is exceedingly dangerous and puts Alya in danger. But to her, it’s worth it to be able to enjoy her two passions.

It is painful. It HURTS me to see Alya so devoted to someone who I know full well doesn’t deserve it and it hurt even MORE to see how Alya was finally forced to face the truth. Her reaction was real. Her difficulty accepting the truth that we all knew from the start and that Alya could have (and probably should have) picked up on as a journalist if she only investigated everything outside of the “Heroes WOW” light.

But this doesn’t make me look badly upon Alya. It’s not entirely her fault. It’s reasonable that Alya wouldn’t have known. Given Scar’s refusal to work with anyone outside of publications that “meet her standards”, Alya hadn’t gotten to interact closely enough with Scar to really see her “in action” so to speak. Not for some time.

Alya does ultimately end up finding the truth, but it’s not the one she initially went searching for. What started out as a love for heroes mixed with her interest in journalism slowly turned into a realization of what heroism actually is and who the true heroes are…and aren’t.

And with this realization comes a new outlook, new alliances, new goals, and a new plan to reveal the truth about Scar and just who is really the hero or the “sidekick” in the heroes team.

This here? This gives Alya purpose. It also emphasizes her role in the story and the impact she has. Because over time, the thing that most showed her flaws and ignorance became a major strength—AND ended up benefiting the city as a whole.

She was the only person who actively tried to help Chat when he was on the run in Copycat and gave him the info to know what was going on and who the true culprit was (especially important because Adrien had NO way of knowing what was going on or why he was being framed and Scar certainly wasn’t going to help).

She gave Lila and others a chance to share their stories that otherwise never would have been told. Especially notable given Alya’s initial dislike of Lila for her lies, something she continued to hold a grudge over for a long time after.

And as a result, she is a major contributor to Scar’s declining popularity as she helps spread the truth. Which adds a nice bit of irony to the situation that the little blog that gave Chloe her start and that she ignored ended up becoming something so major that it destroyed her narrative. 

Alya had been seeking the truth, been blinded to it, struggled to accept it, went out of her way to confirm it, and then shared it. Maybe it’s not as impressive as taking down the akumas directly, but it has a much greater overall impact on the story and helping get some of that sweet sweet karma we’d all been waiting for. And best of all, she does the one thing that many of us have also been wanting for Canon: to have SOMEONE investigate Hawk Moth and realize the puzzle pieces are pointing at Gabriel Agreste. 

If only she could have confirmed it a little sooner…

3. Alya as a Person

Alya is a teenager. She is a teenage girl and that shines in Scarlet Lady.

We see her PUMPED at the discovery of heroes in Paris. We see her genuinely EXCITED over the prospect of being a hero. We see her flip her focus and be SERIOUS over serious and not so serious things. We see her unapologetically and hilariously reject Adrien’s pleas for a trade of jobs only to be a hypocrite and turn around and beg him for the same. We see her get terrifyingly ENRAGED at Nino for changing her script without discussing it with her. We see her be PETTY and RESENTFUL over falling for Lila’s lies. We see her be IN LOVE after Animan. Plus how could I not love her sheer GLEE over getting to face off with Nora?

But what really made me love this Alya and put her leagues above canon is her growth. Growth that she didn't really get in Canon. And a lot of that growth was evident through her discovery of the truth that was right in front of her and how she had gone so long without seeing it.

And when she is finally hit with the reality that her hero is no hero and that she was wrong? It’s hard. No kid wants to admit being wrong about anything, but especially not about a belief like that. Not the idea of heroes and not over your hero specifically. Especially when you realize you spent so LONG devoted to something only to find out you were wrong, other people knew, and you could have/SHOULD have known had you really tried to look.

And Alya….did NOT take it like a champ.

Denial was the name of the game. But her growth came in acknowledging that she was wrong, WHERE she went wrong, and taking steps to move forward with what she knew. Not by doubling down and demanding “evidence” that should have been easy to find if she just looked, but by investigating the truth even if it’s one she knew she wouldn’t like. And even if it involved things she didn’t want to do. To this end, she made up with Lila and the two actually ended up working together to change the tide of public opinion against her over time. 

Let’s note that: She went back on her earlier promise to herself, forgave and worked with someone that she disliked, and let go of her own pride and resentment in order to get to the truth that she originally never wanted to acknowledge.

Alya in Scarlet Lady plays more of a role in the series than she did in Canon. She wasn’t just “Marinette’s best friend” and “Ladybug fangirl” or a tool or prop for setting up certain scenes where Marinette suffers or Adrinette is given a half hearted attempt.

Alya is her own person. She disliked someone the others like or come to like. She adored someone the others and even we as the audience couldn’t stand. She stood up to her sister for herself and with the backing of her friends. She was silly at times for all that she tried to be serious and mature. She was oblivious and opinionated. She was wrong about a core issue to the story.

And that was perfectly okay.

Not because the narrative said so. Not because anything she did was hand waved. Not because Marinette or anyone else was thrown in as a scapegoat to distract attention away from her.

But because Alya is a well-written character with a personality that makes her a PERSON rather than a prop. Which makes her development into a hero feel rewarding rather than an obligation.

4. Alya as a Hero

Okay, Sapotis in Canon wasn’t bad. It worked as a new hero episode. It worked as the FIRST new hero episode. It made sense for Alya to help corral her sisters. I loved Trixx and his subtle means of testing Alya. It also had Alya getting some personal development as she changes from her initial stance of wanting to reveal her identity as a hero to knowing when to keep some truths hidden.

The problem is that lesson didn’t really stick as Alya goes on to demand a truth from Marinette that isn’t her right to know, try to force Marinette to tell a truth when she isn’t ready to reveal it, and betray Marinette’s trust and reveal the secret just to make things easier for herself and her relationship with Nino.

Gotta say, not impressed with Alya as a hero in Canon. Especially given how much the narrative had gone out of its way to keep portraying Alya as being in the right in each instance she was involved in regardless of what she actually did.

Then there’s the matter of the issue of her getting the Fox Miraculous after everything that happened with Lila and the complete LACK of Fox Vs Fox/Alya VS Lila/Truth VS Lies setup that such a setup would have been primed for. And if they weren’t going to do that or even anything with Alya and Trixx, then what was the point of giving Alya the Fox? There was just really nothing else that came out of a truth-seeker like Alya getting a Miraculous specifically involved in setting illusions and how that could develop her character.

@punchlord has already done multiple evaluations of the characters and Miraculous and which ones would best/least fit and why, and has done so much more detailed and eloquently than I can really offer here. Instead, I want to focus on SL!Alya and the changes Zoe made.

Here’s the thing: we all knew going in that Zoe was going to follow Canon for the most part. She admitted as such. We also knew that some kwami-swapping was bound to happen as a result of the changes to the world. Chloe gets the Ladybug. Marinette gets the Bee. Sabrina was bound to get something at some point that wasn’t the Dog. And yes, Lila too.

But NONE of us were expecting that Alya and Nino would swap their Miraculous AND their hero episodes!

And it worked. It worked so well.

Koki Marina is an awesome hero with such a stand-out look. And the one image of her playing with her fluffy hair always makes me smile.

The changes Zoe made vastly improved the Anansi storyline. Nino deserved his own hero episode that wasn’t just focus on him secondary to an issue for Alya and ultimately accomplish nothing on his own while someone else solves the problem for him...twice. And Alya deserved to be the one to deal with Nora and take control of her life.

The thing is, this was an episode with a lesson that was misplaced. Misplaced andmishandled, much like many episodes in the original series.

In Anansi, the biggest problem wasn’t that Nino couldn’t prove he could protect Alya, it was that Nora was overstepping on Alya’s life in the first place, especially when it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t consider that ANYONE ELSE could protect Alya—even the heroes when it is their job to fight the akumas. 

But more specifically, she wasn’t willing to consider that Alya could protect HERSELF. Especially of note considering that by this point in both versions, Alya had been running around and getting involved in the fights with the heroes for blog views. And in Canon specifically, Alya had already been a temp hero—I was surprised and disappointed that Alya didn’t argue more and struggle with NOT revealing that fact in the episode. But I digress…

If Alya was to get a hero episode, this was the better setup for it. And Zoe saw that and provided us that sweet sweet payout, with Alya proving herself and helping to take down her older sister. And just the absolute GLEE she had in doing so. The sort of glee you’d see in any younger sibling getting a chance to take on and show up their older sibling. All the younger siblings out there should know it. 

Plus her and Wayzz bonding, omg they are so cute.

While Canon Sapotis was decent (if not a bit frustrating with the lack of lessons for the twins after all their antics), in my view, SL Anansi actually HIT in all the right ways and felt more satisfying overall in comparison as Alya’s hero episode and ESPECIALLY in comparison to the Canon Anansi itself. 

It’s a good episode with a stable episode-centric arc, where the conflict starts with Alya NOT really being able to face down Nora alone and only manages to overpower Nora in an arm wrestling contest because her friends back her and take on Nora in a 4 on 1 match and overpower her together. This is highlighted later in the episode when Alya faces Nora alone to buy Marigold time and is shown to struggle. Then gets the power boost through the Turtle Miraculous that lets her effectively take her down save her. Cough. Yes. Just save her.

It’s a very empowering story for Alya. But it plays a bigger role than that, too. It’s not just the start of Alya being a hero, it’s also the point where she really starts to turn things around in terms of the overarching story of the comic.

This episode is the follow up to Sapotis, where the other characters are having a sleepover partly to look after the younger kids but also specifically to try and support Alya as she comes to terms with the realization that her hero is a fraud. Yes, Alya already knew that Scar was horrible by the time Anansi happened, but actually being a hero and having to work with Scar gives her an up close and personal look at how Scar treats the other heroes and how much—or rather little she actually does in a crisis.

It’s also the point where Alya seems to gain more confidence and also direct her reporting to a better end. And by the end of the episode, we really see Alya starting to use her skills to this purpose. This is when we get to see Alya actually BE the journalist she wanted to claim she was.

This? Right here? This goes to show that not only does Alya herself make a great hero, but that becoming a hero helped Alya improve herself as well. Which is something we should be seeing more of in such stories with teenagers gaining superpowers.

So all that being said, SL Alya succeeds where her Canon counterpart fails. The narrative points out when she’s wrong. She learns lessons. She is silly at times and acknowledged to be silly. But through it all, she retains the heart that makes her a good friend and the passion that shows her to be not only a journalist, but a HERO in the making.

[ritzyperry]

just found out that some people apparently think milo murphy's law is transmisogynistic, perry is bad ace rep because he's ace as the "safe" option for queer rep, dan and swampy are bigots who shoehorn all of their queerphobic rhetoric into all of their media, and that phineas and ferb was a bigot's paradise all along... it's joever

[spacelazarwolf]

here is the reality. whether you like it or not, a large chunk of the global jewish population identifies as zionist, as in they believe that israel should exist in some capacity (regardless of their feelings about the current government). a lot of numbers have been thrown around that i don’t necessarily think are accurate, but it is very safe to say that particularly those who are involved in jewish community organizations and/or are more observant tend to identify as zionist. there are a lot of reasons for this that would take an entire doctoral dissertation to cover. if i wanted to cut myself off from every single jewish zionist or every single jew or jewish organization that believes israel should exist or simply has even one jewish zionist friend or one jewish zionist in attendance, i would have to completely isolate myself from the jewish community, and i am simply not going to do that.

for shavuot, we stayed up until past 3am having difficult conversations about israel and zionism and other rifts in the jewish community and how to talk about them without the inevitable defensiveness that always comes up, how to disconnect the political aspects of zionism from jewish identity and how to have difficult conversations with people who disagree with us without leaving the table. we talked about it through the lens of a story in the talmud about rabbi yohanan and reish lakish, a story that ends in tragedy, a story that is representative of where the community is headed if we aren’t able to start having these conversations.

so when gentiles show up and demand i abandon my community because it’s sinful politically incorrect to associate with sinners people with slightly different political opinions, it pisses me the fuck off. because y’all are constantly going on and on abt jews needing to “unlearn zionism” but then when non zionist jews refuse to just walk away from our people and decide instead to do the difficult work of starting and maintaining important conversations within our community, we get called zionists or accused of “associating with zionists” and therefore zionist by default.

so what do you want? do you want there to be less jewish zionists? because the only way that’s going to happen is if difficult conversations are allowed to happen, and those difficult conversations won’t be able to happen if you insist that all jews who aren’t zionist refuse to associate with the vast majority of our people. or are you simply looking to isolate jews with different political opinions than you because you don’t want to take the time to understand why so many jews identify as zionist. i know because i have had hours upon hours of conversations with the people in my community, and my understanding of their reasoning and motivation has made it easier to have conversations about zionism.

so it’s fucked because. y’all want there to be less jewish zionists. the only way for that to happen is to talk to them and understand them. but associating with them or trying to understand why they identify that way makes you a zionist. and therefore you should also not be associated with. but there should be less jewish zionists. so it sounds to me like y’all are just expecting people to change their minds because. what? because you said so? that is not realistic in the slightest!

anyway this post is not meticulously crafted it’s literally just me venting abt this shit but i’m just sick and tired of goyim who are not part of these difficult conversations deciding that they know better how to deal with jewish zionists (who they will not associate with) than jewish non zionists who are actually trying to have the difficult conversations with their community.

[psychotrenny]

There's a real unearned confidence to the way that Social Democrats talk about their ideology, like they've cracked the code and found the perfect way forward and the only reason people disagree is because they're misguided or evil. Like they'll correctly point out problems within Neoliberal Capitalism before spouting some absolute nonsense about how uniquely evil and dysfunctional Communism was (nearly always in the past tense too; they take it for granted that the end of the USSR was the end of all Communism) and then going "Don't worry though, there's a third way; a mixed regulated economy. We can have a free market in consumer goods while making sure that corporations pay their fair share in wages and taxes that can fund the welfare that looks after everyone". And like putting aside the fact that such a model relies on the super-profits of imperialist exploitation to actually function, and the inherent instability of an arrangement where the Bourgeoisie make concessions even while maintaining ultimate control of the economy, there's the simple fact that much of the Imperial Core did indeed had Social Democracy but does not anymore.

Like these Social Democrats never think about why that might be, why their ideology failed and what they can learn from it going forward. They just act as though some dumb individuals (i.e. Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman etc.) managed to slip into power and make bad decisions and like the best way to fix this is to vote good people in who'll change it back. Like hell a lot of these people take the previous existence of these policies as like a good point, the whole "We had them before so we aren't being radical by wanting them back. We don't want anything crazy we just wanna bring back The New Deal or Keynesian Economic policy or whatever". There's never any thought about why those policies failed (how often do you hear these people even talk about "stagflation" or "the oil crisis" let alone the impact of the fall of the soviet union) and what implications this might have on the viability of bringing it back. They also love talking about how Social Democratic institutions are still largely intact in the Scandinavian countries, but rather than even consider what specific factors in their political-economic situation led to this these people just go "Damn isn't Sweden great. Why aren't we doing exactly what they do?"

And sure some people might compare this to Marxism-Leninism, the whole "trying to bring back a defeated ideology", but for one it's stupid to treat the dissolution of the USSR as the end of Communism as a global political force. It may have been a major blow, but even if you write off like Cuba and Vietnam as too small and insignificant to matter you can't just fucking ignore that over 1/6 of the world's population continues live under a Marxist Leninist party. Whatever concessions these countries may have made to global Capitalism, it's just plain ignorant to act as though Communism suffered anywhere near the humiliating loss of global power and credibility that Social Democracy has. Sure the latter may be more politically acceptable to toy with in "The West", but "The Western World" ≠ The Entire World. Also, nearly every ML on the planet is painfully aware that Soviet Communism collapsed and that it collapsed for a reason. There might be plenty of contention about why exactly it died and what exactly we can learn from this, but nearly everyone agrees that we need to learn and ideologically grow. No serious Communist wants to "bring back the USSR" in the same way that many Social Democrats want to "bring back The Welfare State". Far from being a form of "best of both worlds" mixed economy, Social Democracy is nothing more than a flimsy tool to stabilise Imperialist Capitalism at its moments of greatest strain. And if people are still gonna promote it wholeheartedly as the best possible solution, I wish they'd be a little less arrogant about it. It's not as though they have history on their side

[uriekukistan]

JJK 261 ANALYSIS: What happened, how, why Yuuta made the choice he did, and a discussion of tragedy & major themes of JJK

MAJOR spoilers below the cut so please read at your risk.

i wanted to dissect what happened a bit, and address a few points i saw floating around since the leaks dropped. of course, these are all my interpretations, so feel free to disagree, i just had a lot of thoughts floating around that i wanted to put out for discussion.

I. Gojo was never coming back

first of all, i don't know how you guys expected him to survive bisection. i said this earlier in the day as my justification for why i didn't think gojo was coming back, prior to leaks, and i don't think i can say it any better now.

and this is just my interpretation of reverse curse technique, but if anything, yuuta in this chapter supports my theory. in the scene where he's on shoko's table and arata nitta says that he's used rct to keep the wounds from getting worse, but it might be too late for yuuta to recover. in that case, gojo wasn't coming back from being sliced in half. it's just not possible.

additionally, and this is another thing that i've said for a long time. he says right in episode 6 (i forgot the chapter) that his dream is to reset the jujutsu world raise up a generation of strong students that work together. that is why he became a teacher. this very clearly comes from his relationship with suguru, and it's one of gojo's clearest motivations from the beginning.

the problem is, in order to achieve this, he has to die. so long as satoru gojo is alive, he will have to carry the burden of being the strongest alone. his students won't have to work together, because gojo will just take care of everything. this is already in the works, with how many people have come together to stand against sukuna. if gojo lived and defeated sukuna on his own, this wouldn't have happened, and bringing him back would, again, reduce the need for his students work together.

unfortunately, gojo has been doomed by the narrative from the start, and his primary goal as a character basically requires his death to be realized in its entirety.

II. They're not heroes, they're jujutsu sorcerers.

yeah, i'm stealing megumi's line because it's true. he literally said it twice for a reason, and then yuuta said a repackaged version of it in this chapter ("we're about to fight history's strongest jujutsu sorcerer. if we can win by throwing away our humanity, we shouldn't even be arguing about this").

trust, all the characters are well aware of the ethical issues with taking gojo's body after he's dead, both with what it means for gojo, and with what it means for yuuta. but this isn't a story about heroism, this isn't a story about the power of friendship. if it was, yuuji would have saved junpei all the way back at the beginning of the series. it was pretty clear from the start that this wasn't going to be the typical shounen manga like that.

in fact, expecting it to be is unrealistic. it's unrealistic in real life too, if i'm being so honest. everyone wants to think they'd take the moral high road in this type of situation, but the reality is, when you're fighting tooth and nail against an opponent that is fighting dirty, you have to fight dirty too if you want to win, and i think that's what yuuta is trying to point out in this chapter.

this happens in real life wars which im not gonna get into examples because i dont want to start that kind of discourse, but like...it's so great to be idealistic and hope that virtue will triumph simply because it is virtuous, but i think if you take a look around, you'll realize it's true that good people do not get what they deserve simply because they're good (that's so megumi of me to say...). or if you think of it like a board game, if a player is cheating, it is infinitely harder to win without cheating yourself.

maybe this is a bit pessimistic of me to say, but you will not win a dirty fight without getting dirty yourself, and i think it's pretty clear that sukuna fights dirty.

additionally, it's shitty to see gojo be weaponized, and i understand that, but it plays into the themes about strength in jjk, which i will get into.

III. This was not an "ass pull."

i don't really have much to say to this. did you think yuuta wouldn't take kenjaku's technique? plus, kenjaku being eaten by rika is probably the only surefire way to ensure that they're dead and won't just hop to another body. i've already said why gojo wouldn't come back, but it makes sense that if yuuta were to copy kenjaku's technique, who else would he body hop into, if not gojo? there's already narrative evidence to support this action, from the guidelines of yuuta's technique, kenjaku's technique, and gojo's technique, to the character of yuuta okkotsu, which i want to do an analysis in a separate post for him, so i won't get into that right now.

idk...to me, all the threads connect, plus i felt like yuuta's return was foreshadowed pretty heavily in 259 & 260, with the mention of yuuta's plan that yuuji couldn't know, and then on the last page of 260, the comparison of sukuna and yuuta, so for me, i always thought that it was not actually gojo, but yuuta at the end of 260.

IV. Themes of JJK: The burden of being "the strongest," or even just strong

even many jjk fans see gojo as "the strongest," and nothing more, doing exactly what the narrative sets up as one of the chief problems of jjk. a lot of gojo's actions are spurred on by the burden he feels from being the strongest modern sorcerer. his entire character is built around this problem of the responsibility and burden that falls on someone who's considered to be "the best" at anything.

in fact, this is also a driving point for geto too, and the conflicts geto and gojo come into with each other, as well as geto's inevitable fall from grace. it all comes from this issue that's at the core of jujutsu society. gojo recognizes that, and, as i mentioned, that is why he became a teacher. so that no young sorcerers will feel the burden of being the strongest alone.

the problem is this is easier said than done. after gojo dies, this burden gets passed down to yuuta, and he feels that immense pressure, which is why he decides to do what he does. he says "haven’t we been pushing the burden of being a monster onto gojo-sensei alone? if gojo-sensei is gone, then who else will be the monster? If no one intends to become one, then I will!" and i think this really powerful evidence of the pressure and burden of being the strongest, and i think the word monster is really important here. the burden pushes people to be something they're not, a shadow of their true self.

it distorts morality, like with geto. it isolates people, like with gojo. it forces people to go to unspeakable lengths to uphold their burden, like with yuuta. it leads people with immense power to doubt themselves, like with megumi. it leads people to feel like a cog in the machine, not a human, like with yuuji.

this is sooo so important and a key theme of jjk, and this chapter in particular, and the driving force behind yuuta's actions.

V. Themes in JJK: Loneliness and Isolation

this one has, in my opinion, a bigger role in the story overall than just in this chapter.

as i mentioned before, gojo is lonely. the only person who could understand him was geto, and he turned away from him, and then died. he seems like a silly guy or whatever, but it's just a mask.

but geto also felt alone and isolated, and that's why he turned away. between gojo and geto, neither of them were able to put share the burden of carrying their strength alone, and it's what kept them apart and made their relationship so tragic.

arguably, and though he would never admit it, sukuna is also lonely, though it's buried deep within him and something he will likely never acknowledge, despite it, and his lack of understanding of love (arguably a symptom of his loneliness), are major reasons for the way he acts.

yuuta, though supported by maki, inumaki, and panda in a way that the previously mentioned characters are not, is still isolated. he alone carries the burden of his strength. he was also alone his whole life after rika died, and then again when he was shipped off to africa, away from his friends (yeah he had miguel, maybe i'm missing something, but i dont see them having that type of relationship.

not only that, but yuuta recognizes gojo's loneliness, and reaches out to tell him not to try to stand by himself once again, and gojo admits that's something he can't do, the reason being his relationship with geto.

even further, yuuji and megumi, the parallel to satosugu, are both deeply lonely, except for when they have each other. i mentioned in this analysis that the reason megumi can't just get up and keep going is because he's alone and has been for over a month. i want to get into this more in my next point.

VI. Where I think (hope) this leads for JJK

a satisfying ending for jjk, in my opinion, would be the resolution to this loneliness and burden of strength issue that has been present throughout the narrative. something like yuuji being able to save megumi and them being able to correct what went wrong with satosugu in their own relationship.

personally would like to see satosugu reach the ending they should have had through the itafushi parallels - let them save each other! but i do know gege said only one of them (the trio + gojo) will die, or only one will live....that was years ago maybe he changed his mind :D

we all want to see yuuji take down sukuna himself, but i think it would be a great resolution to see everyone take down sukuna as a team. no one person is alone, no one person has the burden of the strongest. i know i said this wasn't a "power of friendship" manga, and i stand by that, but i think this would be the perfect ending. yuuta throws his humanity away to do what he did in 261 because he felt like it was the only choice and it was something he alone could do, but yuuji represents unwavering humanity (literally his name), and i think to preserve that, they all need to share that burden. let them realize they need each other.

this is what gojo died for, and this is what he lived for. this is why he became a teacher in the first place- to raise a generation that can be strong together, that can support one another.

VII. "It's poorly written torture porn!" "There's no point if there's no happy ending!" etc

i said this in a separate post but tragedies have existed in literature since the 6th century BCE, 2600 years ago. many of the most popular stories throughout history have been tragedies, for example, orpheus & eurydice, romeo & juliet, even things like the fault in our stars and the titanic movie. here's a quick explanation of what it means for a story to be a tragedy (yeah it's from wikipedia but they want me to pay to access the original source and im not doing that for a jjk analysis)

one of things i like most about this definition is the use of the word "catharsis," which is to say that the expression of strong emotions is a way of bringing about renewal and relief. in literature, it's used to say that with the arousal and following release of negative emotions relieves suppressed emotions for the viewer. im not gonna get too personal with it, but i know i've experienced this with jjk.

additionally all of the aforementioned tragedies, they have a message, no matter how sad they are. orpheus & eurydice inspires perseverance and faith in the gods. even something like titanic has messages about everlasting love that overcomes all boundaries. jjk has its message too, and it's long underway. we just have to wait for it to reach its conclusion.

it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when we only get one chapter a week, and the fact that the pain is so dragged out is a bit tiring, i'll admit. but that doesn't mean it's bad. having negative emotions stirred by a story doesn't mean bad writing. i mean, i would hope you feel sad. i would hope you feel angry. i would be concerned if you didn't. but given that jjk is a tragedy, that just indicates good writing. especially these last two chapters, i've felt moved in a way nothing else has done for me in a long time.

as always, these are just my thoughts!!! im happy to hear from anyone what they think :D

[wingsdippedingold]

On the wings.

I hate that we have to still have this conversation but so many (white) ACOTAR fans still don’t see an issue with Feyre donning Illyrian wings. I’m absolutely open to criticism and discussion, but if you disagree with what I have to say and happen to be white, I implore you to think of your own biases and think empathetically as to why poc feel this way. I’ve done my best to include real world examples in a tasteful manner to assist that, as well as real arguments I’ve seen and discussed, but we’ll see.

Now let me clarify, this specific part criticism towards her use of Illyrian wings is for SEX, and is more broadly directed to Sarah and the white women who defend the actions rather than Feyre herself. Do not dog pile me for being a Feyre or women hater, that’s not what this is. Okay? Okay.

She could be a paragon of virtue, but as long as the Illyrian women are still suffering under their rule, whether directly or not, it’s still wrong. It’s the equivalent of a white woman in colonial America dressing up as an indigenous woman because her husband thinks it’s hot. The majority of Illyrian women have their wings clipped; you might not think it’s morally wrong to shift into an Illyrian, but it is insensitive.

“What happened to pro-choice? It’s her body!” Okay? Pro-choice does not mean pro-bad-choice. A white woman doing black face isn’t okay all of a sudden just because it’s her body that she’s painting black. “But blackface is demeaning and meant to be derogatory!” Do you not think turning into a specific race for your sexual escapades isn’t demeaning? It’s a fetishization. Do you not think the fetishization of East Asian women by white men and only caring about them in a sexual content isn’t wrong? And before anyone attacks me for applying real world examples to a fantasy land, obviously these aren’t one-to-one, nothing can be when you throw in magic, but they are in the same vein of reasoning.

“But she modeled them after Azriel, her friend.” 1. Azriel is not and was not affected by the plight of the Illyrian women. His permission, opinion, or relation in the matter does not matter. 2. Just because one poc (which in the world of ACOTAR aren’t technically poc, but rather a whole other race, though that’s not the point) says an action is okay, doesn’t make the action is okay to the collective. I mean would you be okay with a white high school boy saying the N-word because his friend gave him a “pass”? Hopefully not. 3. Azriel was her only choice (besides Cassian) to model them after. The women’s aren’t exactly an option…

“It’s not a costume, she’s physically shifting.” If I get surgeries specifically with the intent to look like a different race, physically altering my body, is it all of a sudden not a costume and okay?

Feyre can take her wings on and off, Illyrian women can’t. Feyre can get all the benefits of their livelihood, without any of the hardships.

At the end of the day, the Illyrian women are still suffering, so using a part of the autonomy that’s denied to them will always be inconsiderate and insensitive.

[amarayys]

SPOILERS FOR DRDT AND THE CANON DANGANRONPA GAMES. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Okay, so. I've seen quite a few people hating on the chapter 2 culprit choice due to their execution and it not fitting their ultimate talent. The reasons they include as far as i've seen are; - Min's execution was centred around her talent, so to have the chapter 2's execution not centre around their ultimate is inconsistent. - The canon Danganronpa game's executions are centred around the the culprits talent, so having the culprit's not revolve around their talent doesn't make sense. - The "sections" (can u tell im not trying to spoil bfore the cut.) of the execution felt random and didnt really make much sense. My opinion of these takes? "NO, THAT'S WRONG!" In other words - I wholeheartedly disagree. And this post is going to explain why - as well as why I believe the culprit's execution is wonderfully done. *btw this is not an attack towards anyone and is purely my opinion as is your own dont come for me. please.

To begin: let's tackle the points I mentioned above. (side note - ik the colour coding looks a little random but its fun okay.) - "Min's execution was centred around her talent, so to have the chapter 2's execution not centre around their ultimate is inconsistent." I can understand why you think that, but Min's execution is more than just being based off her talent. Min's character revolves around how the only reason she's seen as anything more than a normal person is due to her being the "Ultimate student" and extremely smart (which can be seen in her bonus episode dialogue.)

She's terrified of making any mistakes and her life revolves around being enough. She also has imposter syndrome due to her talent not being scouted out like usual.

This plays into her execution as well - It gives her questions that have no real answer, causing her to fail - in other words, make a mistake. She also has to spend her last moments alive doing a test and being a student - which we know she feels as if that's all she's worth for.

Basically - Her execution fits her character well, as well as her ultimate talent, because her talent is very important to her character. Let me copy and paste a line from the above paragraph -

"her talent is important to her character." Min's execution fit her talent because her talent was a big part of her - which cannot be said for Ace. Sure, there's some lore behind him not enjoying jockeying - but it's not as major to his character as his fears. As we know, Ace is scared of many things - But the things he is scared of all have some way of hurting/killing him. To boil it down - Ace is extremely scared of death.

That's very major to his character, obviously - as it's the reason he kills Arei in the first place. Ace's execution is based on his fear of death and false alarms because that is the best way to cause despair for him- to make the execution as interesting for the audience and as torturous for him as possible. To sum this up - Ace and Min's executions are consistent. Sure, Min's execution revolved around her talent - but that's only because to her, talent is extremely important to her character. Her imposter syndrome and insecurity around her talent makes it a very big part of her, so that's why her execution was a test - Because it fit her character. Ace's talent, similarly, revolves around his character. He is scared of death and that is what led him to murder. The only difference is that Ace's talent is not as relevant to him as Min's is to her, and therefore it isn't part of the execution.

moving on! - The canon Danganronpa game's executions are centred around the the culprits talent, so having the culprit's not revolve around their talent doesn't make sense. Okay, to put it bluntly, no. as for the actual explanation!! I can give you multiple examples of danganronpa characters who's executions revolve not around their talent, but their charater. I think the best example I can give is Celestia Ludenburg. (please excuse me if i mess up anything on the following section its been a hot minute since i've played thh)

To recap on her execution: Celestia is shown tied onto a pole. A fire starts, and she begins to get burned alive witch style. Suddenly, an ambulance crashes into her, killing her.

Now, if you've been paying attention to the canon Danganronpa games, you would know Celestia's talent is the Ultimate Gambler. Which - shock - has absolutely jack shit to do with her execution! Anyway. Celestia's execution is actually pretty smart if you think about it. Celestia's character revolves around her wanting to seem extravagant and royal. (her clothing style, the whole European castle dream, you get me?) She doesn't want to be seen as some "Basic Japanese girl".

When she is caught as a culprit, she eventually says that she'd be okay with dying as long as it was extravagant. And, at first, it is. She's being burned at the stake - like a witch, probably referring to her gothic (?) like style - which is certainly not a boring way to go. We see in her execution she's pretty chill with dying like that, as she is smiling. However, the ambulance then crashes into her. The genius in this is that car crashes are one of if not the most common cause of death. In other words, a basic way to die, and nothing special. That's the best way Monokuma could have caused Celestia to feel despair - Make her feel normal. Unlike everything I've just stated above, Celestia's talent is not too relevant to her arc. It's really most relevant in her FTE's, which are completely optional. Hey, doesn't that sound familiar? A characters execution is based of their character and not their talent due to their talent not being as major to their character? Yeah?????? YEAH??? - Kirumi Tojo's (and maybe korekiyo's??) execution also doesn't really fit their talents, but I wont go into detail on that.

Moving on!

- The sections of the execution felt random and didn't really make much sense.

Well...no, not really! If you look into more detail, there's actually a lot of cool stuff to notice. (all the below comes from this post! check it out, it's super cool)

The first "death" is Death by Illness. This is alluding to how Xander's family allegedly died to an "unexplainable illness", which you can see in his bonus episode.

Death by Fire is referencing his "Fiery" attitude/temper.

Death by Car Accident - Ace mentions this one directly in chp 1. episode 2.

Death by falling is referencing Min falling to her death in her execution.

Death by murder is kind of obvious. The attempt on Ace's life Nico made - as well as how the weapon is pointed at his neck, similar to how Nico garrotted Ace's neck.

Death by drowning - This one is my own interpretation - maybe alluding to how water was used in both the murders so far?

Death by lightening: Xander being electrocuted?? Maybe??

Death by Execution: I hope I don't need to point out how this relates to DRDT.

Ace dying from fear induced cardiac arrest is both ironic and incredibly tragic. This post explains it VERY well.

TW FOR TALK OF EDs If I were to horrifically sum up the post - Ace could have lived if he didn't suffer from an ED. Anorexia makes your heart beat slower - having a slow heartbeat makes it so that, when you feel very intense emotion, your heart rate shoots up, making you more prone to have a heart attack, and therefore cardiac arrest. It's really, really sad that this caused him to die in the end. TW OVER

anndddd we're done!!! haha im so tired. anyway honorary teruko mention!!! also drdt dev i love u for chp 2 you did INSANELY well.

[rahabs]

Was there anything you liked about Veilguard?

The hair was an improvement over Inquisition's notorious fifty shades of bald. Emmrich had a lot of potential and was easily the best of what turned out to be bland, underdeveloped batch of companions that the game makes you coddle and affirm at every turn (or, in Taash's case, an insanely childish companion that I felt I had to babysit constantly). Davrin was also fine. The architectural design was beautiful to look at, even if the cities felt empty and stale. Some of the armour was nice, and an improvement on Inquisition. I wasn't a fan of some aspects of the CC (but that's more my general dissatisfaction with BioWare constantly issuing massive overhauls to the designs of elves and qunari, so it's not Veilguard-specific), but it was also a marked improvement over Inquisition. Combat was... fine. It got dull after awhile, but it was just your standard stuff. Nothing offensive. Solas' voice acting was great for the .5 seconds we got to see him. Some of the other characters were voiced well.

As I've said, my main issue just lies in the sterile, corporate writing--not just the companions. My dissatisfaction also extends to the general culling of roleplay options (and some of the reasons why they were cut--namely, because a certain head writer was against players being able to do things he personally didn't approve of, and yes, it's common knowledge as Weekes was vocal on social media about it for years), the rampant lore issues (which BioWare has always struggled with in this franchise; lore consistency is not Dragon Age's strength), the coddling and hand-holding (not just for companions but for all major plot points; it's like the game thinks we're all stupid toddlers who need everything spoon-fed and told to us in the most simplistic terms, leaving no room for nuance or discussion), and just how... demeaning a lot of this game felt, I suppose? Someone pointed this out once and it stuck with me, but this game feels more like it was designed for "lonely people who really like found family fanfiction and project way too hard onto interactive media." Everything's just constant affirmation, constant "how-are-yous" from Rook to the companions; you cannot disagree with a companion or risk hurting their pixel-feelings, even when the companions are objectively acting like arseholes. It kills the roleplay aspect BioWare has always been famous for.

Editing this response I gave to someone else on this post, because I should have expanded originally:

[…] I think part of the reason Veilguard fails is that, unlike DA2, in trying to cater to that “found family” crowd and recreate the feeling people got with DA2 especially, the writers forgot a crucial aspect of what makes found family dynamics work, or what makes them feel worthwhile to the audience: the conflict.  Part of the impact with DA2 is it takes time—literal years—for Hawk to help build that dynamic, and there are serious differences of opinions and many arguments, whether between Hawk and one of the companions, Fenris and Anders, Isabella and Aveline, Fenris and Merrill, Anders and Merrill, Aveline and Merrill, Sebastian and Anders, Hawk and their sibling (whether Bethany or Carver), et al, etc.  Can you imagine if Fenris and Anders had had one minor disagreement and Hawk held their hands and went, “I see you’re feeling a lot of big emotions about this, are you okay, maybe you should try getting along and seeing things from his point of view?” and that was that? Because that’s essentially what Veilguard does, and it’s part of why the game rings so hollow and the found family dynamic seems so contrived: it feels unearned. It is unearned.

In the end Rook feels more like a therapist to a bunch of whingey thirteen-year-olds than a leader of professional adults, and the sterile writing as well as the writers' deeming determination to coddle their audience just makes this M-rated game feel G-rated, and not in a good way. In the risk of going into spoilers, I'm not going to rant about the Executors (though know I hate them so very much) or about the whole thing with Southern Thedas (yes I'm mad, because it's so unbelievably lazy), but so many aspects of Dragon Age's lore was just... watered down to the extreme in this game.

Also, the fact that they turned the Antivan Crows, of all things--you know, the same Antivan crows who purchase and recruit child slaves, who kill them if the deviate, whom we've spent three games going "man, you guys are kind of nasty, aren't you" at, etc--into this soft, fluffy, weird little uwu family unit really stood out to me as a symptom of this game's overall problem, which is, again, the infantile writing and the overall issue of over-sanitisation. Everything has to be uwu family friendly and nice and no one can ever have bad thoughts or do bad things or be mean! Good vibes only! I mean, we spent years being told about Tevinter and its legacy of slavery, particularly in Minrathous, and there's none of that in this game. Just more good vibes because can't risk anyone being upset or encountering challenging narratives!

Also, a petty grievance: BioWare also failed to improve on the issues with the dialogue wheel from Inquisition, meaning you'll choose an option and then Rook says something completely different. Again.

I'm just so thoroughly disappointed in it.

[lavender-twilight23]

HELLA UNPOPULAR X-MEN OPINION THAT I KNOW THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WILL DISAGREE WITH BUT WHO CARES I WANNA TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY:

I like X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

OKAY OKAY THERE I SAID IT DON’T SMITE ME WITH FIRE HEAR ME OUT–

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is definitely the weakest of the prequel trilogy, and definitely one of the weaker X-Men movies ever, if not THE weakest. It does A LOT of things wrong.

THAT BEING SAID.

I still enjoy it. If I put it on, I will enjoy it. Do I think it struggles in certain areas? Oh, hell yes. But there are highs and lows. The lows are very, VERY low, but the highs are quite high, and I think they deserve some attention.

But I do want to talk about some of the moments in X-Men: Dark Phoenix that I genuinely like, because so many people hate on this movie, which I completely understand, but I do think it has moments/scenes that make it redeemable, and I want to bring attention to the parts that I genuinely like, no matter how controversial the movie itself is.

Dark Phoenix is hated on by so many, so sometimes, I feel like I forget that there are moments of this movie that shine, and I want to brush off the dust on a film that has been buried by the scrutiny of so many and I want to list the reasons why I like it.

I’ve seen it mentioned before somewhere on the internet that the prequel series should’ve ended with X-Men: Apocalypse. Should it have? Maybe. But Dark Phoenix is a movie that exists, and there are certain moments/scenes that I’m glad we got, that we got ONLY because this movie exists.

Again, I know this movie has flaws. GIANT flaws. It struggles and falls flat in SO many areas, and I do see that, but I think that sometimes, even in movies that are looked down as being really really bad…sometimes their good moments get shoved under the rug.

Anyways, with all that being said, written in chronological order, here are The High Points In X-Men: Dark Phoenix!

This post (more like essay) ended up being long as shit so I put this thing here 😆

- The flashback of Charles meeting Jean

I think this scene honestly is adorable, not only because we see the beginning of a father/daughter relationship in blossom, but we get Charles in his Apocalypse era (long hair???) and then also we get to see how he approaches kids with trauma related to their powers and it reminds us WHY he’s doing what he’s doing in the first place, WHY he’s in this business to begin with. This is what he’s wanted to do forever. And to watch/listen to him in this scene, he uses specific language and acts in a certain way because he KNOWS he’s talking to a child, a child that has just been through a trauma. Yes, we see Charles lie about her parents’ deaths, which I’ll get to later, but speaking to Charles taking to child Jean– he says things like “yep,” “amazing,” “really cool,” things that he doesn’t normally say. He’s trying to relate to her and going down to her level to try and seem approachable, I think.

A little detail that I noticed the other day that I love that isn’t called attention to at all and is kind of in the background is that when Charles approaches Jean to give her the pen, he wheels forward, and out of frame, he locks his wheelchair in place. It’s such a tiny, subtle detail that’s easy to miss, but for some reason it just makes me really happy.

The pen metaphor is really nice and gets Jean to let her walls down and genuinely listen to him. Charles is incredibly gentle with her.

This is the beginning of a beautiful father/daughter relationship that we see so little of.

And one last thing about this scene– well, it’s less about this scene and more about their relationship as a whole. Assuming that Jean is nine or ten, maybe eleven here, and to know that Jean is in her early 20s in the present-day Dark Phoenix storyline, Charles has been by her side, raising her, nurturing her for HALF OF HER LIFE. Picturing that, even though it’s never explicitly said, I think they very much would’ve become pretty much father and daughter in that way, Jean needing that from Charles, and Charles maybe seeing something in Jean and getting closer with her than any of the other students, in a much deeper way than just having similar powers. They are so close, and I would’ve loved to see more of that.

- “You think can fix me too.”

- “No. No, because you are not broken.”

This exchange is beautiful. Okay, yes, I know that Charles is still technically keeping up that lie that both her parents are dead, but I’ll dive deeper into that later. I think that Charles genuinely believes what he says. And even later on, when he’s seen as the ‘villain,’ I think he’s always thought that Jean wasn’t broken. His entire job is taking in mutant children and nurturing them, caring for them in a way that maybe their parents or families didn’t, or are not willing to due to their mutant gifts. Anyways, I think this shows a lot about Charles and the gentle touch that he has, emotionally, in order to connect with his students, many of which probably have been in similar situations as Jean.

- THIS SHOT. Interstellar vibes??

- Charles checking up on Jean after the space mission 🥹

- Jean’s Phoenix eyes and the glowing cracks in her face are actually really cool, like she’s a volcano with lava hidden under the cracks. I think it’s a really cool visual.

- After Jean has the blast of power in the party, Charles IMMEDIATELY senses it and leaves his event.

- The way the Cerebro projection looks in this movie I find VERY cool and visually stunning, like the memories are writhing in smoke. It’s a super cool visual.

- When Scott is trying to get Jean not to leave and Jean touches the side of his head, she hesitates and pulls her hand away just slightly, as if she’s afraid to touch him for fear of hurting him again. The details kill me.

- When Hank is yelling at Charles, Charles doesn’t answer and he reaches for the alcohol to get himself another drink.

Despite the fact that I don’t really like the scene (and despite the fact that there’s a continuity error with which arm is being outstretched lol), despite all that, I like that THAT detail is consistent with what we saw from him in Days of Future Past, in which he would use alcohol, among other things, to dull the pain of his reality. When Hank is yelling at him, his immediate response is to avoid the conversation and to go to alcohol, which is what Charles did with the serum and alcohol multiple times in Days of Future Past, and it’s implied that he did that many, many times throughout the decade that we don’t see leading up to DOFP.

- Another thing– addressing Charles and his mistake with Jean and his lie, I plan to do a large post, a character analysis/study, if you will, of this in the future, but my biggest X-Men headcanon that’s only a headcanon because it’s not explicitly said but I 100% think it’s true is that Charles has a VERY strong savior complex that is consistent throughout the entirety of the prequels. Again, I’m gonna do a whole post outlining his savior complex, the moment that it started, and every moment in which he falls prey to it, but what he does regarding Jean and her parents’ fates lines up with that. So even though I don’t like how the movie treats Charles in relation to his mistake, his choice to lie to her to protect her is very consistent with what we’ve seen of his character up until this point, so despite the treatment of his mistake in the movie, the fact that he kept up that lie to ‘save her’ is very in-character for him based on what we’ve seen from him in the past.

- Erik. ERIK. JUST ERIK.

Okay, more about Erik: The whole scene with Jean and Erik in which Jean asks Erik about how to stop hurting people reveals a lot about Erik as a character. We get a lot of his backstory and trauma summed up in Erik’s own words, and we see his growth as a character, both how he’s changed AND how he’s stayed the same, with how he gets aggressive and confrontational with her later. His anger and pain is still in there, but he’s found peace, or at least some form of comfort/stability in his life here in Genosha. Another reason why I like Erik’s explanation of his trauma and his past is that I explored that a bit in a bigger fanfiction of mine, and then I rewatched this scene a bit later after finishing the fic, and realized that what I had Erik do/think in my fanfiction was, at certain points, almost word for word what Erik says in this scene, so it was just very affirming to hear Erik in canon saying what I essentially lay out in my fanfiction. It was just nice to see that my portrayal of him in my fanfiction lined up so perfectly with canon. Anyways, moving on:

- Erik donning the helmet from First Class that he apparently kept throughout all these years!

- Scott’s F bomb! 🤣

- In the train when they’re being taken to the containment center, I find it HILARIOUS that they chained up Charles’ legs. Liiiiike what, do they think he’s gonna just stand up and WALK out?? 🤣

- Hanz Zimmer’s score???? Okay, uhhh, YES??? Despite the fact that I’m biased for Henry Jackman’s score from First Class, Hanz Zimmer always has my respect.

- The seamless transition from Hank’s human form into his beast form!

- Okay okay, THE TRAIN FIGHT SEQUENCE?? YES??? We get everybody working together, Hank going ACTUAL beast mode, Erik being an absolute BadAss MotherFucker and fighting with his powers, using it so creatively, stabbing metal bars into people, crushing the train like a BADASS, then turning around and tossing it so nonchalantly behind him??? Kurt being ruthless for once?

- Before the Paris Proposal, before Erik even shows up on screen, Charles senses him and his expression is like “wait are you fucking serious– THIS GUY??? What is ERIK doing here????”

- Erik leaning forward, staring into the distance, then, “A long time ago, you saved my life. Then you offered me a home. I’d like to do the same for you.” 🥹 I’M FUCKING TEARING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIBRARY AT MY COLLEGE, FUCKING HELL, I LOVE THESE TWO

- And I just realized that Erik pulled the two chess pieces out from his pockets, not from inside the chess board, which means that he’d prepared to play with him before he even sat down and before he asked Charles if he even WANTED to play. He had both the game pieces ready, one in each of his pockets. 🥹

- THEIR LOOKS???? GAZING INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES???? THE WAY ERIK LOOKS AT HIM????? That is not the look of a straight man. These guys are in LOVE. Also, Erik literally asks him to move in with him. THAT. 👏🏻 IS. 👏🏻 NOT. 👏🏻 IMPLIED. 👏🏻 “Then you offered me a home, I’d like to do the same for you.” UHHH OKAY, ERIK, YOU MAY AS WELL HAVE JUST WRITTEN THAT ON AN INVITATION CARD.

~~~

Anyways, so there we go. Those are what I think are the high points in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, and I will say that if I were to put this movie on in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, I would stay and watch the whole thing! Despite its glaring flaws, I think it is enjoyable and I personally enjoy watching it, even if just for the high points I mentioned.

I may or may not have spent upwards of 3 hours on this post, writing it in the Notes app, making the GIFs, then converting the ones that were too big of files. Really short posts? Huh? What are they?? 🤣 Nah, if I’m doing a long analysis/study post, you bet I’m writing like a fking essay or some shit 😜

If you’ve made it to the end, thank you thank you! I don’t really like doing really small posts myself, so most of my posts will be either medium length, long, or very long, typically being scene analyses, character analyses, mentioning a detail or talking about a headcanon I have. But this is probably my longest post yet? But the post I’ll write about Charles’ savior complex sometime soon will probably rival this one. But anyways, that’s that! If anybody wants to chat more about my X-Men opinions or head canons or any fun shit like that, you can comment on this post or use the Ask feature on my profile. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But that’s that! Til next time y’all :)

Gifs made by me in Canva :)

[dreadpiratesilas]

I saw a recent post someone made speculating on birth years for each of the FO4 companions. They had estimated Danse being born (created?) in 2261 and part of that reasoning was 1) he had been paladin by 2277 and 2) Maxson said it took Danse “many” years to become paladin.

I wanted to expand on it without dumping a huge wall of text onto their post. If you want to know which post, here's the link. And this isn't me disagreeing with any of it. It was just something that got me thinking and I wanted to expand on it.

I've been kind of stuck on Danse's character for a bit because of the fic I'm writing. I didn't actually realize Maxson had said it took Danse many years to become Paladin (I looked it up and it's when you first join the BoS and you're given the rank of Knight. If you ask why not Paladin, that's when you get that info).

So anyway it made me wonder what “many” years would be in the context of a military career. The Brotherhood of Steel was born from the US military, so I looked into the ranks of the US Army to get an idea. Danse is a senior officer with the BoS and a field commander. From what I can tell, the most senior field commander in the Army is the rank of Major. Just doing a quick Google search, it takes about 11 years to make that rank. Added to at least 10 years as Paladin, I'm estimating Danse has been in the BoS for about 21 years by the beginning of FO4.

If someone joins the Army at 18, they'd be about 39 by the time they reach Major. Since Danse is a synth and was created as an adult humanoid male, that doesn't mean much in terms of his actual chronological age. It does for his perceived age, though.

The BoS keeps really extensive records on its members. They even keep their DNA on file. When you walk through the Prydwen, you get a very paranoid vibe and the children on the ship are encouraged to spy on all staff aboard the Prydwen. And yet, no one suspected Danse was a synth.

Synths don't age. At SOME point, even if they never got the files from the Institute saying Danse was a missing synth, someone would have had to start questioning why Danse still looks the same after all of those years in the BoS. That hadn't happened, yet. Also the stress of battle and the scars on his face probably do give the illusion of “aging” to an extent. Danse also isn't close to anyone in the BoS and doesn't talk about himself. His background is as an anonymous orphan in the Capital Wasteland. All of this gives plenty of wiggle room on his perceived age to others. I'm guessing anyone in the BoS would probably just assume he's in his mid-late 30's. Maybe early 40's.

And up to that point, the timeline would match. His time spent in the BoS would point to him being that age. He looks like he's about that age. He's a senior officer. It's fine. Give it about 10 years, though, and people would have started asking questions. Danse was on borrowed time and he had no idea.

And then there's time spent in Rivet City. He and Cutler were quite close, enough that they joined up together. My guess is that they were probably seen as two young men at around the same age (I'll just say late teens, early 20's) when they joined up. Since we know Danse is an adult who doesn't age, I'm going to lean hard on the battle scars theory for simulating aging and also say he was probably clean shaven in the beginning which also made him look younger.

Even then, I am guessing he spent enough time with Cutler for them to become close without raising any suspicions on his age. I'm going to give about 2 years in Rivet City. I figure that's plenty of time for two young men to become friends enough that they run off and join the military together. Without the appearance of his age raising any red flags.

That puts the timeline up to 23 years.

Prior to that, it gets really fuzzy. We know nothing of his time in the Institute. We can make some educated guesses, but all we know for sure is that he was a missing synth named M7-97. Danse himself doesn't know anything about it. I can't really give any guess on how long he was there without going ENTIRELY into headcanon territory.

Him being born in the year 2261 is totally plausible. That would make him chronologically 26 years old.

His perceived age, though, I thought was interesting to think about because you have to see how his appearance and the direction his life took was almost out of luck that no one found him out sooner. I think he was in a far more precarious position than even he realized and even without the BoS discovering he was a synth from the Institute, he was getting close to a point in time where his age would have come into question even more and people would have started getting suspicious anyway.

[coldairballoons]

i've seen a lot of people saying that saltburn (2023) isn't a commentary on class, and genuinely, i have to disagree.

keep in mind, i watched this at 3am last night with my sibling, but i'm also a literature major with a focus in literary criticism of popular culture (including film), so i do know what i'm talking about!

spoilers below the break

first of all, framing saltburn as a conflict between the upper class and lower class is incorrect. in fact, that in itself is one of the major criticisms that comes up throughout it! oliver is quite literally not lower class, but uses the preconception that the cattons will view anyone in a lower social class than them as a tool to manipulate his way into their life. despite this, he is not lower class. and you are not meant to root for him, especially not towards the end.

the marxist theory of literary criticism surrounds the idea that in every story, one of the key concepts is a class struggle. this could be between any class, but the most common is the rich vs poor duality that shows up in most stories - ex. titanic, the fall of the house of usher. the thing is, in both of those examples, the sympathy lies with the victims - the lower class. in titanic, you are meant to feel guilty on behalf of the rich leaving the lower class to die. in usher, you are meant to feel anger towards the mistreatment of those who seek out the treatment the family offers. but while usher is a clear criticism of class, is that its main genre? is is purely a class struggle movie? no. it is a story inspired by edgar allan poe that surrounds horrors of family, trauma, and yes, class, but also morality. meanwhile titanic is supposedly a romance. though jack dawson is young and poor, he is not the only sympathetic character. what i'm saying here is that media is incredibly layered, and while on the surface level, something may not be entirely a class conflict story, those undertones exist throughout, no matter what. even take hit series percy jackson for example. there is still a class discussion to be had there, with percy and his mom struggling with finances, while annabeth and her father live comfortably.

but saltburn is interesting, because the antagonist throughout the entirety of it is, as far as the audience knows, lower class. you are introduced to him, not through judgement for his living condition, but through compassion and generosity. felix offers him a hand, even when he isn't in the same group as him. that in itself is a criticism of class dynamics.

listen. i hate rich people as much as the next gen-z college student. i personally have a hit list with many a billionaire's name right at the very top. but it's undeniable that, despite the class difference, the cattons - at least venitia and felix - are kind to oliver at first. obviously, he is a part of the other, but he is still a person. elspeth enjoys his presence. james treats him as a son. farleigh feels threatened by his presence, because he knows that, if they so choose, they could replace him with oliver.

i want to talk about farleigh for a second.

i literally have not seen anyone talk about farleigh, and i am upset about it. not only is he one of the most compelling characters - a supposed american slacker who lives with his extended family and blows their money on lavish means -, but he is important in the class discussion because it affects him directly. the cattons do not support his mother. she is in america, and although they have the ability to, they actively choose not to. the reason felix is bothered when farleigh implies that it is, in fact, a "race thing", is because it is. why is farleigh the one dependent on the cattons, and risking expulsion from the family? because he is the first other that they encounter.

and then pamela, who not only has sought help from the cattons, but disappears midway through with no explanation. she goes directly from rehab to them, and although she is trying to find a place to live on her own, the cattons offer her no assistance. they offer her nothing, and complain when she is in their space. they offer her NO help, when they so easily could set her up with a small flat and monthly allowance to help her find a job.

and not only is this a criticism of the upper class - the inactivity and extremely single-minded worldview that the cattons have, the amount that they are out of touch with not only the outside world and the lower class, but their own emotions -, it's also a criticism of the upper middle class.

as someone currently in college, whose parents are a college professor and a high school teacher, i am fairly middle class. however, there are so many people in my immediate vicinity - folks i know from high school, in my classes, extended family, etc., - who are Extremely upper middle class. however, they have the comfort of certain things that i, and my family, don't have. that's just part of life. however, in saltburn, oliver milks the "middle" in his "upper middle" class. he milks it, and he runs it absolutely dry.

someone truly in his alleged position would not be able to spend the summer lavishly and hedonistically gallivanting around the countryside of england, playing tennis and smoking cigarettes by the lake. hell, someone in my middle class position wouldn't be able to do that either, especially not while attending oxford fucking university. he would likely need to work, not just to support himself, but to support his mother, especially after - again, allegedly - his father died. and not only is this coming from a place of an oversight on his part, not realizing what his privilege truly is, but it also comes from a place of oversight on the part of the cattons.

do i think that saltburn is a movie about class? nope. at its core, it's a story about a desire for power and possession, ownership and obsession. there is this intense, almost vampiric lust throughout the entire thing, and that's in part what makes it the perfect setting for discussions of sexuality, of madness, and, honestly, class. wealth is power, and the cattons have a lot of it.

[slitheringghost]

I do agree that people sometimes tend to minimize the Blacks abuse (I don't believe Sirius was crucio'd like so many fics seem to focus on, but I do believe strongly in psychological abuse that might’ve escalated to physical - this being what forced him to run away), but Snape being abused by his father is just... a logical conclusion of the narrative based on popular tropes and the things we're shown. First because of his father's background (poor muggle who hates magic and lives in the slums) and from everything we're told about Snape as a child - his severe social awkwardness, him being described as looking unloved, the brief glimpse we see of his father being Eileen and Severus cowering from him - I think it's pretty clear what we're meant to infer about his family life

No I mostly agree with you! Sorry I think my post was confusing. I don’t actually interpret the text that way, I think Snape is implied to be abused and it’s somewhat of a bad faith reading to claim he wasn’t. Like you CAN make that argument but it’s a reach, and that post was meant to be me doing weird mental gymnastics lol as a demonstration of how fans do that with Sirius. (I also forgot the description of Snape as unloved, thanks for pointing that out. That fits with how Kreacher says Walburga hated Sirius too).

That said, I have a major gripe with “Tobias was a poor muggle who lived in the slums” as evidence for Snape being abused.

This fandom constantly frames wealth and privilege as mutually exclusive with abuse and I’m so tired of it - i.e. I see takes framing the Black sisters being wealthy, privileged, spoilt, arrogant, raised as royalty, etc. as reasons why they couldn’t have been abused or have a tragic backstory. Same that Sirius was the brilliant eldest son and heir and therefore either wasn’t abused at all or only started being abused once he disagreed with his family’s politics, because Why Would His Parents Abuse Their Super Talented Beloved Heir otherwise? Or how “Sirius doesn’t act like an abuse victim, he acts like an heir who was raised to run an estate” as if those are, again, mutually exclusive. With the Blacks framed as being too much of “refined aristocrats” to resort to beating their children and seeing that as “beneath them” (also shown in the bizarre takes that the Blacks would think it’s “Muggle” to hit their kids. Like, WHAT? It’s magical society that is centuries behind the Muggle world in terms of social progress and therefore ideas of abuse… if anything what they’d view as “too Muggle” is the idea that torturing your children is abuse)

Rich privileged people do, in fact, experience (and commit!) domestic violence! Just as poor people do! Rich kids experience sexual abuse. Rich wives are murdered by their rich husbands. And so on. Denying this is absolutely fucking wild. And this is a dangerous mindset for several reasons, but particularly given that sometimes victims’ wealth is used as reasons to dismiss abuse in real life too - i.e. the Menendez brothers.

Yes, poverty certainly influences domestic violence in many ways - as @ashesandhackles says in this post, “Statistically, this is also seen more in low income households where economic instability and resulting domestic instability creates an unsafe environment for the kids to safely form ideas of their identity, or express emotions in healthy ways, modelling instead out of behaviour seen at home.” (I’m not sure of the exact statistics of how socioeconomic status affects rates of abuse, but even if it’s significantly higher in lower income families, it still wouldn’t make these takes less dismissive of privileged victims). We see this with the Gaunts too. This is an interesting post on Snape’s abuse and poverty (and, notice how literally no one denies that Snape was abused to the point of having bruises and scars and broken bones…).

But wealth does too - people who hold and abuse their power over their “inferiors” often bring that violence and abuse of power home. That’s not always true i.e. Lucius abuses Dobby and that doesn’t extend to his family. But on the other hand, Crouch Sr’s treatment of Winky directly parallels his treatment of his son, and his abuse of power in the MLE throwing others into prison without a trial also led to him not giving his son a proper trial before throwing him to the dementors. And certainly the Blacks’ murdering Muggles and house-elves relates to them disowning - and potentially honor killing- children for marrying Muggles/Muggleborns.

(There are spoilt wealthy characters for whom it makes no sense to give an abuse backstory, like Draco, but his privilege doesn’t have much to do with it - his portrayal as deeply loved by their parents does.)

This is a tangent, but re: Bellatrix’s behavior in particular, it’s canon that Bellatrix acts arrogant, calm, like a leader, like royalty (“sitting on her chair as if it was a throne”) in the middle of literal dementors during her trial, which means that, as this essay points out, putting on a front of arrogance is how Bellatrix copes with despair. This fits with how when she’s terrified Voldemort will kill her and her family in DH, she takes charge of the household. I think she’s also truly haughty, but it’s not always about her privileged upbringing, it’s also oftentimes a mask to hide her real terror and misery. Potentially this applies to Sirius’s arrogance too.

And like… it’s better than the people who completely deny Sirius was abused, but I also have a gripe with the emphasis on it being largely psychological and very occasionally physical (it’s not just you, it’s very standard nowadays to emphasize that Sirius’s abuse was only emotional).

I often see fandom cite fics portraying the Blacks’ Crucio-ing their children as a reason to go “well it was obviously not that extreme and actually only emotional abuse”, when… there’s a very wide spectrum of possibilities in between solely emotional abuse and “Crucio’s their children”. Not using the literal Cruciatus doesn’t mean they couldn’t still have been severely physically abusive in other ways. Or, if not physical abuse (though I think that’s clearly implied), then other forms of extreme trauma in addition to the verbal abuse - sexual abuse, long periods of imprisonment and starvation, continuous drugging, and idk you could probably come up with more creative/less standard spells and methods of magical abuse i.e. Crouch Sr. using the Imperius curse on his son for 13 years, which doesn’t really have a real life equivalent.

(And I’m not saying emotional/verbal abuse isn’t traumatizing! I’ve been traumatized by it myself. But degrees of abuse are a spectrum and vary greatly, and if the level of abuse Sirius experienced consisted only of Walburga cruelly screaming at him and very occasional physical abuse, mixed with love and affection as people say, then, well, all of Molly Weasley’s children would’ve been traumatized the way Sirius was. But they’re obviously not. More on this in another post).

Re: Sirius vs. Snape and how their abuse is interpreted - it’s nearly always taken as a given that Snape was (often severely) physically abused, fandom even citing the Pottermore article about him being whipped despite that being extracanon and not written by JKR, and there aren’t constant debates and disclaimers about how it was only emotional/psychological abuse and not physical, like there are for the Blacks, and I often even see explicit statements that Snape’s abuse was worse than Sirius’s. People also generally accept that Tobias just didn’t love Snape at all vs. takes about how Walburga and Orion actually deeply loved Sirius. I’ve even seen the headcanon multiple times that Tobias murdered Eileen in a rage! When you have the same fandom saying the Blacks coming close to killing their children is “exaggerated, cartoonishly evil” abuse. It again plays into the idea that only poor people do something as crass as commit physical violence on their family - the Blacks are simply above that kind of violence.

(I think there’s some amount of gender essentialism and messed up ideas about motherhood going on too, regarding Walburga vs. Tobias. And fandom not being able to comprehend the idea of even one single mother being portrayed as violently abusive and hating her children - the only mother in the series described as such. The fact that I’ve seen the headcanon several times over about how Orion is the more violent one and Walburga was trying to protect Sirius and Regulus from his abuse… makes me even more sure of this).

[rachelfloof]

Caramel Arrow being Dark Cacao’s daughter is a bad headcanon.

I’ve been keeping this to myself for a long time, but there are so many things about this headcanon that bother me, both obvious and less obvious things. There’s certain things about it that I’m surprised people don’t consider and don't realize. I can tolerate it because I can totally understand why people would hc this, but the more I thought about it, the more problems I found with it. I feel like they need to finally be pointed out because, in my opinion, this headcanon does not deserve the popularity it has.

Before I start explaining my thoughts, I want to emphasize that this is JUST MY OPINION. you DO NOT have to change your own opinion after reading this. These are simply my PERSONAL thoughts on this, and you DO NOT have to agree with me. Also, if you DO agree, I DO NOT condone sending hate to or attacking those who disagree with me and/or continue to use this headcanon.

The family headcanon directly conflicts with Caramel Arrow’s character in two major ways. The first is in regard to her ancestors. Following in her ancestors footsteps and honoring their legacy is one of Caramel Arrow’s main motivations. Caramel Arrow currently has one piece of cutscene art, depicting her praying to her fallen ancestors, as well as several quotes where she mentions defending the kingdom, just like her ancestors did (1 star promotion quote). If Dark Cacao is her father, then what ancestors is she talking about? because I know damn well it’s not Mystic Flour.

The only way this headcanon works without conflicting with the canon is if you ship Dark Cacao with a mortal who has a long history of serving the Dark Cacao kingdom (like the Second Watcher, for example). Despite this, Caramel Arrow being biologically related to Dark Cacao in any way brings up the second major issue and, in my opinion, the most damaging issue.

Caramel Arrow’s loading screen trivia states, "Caramel Arrow Cookie became the First Watcher at a young age…" Which is something I feel like has to be one of Caramel Arrow’s biggest achievements in her life. First Watcher is a really highly esteemed role; she’s essentially the top general of Dark Cacao’s most elite troops. Therefore, she likely had to work really hard to be able to become First Watcher, especially at so young.

However, with the added context of Dark Cacao being her father, I feel that it heavily reduces the gravity of this achievement. Dark Cacao is the king; he could’ve easily been biased in Caramel Arrow’s favor when deciding who to make First Watcher since she’d be his daughter. Dark Cacao’s kid being in such a high position at such a young age makes the earning of that role seem like a blatant display of nepotism.

Yesss, why not add taking away positions from people who actually deserve it more to the list of reasons why Dark Cacao is a bad person? /s

By making Caramel Arrow seem more undeserving of her position, you’re essentially weakening the strong woman character. Turning her from “hard-working girl boss” into “daddy’s girl.”

Speaking of Dark Cacao being a bad person, Dark Cacao treating Caramel Arrow like a daughter makes him look even worse when you factor in what he did to Dark Choco. So essentially, what’s happening is that Dark Cacao emotionally neglects Dark Choco while at the same time treating his younger child with the love that Dark Choco originally deserved.

All of the previously mentioned problems go away if you just interpret Dark Cacao and Caramel Arrow’s relationship for what it is. Which is NOT BIOLOGICALLY RELATED. By making them family, you’re heavily simplifying her character; her motivations for standing by the king and the prince go from “this is my sworn duty, and I want to honor my ancestors.” to “oh, it’s because the royal family is my family too.” So it makes her motives seem more like an empty obligation and expectation rather than something she’s worked for and voluntarily committed to because she’s genuinely just that passionate and dedicated about the homeland that her ancestors have fought and died for over generations.

The only way this headcanon works is if Caramel Arrow becomes Dark Cacao’s daughter AFTER everything is said and done with her becoming First Watcher and Dark Choco taking the sword. Which can only really happen if you ship Dark Cacao x Second Watcher or Dark Cacao x Dark Cacaoian OC while having the two characters fall in love AFTER Dark Choco leaves, making Caramel Arrow his stepdaughter. Or if you headcanon Caramel Arrow as his ADOPTED daughter rather than biological, of course with the adoption happening after Dark Choco leaves.

Even then, Dark Cacao adopting his First watcher after everything already happens would just be super random and weird. That’s like if a worker climbs the ranks in the company they work at, becomes COO, and then the CEO just decides to adopt their COO because they become close. Based on the Cookies of Darkness flashback, Caramel Arrow would likely be a full-grown adult by the time Dark Choco leaves with the sword, so Dark Cacao adopting this grown woman would just be kind of weird and unnecessary.

Despite everything I just said, Dark Cacao CAN still see Caramel Arrow like a daughter, and Caramel Arrow CAN still see Crunchy Chip like a brother WITHOUT any of them actually being on each other’s family tree. They can just have a close platonic relationship with each other where they kind of see each other as like a second family, except, of course, they’re not actually related. Rather, they're almost like a family-like friend group or in other words, a friend group with a family-like bond.

This is the end of my little ramble, in case you forgot about the disclaimer at the top, this is just my opinion. Re-read the disclaimer in big red text if you need to. you don't need to agree with me. and I hope everyone has a good day. <3

Also, remember to never be a hater to anyone, hating is cringe ngl.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Your blog is my guilty pleasure lol, it's so validating to read your very matter of fact rebuttals after years of being talked over & down to in the fandom. Being in the fan space & hearing the way people talked about how much more "female gaze coded" Z/tara was made me feel like I was betraying other women by not liking Zuko or Zutara the way "real mature" women did.

Funniest thing is, when i watched the show as a kid as an older sister, someone with talent/skills that nobody else understood, a girl who felt she had to be mature all the time, Kataang instantly became my otp. Katara was living my dream of a fun, cute boy sweeping me off my feet, telling me I was special and going on a magical journey with me-- I had the HUGEST crush on Aang as a little girl. It was so lame growing older and hearing near constantly from the fandom how stupid and unbelievable the idea that Katara actually had feelings for Aang was, and how it's a "male" (aka: bad) fantasy, when honestly Zuko's angsty ass was far from dream boyfriend material in my opinion it made me feel gaslit fjhdidjskj.

Genuine Z/tara fans are fine, I totally get the appeal of the red/blue enemies to lovers sparks fly ship, but the meanest and loudest of your crewmates and the way they act like their tastes are the Correct ones has been just. ridiculous for many years. And why do those types always feel the need to start the conversation by bashing Kataang every single time?? I started with a positive opinion of their ship when I entered the fandom as a teen, even liked a few arts and whatnot as a "what-if," but all the nonsense has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

So yeah, thanks for this space to complain about the experiences we've had lol. I've had one too many conversations about ATLA & how good it is interrupted with the other person going "well except for the Main Romance, that was shit and Z/tara should have been endgame" not to be Worn Out. Like if in their opinion the show is *perfect* except that One thing.... maybe the problem lies elsewhere?

Yup, that's definitely a pattern I noticed: zutarians are SO many and SO loud, that even though a pretty large part of the fandom disagrees with their takes (regardless of enjoying the canon ships or not) most of them just... didn't talk about it because they didn't want to be harrassed or talked down to or be hit with the "well, we are the majority therefore we're right" argument.

It's part of why I was innitially shocked at how much support this blog got. I thought I just gonna be in my own little bubble of the fandom, but nope, I got sooooo many messages of "FINALLY! Somebody said it!"

And looking back, I should've noticed something was off. There's a reason ATLA's ending was not one of these disasters that basically nukes and kills 90% of the fandom and live in infamy as one of the worst falls from grace ever, How I Met Your Mother style, even though both shows had the fan favorite ship not end together.

It wasn't just that one was well-written and the other wasn't (though that clearly affected the audience and critical reception of these endings, both at the time and through the decades).

HIMYM was a case of "The actual endgame ship was loathed by nearly everyone while the rival pairings were almost universally beloved."

ATLA was a case of "70% of the fandom likes this ship - of these fans, 25% are multishipers that also like the canon ships, 25% only like the ship in fanfic but don't actually want it to be a thing, 25% loves it but can accept it not being canon at point because they acknowledge it'd be rushed, and the 25% are the ones that would burn down Bryke's house if they could, so in reality only a fraction of the fandom didn't accept the Kataang/Maiko endgame, while the overwhelming majority was either happy about it or indifferent to it"

And that's without taking into account that Avatar got new popularity boosts through the years that lead to plenty of people that had Zutara being hyped up for years being disappointed when they realized "Oh, it was popular because of fanon shit, not because it actually would have made sense story-wise" or people who reached that same conclusion after rewatching the show.

I think that's why Zutarians have such a victim complex and want to pretend Bryke and Kataang/Maiko fans are "oppressing" them - they've been dominating the conversation for years, and not only got no results out of it, they're now losing that "leverage" too. They're no longer in an echo-chamber, they need to use actual arguments that make sense if they want their opinion to be almost universal and they just can't do it because their ship was never that good to begin with.

[dn-838]

In defence of Undertale Yellow, how it can work with Undertale’s canon

So, I have seen a lot of debating recently on Undertale Yellow and whether or not it fits what we know already about the lore in Undertale. Of course Flowey’s presence in the mod is the primary thing that has sparked this debate, with many believing that he can’t have existed at the same time as the Justice Soul and that it is a major hole that breaks the continuity of Undertale. I however, as someone who has spent way too much time with Undertale and has vast knowledge about even the most obscure of details in the game, disagree. I believe that Undertale Yellow fits the original games canon well… maybe a bit too well, and I am here to give my own arguments against the things that I commonly see people say doesn’t fit the original game’s continuity. This may contain a few spoilers for Undertale Yellow, so unless you’ve already seen all 3 routes or for whatever reason don’t care about having the game spoiled, don’t read further until you are done.

Argument 1: all the Souls were already collected by the creation of Flowey and the amalgamates

Okay so this one I don’t really have much to say about. Yes Flowey and the Amalgamates were created using the SOULs of some of the collected humans, however it’s never specified that it was from 6 humans, all that’s made clear is that Asgore did have human SOULs (in plural) that were used in the experiment.

Argument 2: the timeline doesn’t match up

The timeline has always been a confusing topic among the Undertale community. While the most likely estimate of the gap between Chara and Frisk falling is 100 years due to what Sans tells us during his date.

There are a few reasons for us to believe that the gap is much smaller, especially considering the weird nature of the Deltarune timeline and the supposed grudge Chara seems to have against Snowdrake in Genocide (who is stated to only be a teenager).

However, no matter how you view the timeline, unless you have specific dates in mind for things like when Gaster was the Royal Scientist and when the fall of Integrity-Justice happened, or think the gap was REALLY short, Undertale Yellow doesn’t really contradict it too much. The game itself is meant to take place just a year before Undertale, with all the same characters existing in similar positions to how they do by the time of Undertale, however we never encounter them due to being on a completely different path that takes us to very different parts of the underground, being why they don’t behave like they encountered a human before in Undertale.

Integrity is a bit more interesting, because it can vary massively depending on how you view the lifespans of the Ketsukane’s, Starlo (Starlo won’t be important to this, but I mention him since he was childhood friends with Ceroba) and Dalv. It is strongly implied that as a kid, Dalv was best friends with Kanako, and was attacked by the Integrity human some point before the games events. At first you’d assume that this was all not meant to be long before the events of the game, however, Integrity was killed by Axis in UTY, a robot that was being worked on by Chujin back when the Steamworks were still in operation, which we can assume was long before the events of the game due to the state of the Steamworks itself and the fact it is stated to have been used as the source of all power in the underground, which would mean it would likely have shut down around the period that the CORE was first put into operation, so all the way back when Gaster was still the Royal Scientist, whenever you think that was (Axis wasn’t sent to kill the human until after Chujin was fired from his position, however due to the way Axis is locked up and deactivated before we wake up the Steamworks, we can assume he was shut down with the rest of the facility). On top of all this Dalv is shown to be a lot older than he presumably would have been when he was attacked by Integrity, and with him being a Vampire, you could say that he aged that much at a slower rate than a human would, with the Ketsukane’s also aging slow, 2 of them being Boss Monsters and one of them being a 9 tailed fox. We know that some monsters do likely age at very different rates due to monsters like Gerson who lived through the war.

So to give the whole timeline, basically, Chujin worked in the Steamworks and made Axis back before or during Gaster’s time as the royal scientist. After several failed prototypes that eventually got Chujin fired, Axis was sent to chase down and kill Integrity. He managed and Chujin kept the Soul hidden and over the span of years recorded a few tapes for what he had planning, meanwhile Dalv, who was previously attacked by Integrity, went into hiding, locking himself into a mostly dark and unknown part of the ruins. At some point when Alphy’s became the Royal Scientist, Chujin started to mentor Martlet, which led Martlet to enter the True Lab and get some strange serum. Eventually Chujin died around a year or two before UTY, revealing his hidden tapes to Ceroba, which Kanako overheard. This led to Ceroba attempting to inject Kanako with the Integrity soul, leading to Kanako falling and being donated to Alphy’s, and her of course then becoming an amalgamate.

Argument 3: Asgore killed all 6 of the other humans

Okay so this one is interesting, because Undyne does imply that humans before Frisk did make it to Asgore, with her saying that “no human has ever made it PAST Asgore” rather than “no human has ever made it TO Asgore”

The thing is, that other humans reached Asgore is all this really does imply, it doesn’t necessarily mean all humans made it to Asgore. You could argue that most of them died to Asgore, with Integrity and Justice being the only exceptions. If you really want to stretch you could even say that this line was actually just another attempt from Undyne to make Asgore sound like a powerful and threatening force (since she tries to make him out like that quite a bit in her fight, such as by saying that killing us is an act of mercy right after this), although I find this unlikely.

There is another line of dialogue that I sometimes see used to try and prove that Asgore killed all 6, and while it’s not used close to as much, I’ll still just quickly clear it up.

This doesn’t really mean that much, all it’s saying is that all the humans that leave the ruins inevitably die. She likely wouldn’t know any details on their deaths do to her isolation, and even if she had some knowledge she would probably still place the blame on Asgore due to his part in waging war and coming up with the plan to kill 7 humans in the first place.

Argument 4: The introduction of new incredibly powerful characters makes no sense

Okay, so this is a weird one, however the explanation for it is fairly simple. Nobody in UTY compares to the original Undertale cast when it comes to how “powerful” they are. We struggle so much against the opponents we face as Clover because well… Clover is much weaker than Frisk, bosses like Ceroba and Axis pale in comparison to Undyne and Mettaton, they just seem much harder since we are playing as a human with much less determination than Frisk. In Pacifist Clover fights a depressed fox lady, meanwhile Frisk fights a literal god; in Neutral Clover goes through a struggle fighting through Flowey’s mind after having his Soul absorbed, meanwhile Frisk holds on against Flowey with 6 Souls until those Souls rebel; and in Genocide Clover takes some time to finally destroy Axis, the failed prototype that got Chujin fired, meanwhile Frisk atomised Mettaton NEO, The greatest invention of the Scientist who was selected to replace Gaster, in a single blow.

The only Undertale Yellow character that I’d say surpasses any character in Undertale would of course be Zenith Martlet, but even then LV 19 Frisk would mop the floor with her, while LV 19 Clover had to go through a lot of effort to beat her, only ever managing to surpass Flowey in Determination after doing so. At LV 20 both Clover and Frisk have massive boosts from LV 19, however Frisk is far stronger, having awakened Chara and caused the destruction of everything, while Clover just destroys Asgore with a super laser blast directly from their Soul and leaves.

Argument 5: miscellaneous

Just to clear up any further confusion, I’ll give quick explanations for some more minor points that I have encountered

Nobody in the original Undertale apart from Flowey, Toriel and Asgore meets Clover, so the other monsters in Undertale acting like they had never met one makes sense.

Flowey not just stealing Clovers Soul is explained well by the game itself. He plans to, however he doesn’t get the chance in Pacifist; sees that we couldn’t surpass Asgore in Flawed Pacifist; steals our soul but is unsatisfied with the outcome and resets in Neutral, and gets gunned down in Genocide.

Toriel believing that it’s been a long time since a previous human fell when she sees Frisk in Undertale doesn’t mean much, she mostly lives isolated in the Ruins, with the other monsters being too afraid to speak with her, considering this and just generally how much seemed to have happened within that year, time could have felt much slower. Alternatively you could argue that the 6 humans all fell within months of each other, and that a years gap is a long time in comparison to the rate the first 6 fell (or 5, since she says the exact same thing to Clover).

Both Flowey and Clover using file 1 at the end of Genocide doesn’t fit what we know about save files no, however I feel it is a little nit-picky to use it as a definitive reason to discredit how well UTY fits into canon, after all the only thing you’d need to do is change the numbers and this would be fixed.

The Gunsmith having been born a week before the Human Vs Monster war doesn’t go against anything we already know. As stated before, we know that at least some monsters like Gerson do live for a very long time.

Flowey having more determination than Clover also doesn’t break anything. Flowey was injected with DT from 5 human Souls. The thing is that Frisk was special when it came to the amount of determination they had.

Unlike with most of the other cast, nobody in Undertale actually indicates that Flowey never met a human prior to Frisk.

Chujin being a boss Monster doesn’t contradict what we know about Boss Monsters. We know that the Dreemurrs are boss monsters, but nothing tells us that they are the only boss monsters.

Argument 6: the nature of the SAVE files contradicts Undertale Yellow

Here we go, the penultimate argument I shall argue against. Never did I expect for this obscure piece of Undertale lore to be the bane of my existence but here we are. For a short time I thought that this could not be countered, only after I had walked away from a discussion completely defeated did the pieces finally start to come together, and now finally… I have an explanation.

First things first, let’s look at the 10 save files. The files go from file 0 to file 9. We know that File 0 likely belongs to Chara due to it being the one that we save with in Undertale, and that file 9 belongs to Frisk since it works as the games Autosave/Checkpoint system. File 8 would then of course belong to Flowey, not just because it’s the one just before Frisks but because File 8 appears in your files after you beat Omega Flowey to mark your completion of a Neutral run, likely implying that his previous SAVE was of course when he was Omega Flowey. Flowey also uses files 2, 3 and 6 throughout the Omega Flowey battle, and since Toriel implies that other humans who fell were also able to save and reset, we can assume that 2-6 likely belonged to previously fallen humans.

Now the only files that need an explanation are file 1 and file 7, and I’ve seen 2 interesting theories for this. The first is that file 1 belongs to Asriel after he took Chara’s Soul, and the other is that file 7 belongs to Lemon Bread since they know what a SAVE point looks like and tries to trick us with it; but the thing is, which one of these are true? Surely it can’t be both since we know one needs to belong to the 6th… okay I’ll cut that out you already know I’m going to say they are both true.

So for Asriel having file 1, he absorbed Chara’s Soul so should have all of their determination and therefore should also have overtaken their ability to SAVE. Of course it’s unlikely that Asriel would have made anything out of it since the idea of saving and loading was fairly alien to Flowey, however that doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that Asriel didn’t SAVE or at least have a file created.

Lemon Bread is a bit more complicated, and we are gonna need to look into the order of events within the True Lab to try and work this out. Firstly, we need to look at some of the true lab entries.

ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had "fallen down."

Their bodies came in today.

They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust.

But what happens if I inject "determination" into them?

If their SOULS persist after they perish, then...

Freedom might be closer than we all thought.

This is entry 6, when the fallen down monsters are given to Alphy’s and have Determination injected into them.

I've chosen a candidate.

I haven't told ASGORE yet, because I want to surprise him with it...

In the center of his garden, there's something special.

The first golden flower, that grew before all the others.

The flower from the outside world.

It appeared just before the queen left.

I wonder...

What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?

This is entry 8, Alphy’s gets a hold of a golden flower that she injects Determination into.

“One of the bodies opened its eyes.

This is entry 13, when the fallen monsters started to regain consciousness, 7 entries after they were first delivered.

Seems like this research was a dead end...

But at least we got a happy ending out of it...?

I sent the SOULS back to ASGORE, returned the vessel to his garden....

And I called all of the families and told them everyone's alive.

I'll send everyone back tomorrow. :)

This is entry 15, by this point all the monsters that had fallen down were awake, and the still not conscious Golden Flower was still just a Flower, being returned alongside the human Souls.

no No NO NO NO NO NO

This is entry 16, the fallen down monsters started to melt together and create the amalgamates.

the flower's gone.

Finally, we have entry 18, when Alphy’s noticed that the Flower seems to have disappeared from the garden, 10 entries after she first selected it.

So, why are these entries so important? Well we know that to have ever held the ability to SAVE, Lemon Bread would have to had held the right amount of Determination before Flowey first became conscious in the garden, and did they? Yes, yes they did. Flowey could have awakened anywhere in the timeframe between entry 15 when he was returned to entry 18 when Alphy’s noticed him gone, however all the fallen down monsters that were injected with Determination were already awake by this point, and therefore prior to Flowey waking up, they would have been the most determined beings in the underground, perhaps with enough determination that whichever monster happened to have the most was able to SAVE. The time that they would have had with the ability would also have at least been for longer than Asriel had it since Flowey can’t have awoken until after a couple entries later at the bare minimum. Of course since this follows the idea that Lemon Bread had the SAVE ability since they knew what a SAVE point looks like, we can assume that the monster in question would have been Shyren’s sister, since I doubt that the Moldbygg and Aaron that also make up Lemon Bread would hold such a role.

Argument 7: Flowey’s backstory

I really thought I was done with this infuriating Flower, but it appears not. For there is a single hole I need to clear up… Flowey’s Genocide speech. Of course this should be fairly simple to clear up-

Ah… well okay this makes things interesting. If Flowey didn’t know where the Souls were stored then that would make it very hard to believe that Flowey ever encountered a human before Frisk since if that were the case then Flowey would definitely have an opportunity to sneak by and see where they are hiding, however this is not what the dialogue actually means. Flowey knew where the Souls were, he sneaks in to steal them in Neutral while we are talking to a defeated Asgore, his only issue was that he wasn’t able to get them out without Asgore. In repeated Neutral runs he still just waits until we are distracted with Asgore to take the Souls, and in Pacifist he takes them while the main cast are all distracted which again is when the canisters are open and available.

On a last note, here’s some dialogue that actually helps the idea that Flowey encountered another human.

It’s made clear all throughout the underground that humans have far greater Determination than monsters, and while you could argue that Flowey was just overconfident in his abilities, it’s still fairly strange that Flowey would still find a human having the DT to overwrite his abilities something special, unless of course he’d encountered a human previously who wasn’t able to do as much.

Conclusion

So, that’s about all I have to say, honestly I’m just glad to be done with it. This was a lot of work, and I’m excited to see this post which I’ve been working on for 3 days get completely dismantled almost immediately. Anyways, wish everyone reading a good day and goodbye!

[aufberontrove]

Jayvik, Christian Linke, and the Discourse

Hey y’all, I’m breaking a bit from my usual type of post, but we’re still talking about Arcane, so it’s not too off-topic. I encourage anyone reading this to share their thoughts on anything I’m bringing up—or even to bring new ideas into the conversation. Just please, don’t harass anyone because of it.

Let me give some context first: I haven’t watched the full interview, and I might’ve spent way too much time on Twitter and Bluesky reading about this stuff. I still love Arcane, though. As someone who mostly posts Arcane content, I feel like I kind of have to respond to this, even if no one really cares.

About Jayvik:

Was there homoromantic subtext? Sure—if there wasn’t, people wouldn’t be shipping them this much. But to me, it feels like BBC Sherlock all over again: throwing in gay subtext without committing to it.

Honestly, there’s a simple way to handle this kind of situation: just say you didn’t intend for it to be read that way but can understand how people got that impression. That’s it. For some reason, though, Christian Linke doesn’t take that route—or at least, I haven’t seen him do so.

On Christian Linke

The main reason I’m writing this is to talk about Christian Linke, the co-creator of Arcane, who, apparently, is one of the worst people to disagree with on the internet. Let’s break it down by topic.

The Pitch

First, the quote he used. In this context, I could argue it’s okay to use the slur since it’s a quote, but you have to wonder: Why use that quote at all? There are so many other quotes to choose from, and he chose that one. It feels… weird.

As for the depiction of Zaun: maybe I’m misremembering, but the show doesn’t really lean into what he described in the pitch. The moral codes in Zaun seem pretty similar to those in Piltover. Sure, the chem-barons aren’t exactly moral, but neither is the Piltover council. Piltover is far from pure or righteous.

Let's talk about Viktor:

Apparently, Viktor is ace now. That kinda makes sense to me, but there was no hint of it in the show. It gives me “2007 Dumbledore is gay” vibes—except now it’s the German Twitch edition. And as many people have pointed out, gay asexual people exist too. So, framing it like this doesn’t really fix anything.

There’s also controversy about asexual disabled people, but I’m not comfortable commenting much on that since I’m neither disabled nor asexual. Still, it’s worth mentioning that people are discussing it. (Maybe this is related: Link 1 or Link 2).

Also apparently there is a joke from S1 that implies that he usually brings men to his room so yeah... so, there’s that.

Let's talk about Season 2:

Let’s just get this out of the way: Season 2 was rushed. That’s not really up for debate, and Christian himself confirmed it during Arcane Afterglow. The pacing feels weird in a lot of places. Was it entirely his fault? No, of course not. But certain moments, like “Timebomb” and the sex scene—even though I enjoyed at least one of them—feel like filler to either kill one of the main characters so you don't need to bother with them or cater to the majority of your audience.

Then there’s his cocky tweets and Reddit post.

Like, ok the show is good but I felt the same while watching Owl House, Avatar: Last Airbender, or anime like Koe no Katachi. I agree the fans aren’t owed anything, but the way he responds shows he has no PR training whatsoever.

If you have anything more share it with the class. I am closing Twitter because this discourse is killing my brain cells.