#i just think that parents are complicated

[thewistlingbadger]

All the shade in the world when we say we want complex women characters we want more Ellie Williams and other characters whose actions make our insides twist, not frustrate us. We want characters that we hold beloved to become corrupted by fate but still have the opportunity for some redemption.

Caitlyn Kiramman is an interesting character, but she does not fit the bill for the "complex female characters" we desire. Jinx, Vi, and Mel better fit that bill. All three of those women have given us reason to both love and despise them. Many a difficult conversation have they been the subject of. And to me personally Cait just falls flat. And I don't think it's her own fault I think it's the writing. Season 1 cait is 🔛🔝 but season two cait? I understand that she's grieving her mother, HOWEVER, we barely saw any interaction between the two of them and the little that we did see showed us that she wasn't fucking with her like that/they had a complex and somewhat negative relationship. Imagine how the season opened with Cait actually finding her mom's dead body. We would all feel sick, and we'd all pity her. Or imagine had we been given a flashback between her and her mother when she was a child in the garden, having a good time. Or imagine how they just even mentioned the fact that their relationship was strained. Losing a parent is bad, what makes it worse is having unfinished business with that parent (which is why people love the story of Ellie Williams, it's why we understand why she wants to go after her father's killer other than the fact that the killer murdered her father). Caitlin only having one motivation to go after jinx, to descend into hell, to avenge her mother is not even. "Jinx killed mom now I kill Jinx" there's nothing compelling about that. We've seen the story several times.

Just to give a direct comparison.

Jinx's dad was a man she had an extremely complicated relationship with and this relationship was showcased throughout the season. The fact that she essentially lost her sister and killed her father at the same time is what pushes her over the edge. We completely understand why she's going to burn the world down because the show told us over and over and over again. Jinx always manages to lose the people she loves the most, and this time it's happened directly by her own hand.

Jinx's missile only kills three people, blows up a building, and inspiresb fear in the hearts of pilties and amazment in the hearts of Zaunites. Her actions were bad, but ultimately very few people actually suffered from her actions. The council only lost three people, it's not like pilltover's governmentless now (like how zaun is). The damage to the building wasn't that bad and it's easily repairable. And overall from her actions alone the citizens of pilltover are still safe.

Now let's look at cait. She's actively ruining the lives of zaunites by mass gassing them (we also how many kids were on the street. We all know how many homeless and disabled people there are in zaun. Now they're all negatively affected due to cait's lust of vengeance) and by arresting them when they've committed no crime. She's parading around the city with deadly weapons, under the authority of which she does not have! Cait abuses her name and her position as an enforcer to DEMAND that the council follow her plan. She had absolutely no right to storm into there and act like she had the power to call shots. What's even more gross is that she completely lied to them! Her goal was never to locate jinx, it was always to kill Jinx. If she truly cared about bringing jinx to proper justice, she would have ensured she be brought alive. If she truly cared about dismantling shimmer, she would have done that first bc A. Vi knows exactly where the factory is and B. According to silco, the last attack already cut the supply in half. It would have been easy to finish that off. Caitlyn acts like she's judge, jury, and Executioner the entire time she's down there. Her prejudice increases exponentially AS does her willingness to he openly prejudice. She literally refers to Vi's countrymen as animals, and accuses vi of being disloyal several times! and must we truly mention the assault she did? Must we mention that she was willing to kill a kid? That's a line jinx herself has not even willingly crossed yet, and she's practically crossed all other lines.

At the moment Caitlin is not a character who's doing the wrong things for what she believes is the right reason. She's acting out of complete selfishness. Even jinx, who committed an act of terrorism, didn't do it for herself. She did it for her dad, who worked so hard to bring down piltover and didn't live to see it because he refused to trade his daughter for Independence and peace.

So these are just only a few reasons why people don't support her this season. And her level of oppression, arrogance, and maliciousness is exactly why people are calling out those who defend her, because the majority of her defenders are privileged and white.

"We want more complex female characters" you can't even handle an angry, grieving daughter who just had her mother killed by her future wife's sister, shut the fuck up

[puppetwoman17]

Let’s talk about what aging would do to Billy’s perception of how he’s acting toward other heroes when he’s taking care of them(yes this is dad Marvel I’m feeding yall today).

When Billy was younger, he just wanted to help. Of course, that doesn’t alter anyone’s perception of Cap as a dad figure, but Billy wasn’t actively trying to take care OF them. All he’s doing is trying to be a helping hand. Someone to listen to others when they just need a good vent.

In his perspective, all he’s doing is being a good friend. Not a mentor, or an older brother, or anything akin to that. Of course, that doesn’t make a difference for younger heroes(or, heroes who perceive themselves as younger than Cap). Or even for some of his League coworkers. Because all of that care is coming from someone who they don’t really know the age of.

He could be in his thirties, or he could be thousands of years old, or he could even be just eleven, manifesting out of pure magic, and with that wisdom.

It’s only as Billy grows older, I’m thinking somewhere between high school junior-college freshman, that he actively starts thinking of himself as that mentor figure. Or, he starts thinking of what he DOES to heroes as being a mentor/older brother figure.

And once he feels more comfortable leaning into that, that’s when he starts reciprocating the affection given to him. I’m talking him saying “I’m proud of you” with that fatherly tone. Him deciding to give hugs instead of others always having to ask(ofc he asks first, our boy cares about consent). And yes, him going as a substitute for parent teacher conferences.

For Billy, it’s always been about being a better parental figure than the many adults who let him down. It’s about learning the dos from his parents and the don’ts from Ebenezer.

Now all the “best dad/brother” mugs make so much sense. Raven following him sometimes. Clark asking for advice on how to handle Jon and rekindle things with Kon. Tbh he feels kind of stupid for not realizing how people thought of him sooner.

Of course, this only amplifies his refusal to reveal his identity. Sheesh, he was gonna introduce himself on Christmas, but what would they all think now?

It’s a complicated thought process of “They deserve to know if I have such an important place in their lives” and “but what if I lose all that respect and relationship?” and “but that would be selfish of me to want to keep that.”

The thought that they might still accept and love him never crosses his mind because no matter how self aware he gets, Billy will always be clueless when it comes to how people perceive him(aka yes, Billy, you are lovable—No, Billy, no one is using you for money, you don’t have that).

[gemsofthegalaxy]

i'm so sorry but people being like "Vi asking Cait not to change and then she immediately becomes a dictator" like that's the thing, Cait was never at a point where she'd really interrogated her relationship to the Undercity and her privilege enough for this to be that far out of left field. Her mother died and she said to Jayce she understood hatred of the whole Undercity population, called people animals for attacking during a memorial (unbeknownst to her, orchestrated by people 'on her side').

Vi, meanwhile, has seen no less than 3 parents die, not to mention countless others. She's lost her sister which she blames herself for (despite telling herself she isn't doing that anymore) and she still holds so much love in her heart. I don't quite understand how she reconciles using chemical warfare of the grey to try and smoke Jinx out (haha) other than the fact that she's desperate, still, to try and resolve things with her sister even if it means taking her out (which she still is unable to do). She just wants things to be okay with the least amount of damage, and to right what she feels are her wrongs.

And although Vi does clearly go along with using the Grey, Caitlyn has much greater access to cold detachment to the folks of the Undercity because she never quite got around to seeing them as full people in the first place. A pet project, perhaps, to try and save them when that was a undeniable and easy good. As soon as it becomes complicated, and people there are hurtful and have teeth and are not perfect flawless victims, it's so easy to shuck the desire to "help" the poor folks of the Undercity- in fact, now she finds it quite easy to hate them all instead.

Caitlyn didn't change, not in a notable way, she leaned in further to her birthright, which is one of upper class privilege and doing whatever she pleases.

(ps, I don't hate her. I think she's an incredibly compelling and interesting character. But I do not believe she is a good person and she's been teetering towards that since the second s2e1 dropped. I think she would have to do a lot more work than just falling in love with someone who happens to be from the Undercity to really interrogate her place in this world and commit to understanding the structural changes that are needed in Piltover for that)

[yandere-paramour]

Ok so I have a question for Ata, let’s say reader is pregnant and about to give birth. But she was having some complications and needed surgery.

So Atalanta is externally upset and anxious in the waiting room. Her parents aren’t there yet so she’s panicking by herself, but then readers parents show up. They haven’t really seen eye to eye especially with Ata stealing their daughter and making them not say anything to reader.

but then you get this really beautiful moment where readers parents just walk up to a crying Ata and hug her. They see her for what she is right now someone who loves their daughter and is scared just like them. It doesn’t take back the years of resentment/ animosity between them but it’s a start to building a good relationship

I’m so sorry it’s long I’ve just been thinking about this for awhile, and think some fluff with Ata and readers parents would be really sweet. I love your work, and I wish you the best especially with everything going on in Georgia and in general.I hope you have a great day! Best wishes from the other person who lives in Georgia lol ❤️‍🩹✨

Awwww this is such a sweet scenario!!!!

Ata would really really like this. She loves her parents dearly, and she knows you love yours. She knows that your continued estrangement from them has been upsetting you, especially with the impending birth of the Montclair heir. Atalanta has wanted to find a way to bridge the gap for you and this was just perfect.

She is happy you get to have your parents back, and as long as they don't try to take you away from her, she can put up with it if it makes you happy.

[randum-famdoms]

As someone with a much larger vocabulary than the average American (due to various factors, but personally I attribute this to the terrible American education system more than anything else), I’ve genuinely considered starting to screen record while I’m writing essays for college as proof that I’m not using ai to cheat, unless you count spell check as ai. Which I don��t, and any sane person wouldn’t either.

AI checkers are faulty at best and genuinely broken beyond comprehension at worst. I lean towards the worst side of the scale. There have been countless cases of these things just flat out not working, whether that’s through false positives or not catching actual ai use.

I think the worst or maybe just weirdest case I’ve seen was a situation where one of my friend’s classmates got flagged for ai use because they included a block quote that the checker decided was suspicious. A fucking quote. Ya know, the one thing in an essay that you don’t write yourself.

Insanity.

I hadn’t heard about this trend of ai checkers forcing people to dumb down their words leading to actual published works being dumbed down before. I mean, I knew about the results, but I’d assumed that it was caused by the general trend of the American populous getting “dumber”. By which I mean that each year there are statically more people graduating with lower reading levels/worse understanding of how things like science and math work. It’s not their fault, the American education system is deeply flawed and underfunded more and more every year and far too many parents let iPads raise children instead of actually parenting. And the iPad baby bit is making things even worse year by year as more and more content for kids (and adults) is ai generated. It’s much more complicated than that, but I’m not about to go into minutia over this in a tumblr post.

The general trend toward content (including published books) being dumbed down is caused by a lot of factors. Pressure from publishers and higher ups, ai, the general lower standards of pre-college education (and college too, but less so for now), being raised by the internet, the fact that the internet is so consumed by ai and it worsens every day, the list goes on.

Ai isn’t the only source for these problems, but the fact remains that it is simultaneously the method being used to enforce the trend and most of the other sources can trace back their roots to AI in some way or another.

And frankly we can’t do Jack shit about it. At least, we can’t do anything to stop ai. It’s far too late for that.

What we can do is try for now to make sure our own writing isn’t mislabeled as AI, not by dumbing it down but rather by providing proof that you were the one to write it. We can make sure that when we have kids they don’t get access to ai and that they are raised by a human, not by a computer. We can try to help schools get more funding. We can rate books that haven’t been dumbed down higher than ones than have, and maybe even message publishers to tell them that they are idiots if they think their readers want something written so boringly.

We can’t stop generative ai, but we can learn how to coexist with it.

[sepublic]

I think there’s a lot of implications to Evelyn that people ignore in favor of making her into their white everyman’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl instead of like, an actual character with motives who came to the human world for a reason.

There’s the very obvious implication that she made the archway in Gravesfield??? The one that uses Titan’s Blood to open a temporary portal each time? And there’s another archway located by her house; I dunno if Evelyn made it herself, or if she had parents who were just never shown because they’re not too important to the story.

Evelyn obviously would’ve been a child when she visited Gravesfield as well, because there’s no way the writers would have her romance with Caleb begin if only one of them was a minor. So that points to her being a kid prodigy, which is something you can see in her descendants Eda and Lilith (Yes, Lilith as well; She’s very skilled herself and even figured out Glyph combos, it’s just that she’s being compared to Eda constantly and let her inferiority complex downplay herself).

But how did Evelyn even get to the human realm in the first place if the other archway hadn’t been built? Did she just magically connect hers to a pre-existing human archway?

We know Eclipse Lake exists, it’s how Philip entered the Boiling Isles, and others in the Demon Realm knew of it. Plenty of witches speculated on how a permanent portal to and from the human realm worked; So interdimensional travel was already a field that wild witches in the Deadwardian Era were interested in.

Portals in this show are two-way, so Evelyn must’ve entered Eclipse Lake, emerged somewhere in what would be known in the present as the Connecticut area, and then wandered until she came across some humans… And alas, she came across some of the worst humans to ever exist, RIP.

She made Flapjack, and Palismen you create don’t awaken until you state your wish. If Flapjack resonated with Hunter for sharing Caleb’s wish, then he must’ve resonated with Caleb for sharing Evelyn’s wish; To decide her own future. Flapjack himself is introduced trying to leave and go places, despite people telling him to stay put.

Caleb is someone for whom that wish came in leaving his ‘home’ in Gravesfield, he’d already moved there from someplace else prior! When Evelyn is established to be someone skilled in interdimensional travel, is there not an obvious connection to be made between this and her shared dynamic in Caleb, and the Palisman who resonated with both?

Did Evelyn live with her parents? Was she by herself as a kid? When a teenage Eda runs to the human realm to escape her complicated relationship with her parents, is it the same as her ancestor? The Boiling Isles was never perfect (but the coven system was an objective downgrade), and Dana even mentioned it herself at one point. Its people are just as humans as humans, and so just as capable of being messy and flawed and even cruel. The Coven Heads were willing to fuse their realm with ours under the expectation they'd be treated like royalty for it.

Like Gus, did Evelyn find human detritus and become interested this way? Like Luz, did Evelyn hope she could escape her problems in one world by finding another? I wonder what magic Evelyn liked? Probably stuff to do with portals (Eda uses them in the first episode), teleportation, warping space, etc.

With all this in mind, with Evelyn already being established as someone who can create portal devices, Philip’s tendency to plagiarize and take credit, his inability to make a second portal without using the first one as a base, and the portal itself being found right by Evelyn’s home and archway…

What if Evelyn made the portal, with Caleb’s help. It does change the context of these notes in Philip’s journal, if they’re transcribed from those of Evelyn, a wild witch who revered the Titan and her way of life.

Evelyn went through Eclipse Lake, traveled until she found Gravesfield; Evelyn posed as a human and trusted Caleb after seeing how he and Flapjack got along. Evelyn built a working archway and when Gravesfield suspected a witch in their presence —possibly due to her experiments— they went on a hunt for her.

Evelyn revealed her identity to Caleb and Philip, and brought the former to her world, possibly as a test run or to celebrate its completion, before bringing him back to Gravesfield. Evelyn and Caleb would meet in secret for their own safety, communicating via rebuses, as Caleb stayed in Gravesfield until Philip was old enough to take care of himself, and/or even changed his mind and went along!

But he didn’t, and if Philip tried to do something about the archway, Evelyn still had Eclipse Lake. She might’ve even made the Portal by this point and that’s how Philip has notes on it prior to reuniting with Caleb. So Caleb moved to her home (possibly after Evelyn showed up in his house using the Portal), and Philip eventually found the Eclipse Lake portal. But in those subsequent 5+ years, Evelyn used the Titan’s right eye to create a new portal, that would use a little bit of Titan’s Blood as a battery but not deplete it with each use.

Evelyn and Caleb programmed this portal to open in his childhood home where Caleb expected Philip to be, because he still hoped to have his brother with him and always had. Evelyn agreed to let this happen despite Philip clearly wanting her dead, even if he was not going to get Caleb implicated and killed to do so.

But Philip decided to cross that line, because at some point Evelyn and Caleb had a child, and knowing he was related to a mixed child pissed him off so bad. He pretended to be accepting, even as Evelyn and Caleb revealed a Portal and their plan to go back to him anyhow. Despite this, he attempted to murder Evelyn and/or Caleb anyway. Caleb died, and the Portal was damaged, but Evelyn chased off Philip. He eventually went back for Caleb’s body and stole it, and attempted to replicate the Portal that Evelyn and Caleb had showed off, believing he’d broken it beyond repair.

Evelyn decided she wanted nothing else to do with the human realm and buried the Portal; Maybe she left the option for anyone else who was still interested. Which gets me to another point, that maybe Evelyn made a grave mistake in accessing the human world, but let’s be real the onus is always on those who act in bad faith, not someone who acted in good faith and had that taken advantage of. But in the long, long run, even longer than 400 years, past the ending of the series…

Gus is not the first, but he might be more successful than Evelyn, and succeed where she failed. He’s a witch who was also fascinated in the human world, and now he’s cultivating a Human-Demon Realm Exchange Program, so both worlds can get to know each other, so people from both worlds can find new places. Because Evelyn’s portal was reclaimed by her ancestor, who did need it after all; And it led to Luz finding the isles, to Vee finding Gravesfield.

Luz and Vee were also taken advantage of to commit genocide, but Luz helped stop it. She helped right a great wrong in freeing the Collector and giving the Titan’s son a friend; Evelyn was a wild witch, so she would’ve respected the Titan, and did use his right eye to create the Portal. During that time, the Titan was also able to peer into both the human and demon realms, though he wouldn’t have had much reason to care about the human realm for a while.

(And if the Archivists ever return; There’s a Collector who could be very helpful in resolving that threat, who was freed thanks to the butterfly effect of Evelyn’s actions.)

So in the long run, perhaps centuries after the show ends? Maybe Evelyn did good after all. There’s a lot our worlds could learn from each other, and perhaps healing magic would’ve helped someone like Manny; If not him, others down the line. Plant magic could also be very helpful. The Collector was able to create a second Portal to establish more permanent contact through Caleb’s old home, as Evelyn intended. Not to mention the work of her descendants she had from meeting Caleb! And Gus is helping more Calebs and Evelyns find homes, just as Evelyn helped Caleb, Luz, and Vee.

[rosstrytobe]

IF YOU THINK WE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH GAY EDDIE HINT THIS SEASON I THINK YOU'RE BLIND BECAUSE YEAH HE SAID "I'M STRAIGHT" BUT IF YOU PAY ENOUGH ATTENTION TO WHAT THEY ARE SAYING AND EDDIE LITTLE MOVES YOU SEE THAT HE'S A VERY GAY MAN

Let me show you.

First of 8x04, makes us show a man and his kid who split up as Eddie and Chris did and we see how much Eddie was devasted by it. But more we learned about their relantionship more it makes sense that they aren’t talking about Eddie and Chris but they're talking about Eddie and Ramon relantionship:

Like Ramon did at Eddie when he was little because he was always at work:

And when the that dad told him he was tired to argue with his son because he didn’t want him to be a cheerleader. Yep, that was the hint because cheerleader was always used before for men to says he's gay. And we see how Eddie got angry at the dad because of it, but he doesn’t know why though. He thinks he's talking to this dad to make the same mistake he did on Chris, but in the end it wasn’t this relantionship is have to fix first:

(As his parents weren’t there when Eddie got shot)

Then 8x06, it show a little of his catholic guilt and how the hot priest said he chose to drink water (something simple and clean as heterosexuality) instead of juice (something complicate and a mix of fruit like being gay) because he feels like he has to punish himself for what he did when instead as father Brian said he should start to earn his forgiviness and start to do something joyfull and taking care of himself (both for what he did to Chris but also to come to terms with himself and who he really is)

Also we want to talk about how the hot priest flirt with him and Eddie was all giggle and smilying?!

While when he discover his ex gf was an ex nun he couldn't have sex with her anymore??!!

Also all the things he could have done to express joy he chose to do a Risky Buisness dance and it was just screaming GAY 💅🏳️‍🌈

PLUS COME ON THE SEXUAL TENSION ON THIS SCENE!! HELLO!!

[paperstorm]

Loved all your thoughts on Carlos this episode. Any thoughts on TK?

Sometimes I keep my thoughts on TK to myself a little more because he hits very close to home for me. But I will say that when you've been through the kind of things TK has been through, milestone birthdays can hit really weird because suddenly you're at an age that you always assumed you'd never live to see and it feels like being lost at sea a little bit. It's hard to plan for the future when you don't believe you're going to have one, so I bet TK spent a lot of time in his 20s thinking that conceptualizing himself in his 30s or 40s or 50s was pointless because he might not make it that far, the ideas of what kind of life he would want probably always a little fuzzy and a little too painful to even dwell on. I bet he woke up the morning of his birthday full of some complicated emotions. Gratitude and happiness but also maybe some sorrow for the time wasted or maybe for the things he could've accomplished by 30 if he wasn't too sick to dream of a happy ending for himself. But he also woke up next to his husband.

It's so genuinely beautiful to look back and see how far this character has come, to think that the pilot of this show opened with him trying to end his life over a man who he thought incorrectly was his soulmate, thinking he had nothing left worth living for, not knowing all the wonderful, amazing, beautiful things that were waiting just ahead for him, if he could just hang on long enough to catch them. TK spent a lot of his life thinking he doesn't really matter all that much, and look at him now. He's crafted a life for himself out of grit and bloody knuckles and relentless optimism, he has a career that lets him turn all that pain into saving people so they too can get their second chances, he has so many people who care about him and wanted to celebrate his birthday (and his wedding, and his engagement, and his sobriety), he has two parents fighting over who loves him more, he has a husband who thinks he hangs the moon and all the stars and wants to hold him close and dance with him in the home they've built together. He is completely surrounded by love. And like Wyatt was saying to that woman on the bridge, TK as a character is such a wonderful display of the fact that even the biggest bumps in the road don't have to be the end of our stories. If we're brave enough to keep fighting, they can be the beginnings of journeys we weren't expecting but might lead somewhere much better than where we were heading before.

[glitter-stained]

Agreed! And personally when I say he should mess up, he should mess up greatly. This is probably because I'm starved for representation of abuse that doesn't portraits abusers as monsters evidently evil and full of ill intent, but I'm totally down for abusive Bruce Wayne. Yeah, sure, have the literal Batman berate and psychologically abuse his kids, neglect to address super important stuff in their background only for it to blow up in your face when they're confronted with it on the field, I'm even down for him to hurt his kids! As long as the narrative doesn't agree with it.

The thing is, with the narrative (and some takes from some very hardcore fans) is "this isn't actually abuse because you're missing key context". And then you look up and the context can be super complicated, with a whole lot of intense stuff going on, and it can be a very good explanation for what is happening, and it is still abuse. I think the issue is with the portrayal we usually have of it we see "abusive" as a personality trait, something really bad people do. It's safe, and comfortable, and it allows us to feel comfortable in our knowledge that because we're trying our best, we couldn't possibly accidentally become abusive. And on that ground, it's perfectly valid to refuse your childhood hero being some terrible monster who hits his kids! But the thing is, abuse isn't a personality trait, it's an action, and actions are extremely context dependent. If you're in an extremely high emotional situation, and trying to handle three different crises at once, and your child is being intrusive while you just need some space and you're mental ill and having an episode and you hit your child -that is still physical abuse. (And yeah, you can also abuse your adult children). And that means you have to acknowledge that it was abuse and it hurt them and you shouldn't have done it. What that doesn't mean is you have to define yourself as a horrible person and a failed parent.

The danger resides in two complementary courses of thinking that follow from these ideas :

1. abusers are awful and terrible. + i hurt my child, doing something that follows usual definitions of child abuse. + I know that there was a lot of context going on and I feel like it's not fair to define myself just based on that action while ignoring the context = I don't fit my conception of an abusive person because of the context = the context means that I wasn't abusive = the context justifies taking actions that would be usually characterized as abusive => chronicization of abuse.

2. abusers are awful and terrible. + my parent hurt me doing something that follows usual definitions of child abuse + I know that there was a lot of context going on and I feel like it's not fair to define my parent, whomst I love and consider good, just based on that action while ignoring the context = they don't fit my characterization of abusive parents because of the context = the context means they weren't abusive = the context justifies actions that would otherwise be characterized as abusive = I wasn't actually abused = child doesn't speak up /avoids potential help/remains in the unsafe situation.

These are called justificative thoughts! And of course, we get similar thoughts in bystanders who know there's a lot of context going on, know the abuser personally etc. (They also work with intimate partner violence and even murder!) Examples include the all time famous "but he loves me!", "it's not what it looks like, she was only trying to keep me safe", "but what if I'm not stern enough and he grows up and become a criminal? He'll get hurt worse in prison, I'm protecting him!" "He can't possibly be an abuser, he's so kind! He was so sweet when he supported me after my mother died!"

The thing with the "you know I'm only doing this to protect you" line is we often know it as a very vicious manipulation technique. But it's not always the case! It's not necessarily a lie. Punitive abuse isn't (necessarily) practiced for the pleasure of hurting the child, it's a parent trying to raise their child and believing that this is the best way to teach them. That's why it's so important to acknowledge that good intentions in abuse exist and they don't justify it! Whether or not someone is lying to you, manipulating you or not when telling you this isn't what matters most: it's that right now, they feel hurting you is an acceptable way to get to that result, and it's still abusive, and you don't have to accept it just because they mean well.

So yeah, I'm pissed off when dc does exactly that, brushes Bruce being abusive aside and justifies it time and time again instead of addressing the abuse. I think the reason I personally want abusive Batman rather than a huge retcon is that a hero, someone who does so much good and tries and fights so hard to protect what he loves, someone like that failing so bad at parenting and then learning and becoming better, would have been revolutionary growing up. Still would be today, honestly. We need to humanize abuse, because we're gonna feel empathy towards abusers whether we like it or not and we have to choose if we avoid the discomfort it causes by using that empathy to justify not acknowledging the abuse, or treat abusers as human people that are capable of learning, that are sensitive to context (internal and external) and that can be, on many other fronts, perfectly good people. Instead, dc feeds us heaps of justificative thoughts like it's their personal mission because THEY have the same thoughts and don't want to contend with batman being "a dirty evil abuser" but they also love their edginess and shock value too much to stop writing conflict the only way they know how. And like, I know they're not gonna address it the way I want them to but then at least stop doing it- straight up stop portraying batman as abusive and justifying past abusive actions - and bury it under enough new, better batman/batfam stories that we can put this behind us as some kind of "edgy batman dark age". At this point that's all I'm asking, my expectations are so low but come on. I'm so tired.

The thing is that DC’s consistent choice to have Jason Todd blame himself for his own murder comes across less as maturity (the intent) and more like his self-esteem is so far down the toilet it’s been filtered through the Gotham water treatment facility and is currently being sprayed over Wayne Manor’s lawn.

[hypnoneghoul]

OKAYYY LET'S GO /ref, time for my fantasy au ramble!!! this au is an universe of my own creation, for my own book so 'tis copyrighted, bitch /silly, and then i felt the urge to put our ghouls in there so i did and I like it eheheheheh anyways! folks that wanted to be tagged: @lopsidedghoul @justrandomghoul @delusionalbitchinthehouse @ghoulelegy

The continent called Erlaria is divided into three parts, one of them is the Kingdom of Bellimar, inhabited by elves. The elves can be divided into 7 categories based on their magic:

Adan are fire

Naidan are water

Kellan are energy

Haidan are healers

Moran are darkness

Dewdrop Tareva, son of the king Carandael is an adan. He should be a kairan and not an adan, but he got sick when he was still developing his magic and it didn’t form properly so he’s “just” a very powerful fire elf

Zalean are materiality

Kairan, which is a power only reserved for the royal bloodline of Bellimar (the Tareva family). They have all these powers combined

The characters:

Rain Ravelan is a naidan, he’s Dew’s partner and the main general of Bellimar

Aeon Naurlar is a moran

Aether Naurlar is a haidan

Mountain Nyarin is a zalean

Swiss Aderthad is a kairan

Rain lost his parents when he was young and because his father was the previous main general he was close to the king and Dewdrop, so Carandael took Rain in after his parents died without a question. He and dew basically grew up together

All of them except for Swiss live at court under the king of Bellimar, Carandael. Dew and Rain are friends with Aeon, his half-brother Aether and Mountain who all have different jobs at and around court. They all met quite young

Swiss is from a different kingdom—Valun. Everyone outside of Valun thinks it doesn’t exist, that it was obliterated in a war between gods centuries ago. It didn’t, obviously—the queen Meira Aderthad (Swiss’ mother) hid it with powerful magic and now Valun is hidden, but doing quite well. One thing is that the time flows a little differently, there

Swiss should’t be a kairan and yet he’s more than a kairan. The elves in Valun have different powers and Swiss has all the powers from both Bellimar and Valun—something a mortal wouldn’t be able to take, only a god

It caused a lot of complications when he was young. He nearly died a couple times, his mother saved him with some crazy magic by taking some of his power and basically turning Swiss into two separate people, so then there was Swiss and Shadow

It stopped the issues for a while but didn't really fix anything, and it ended up in a big fail and Swiss basically…well, he died

He doesn’t know it for a while, but he dies, and then his mother saves him by channeling the lost power from the other part of him and then she sends them both out into the world far away from each other. If they met again and merged, a deadly amount of power would be released

Meira didn't really ever care about swiss’ wellbeing, she needed his power for her own goal: bringing back an ancient god, Keres, who...turns out to be Swiss’ father

Meira is really one of the gods, Alvah, and she and Keres had Swiss—that’s why he’s so powerful, but because he was shoved into a mortal vessel by Alvah it messed it all up

Some time into his wandering of Bellimar Swiss finds himself being taken in by a human family. He loves them and thinks he’s finally found his place, but it doesn’t end well. He accidentally blows up half the city, killing his adoptive father and around thirty more people. He gets taken into a high security magical prison—Colfort—after that, and spends over a year there. It’s secured with malachite, a stone which takes away elves’ powers, but for obvious reasons it doesn’t work the same on Swiss

Bellimar is at the verge of war and it’s certain that they would lose, so Dew (the prince) and Rain (the general) go see Swiss and offer him a deal—save Bellimar and he’ll be free

Dew is cocky, though, and accidentally triggers Swiss. There's a big boom and Dew is gone. disappeared

Swiss escapes before Rain can get him, and he, of course, assumes Dewdrop is dead. He swears to take vengeance and all that shit, goes after swiss and eventually finds him, but only because Swiss wanted to be found

Swiss easily overpowers him and tells Rain to stfu and listen to him. He says they'll take a blood oath—Swiss will save Bellimar and then give himself up for the general to kill, or do whatever he pleases with. Rain agrees, even though reluctantly, because, yeah, he wants to avenge Dew, but Dew wouldn't want his beloved kingdom to lose the war, right?

Yeah, so that happens. Swiss saves Bellimar (he meets Mountain around then), but then Rain realizes there’s nothing left in the world for him without Dew, and he actually grew to like Swiss, whether he likes it or not, so he doesn’t kill him. He even decides to go with him (and Mountain) to stop Meira from doing more fuckshit magic

Long story short, they fail

Well, first Swiss meets with Shadow and they merge back into…just Swiss

In Balkee (the capital of Valun), Meira stabs swiss with a magical blade with Keres’ blood on it in an attempt to bring him back. It doesn’t look like it worked at first, so she gets angry and shoves him into a coffin with the dagger still in him, and Rain and Mountain into a dungeon

They manage to escape soon enough and they take Swiss in the coffin with them back to Bellimar. Alvah/Meira can’t reach them there, she can’t leave the magical borders of Valun

It takes Mountain and Rain a while to figure out how to wake Swiss up, and when they finally do the world is a mess. Turns out keres did come back and has been messing the kingdom up and spreading chaos

Swiss waking up gives him even more power and he gathers an army of the dead, putting the continent into a huge ass war. Swiss takes over the court in Odrea because king Carandael is a bitch and doesn’t want to fight because he thinks his only heir is dead, so what’s the point

Some time later it turns out that Dew did not die when Swiss disappeared him, he actually ended up in Alvah/Meira’s dungeons and has been stuck there for a while, but also managed to finally escape. He finds Rain and they reunite and its sappy as fuck

So all our guys are together in Odrea now (the capital of Bellimar where the court is) preparing to face Keres

Swiss expects he will have to die because 1) he’s the only one that can face him, and 2) their power is linked, so that might be the only way

Keres is smart, though, he is the god of darkness, death and chaos after all

He uses his legions of the dead he conjured up to get rid of most of the kingdom’s armies and defenses, so that he would have a clean road to the capital where Swiss is. Keres wants to kill him, so that he doesn't have to share that power and has no competition

The war is bad. Really bad, a lot of people die. Rain nearly dies

He’s got his magic and he might just be the best swordsman in the kingdom, but he also (a little stupidly, but honorably) insists on fighting amongst his people instead of leading them to death from the sides, so…

The throne room is barricaded with Mountain’s magic

The king is dead, Dew is crying over his body

Dew, Rain, Aeon and Mountain are the only one’s left there and they have no idea what the fuck to do

Rain considers, though, and he realizes that no matter what happens, the Tareva bloodline must survive and...well, Dewdrop is the only one left

He begs Aeon and Mountain to get Dew out of there through some secret tunnels while he fights off the bastards that are about to break into the throne room. Keres wants to kill Dewdrop, too—he doesn’t want any competition and he doesn’t know that Dew isn't a kairan, that he only has one power

Dew wouldn’t agree to it in normal circumstances and he would fight not to be taken away, but he’s mad with grief over his father already, so it’s easier than it should be for Aeon and Mountain to haul him away

One thing, though...when Mountain gets away, the barricades will fall. He knows it and Rain does, too, but getting Dew out—the only remaining hope for Bellimar and the love of his life—is his priority

Aeon and Mountain get Dew away. Mountain’s power allows them to melt through the walls so the enemy wouldn’t even be able to go after them that easily, but Rain is still going to hold them back as much as he can, for as long as he can

He sits on the broken throne with his sword and simply waits. The enemy is banging on the huge doors as Mountains magic indeed does slowly melt away but then...then it gets quiet and the magic drops

Rain knows exactly what that means

Keres opens the doors and steps into the wrecked throne room, looks over the dead guards here and there and then on Rain

“Nnd who are you?” Keres asks

“Nobody important to you unfortunately”

“You’re that...that stubborn general. Are you not?”

“Probably” Rain scoffs. Keres actually admires his attitude to the certain death standing right in front of him

“I like you,” he admits, “and that’s why I’ll let you dirty your sword before I kill you”

“Sounds good to me” Rain shrugs and gets up from the throne. Keres fold his arms on his chest and moves back to lean against the wall to watch Rain slaughter his soldiers

Rain is good, even Heres is impressed

He gets bored after a while, though, and Rain is getting tired. He doesn't notice that the god has moved and joined the dead that are attacking him (they’re sloppy, it’s the number of them that gives them the advantage, btw)

Rain lifts his sword to slash through a couple of them, but it’s Keres that’s there

He grabs his sword in hand and twists Rain’s arm away before stabbing him

Rain screams out, but not in pain. He screams out in anger

It makes his magic burst and, for some reason, shocks Keres (it shocks him because it’s the pure naidan power, which means Rain is a descendant from one of the gods). Just for a split second, but it's enough for Rain to grab a dagger with his free hand and stab it into Keres’ neck

He falls, and even though rain knows he’ll come back, he’s proud of himself—he managed to slow him down

Rain pushes him off and stumbles backwards. He uses his sword like a cane to get himself back to the throne, but he can’t get himself up those couple stairs that are there. He collapses onto them and waits for death

He’s bleeding out fast, so he’s barely conscious when someone barges into the throne room where he’s the only one left (semi)alive. it’s Swiss with Aether

Swiss felt keres “dying” and Rain’s power bursting and it turns out that when Keres temporarily dies, all his living-dead soldiers fall with him, so Rain managed to put the entire battle on hold

He’s started telling Aether what he wants him to forward to Dewdrop, he’s sure he’s done, but Aether heals him at the very last minute and gets him out while the enemy is...well, dead

Only Swiss stays in the palace, waiting for Keres to wake up

He could’ve at least tried to kill Keres while he was kinda dead, but Swiss didn’t want to do it like that

He wanted a real fight and if he dies, that’s fine. He doesn’t see himself having any different purpose. He doesn’t mind

And he does get a real fight

The last time two gods fought it ended up with a whole continent splitting into a couple islands, so it’s a huge release of power

The capital gets obliterated, turned into a crater. Thousands of people that are escaping turn and gasp as it all goes up in flames

Swiss’ friends know what it means and they’re sure he didn't survive. How could he?

They cry—Mountain the hardest, hating the fact that Swiss has died without seeing his value or getting any real happiness or love in his life, and that he didn't get to say goodbye

The survivors from that destroyed part of Bellimar all get onto boats provided by Maldae (an island on the west) and they escape there

It’s weeks after the battle and Mountain simply can’t stop thinking about Swiss. He swears he can still feel his magic lingering around. He doesn't take no for an answer and ends up getting onto a pirate ship that would take him to the ruined city of Odrea

What he finds there is not what he was expecting

He was expecting...well, nothing. A hole in the ground with everything dead around it, not even any ruins of the once glorious city

Mountain finds Ddrea nearly fully rebuilt; he runs around it frantically because it reeks of Swiss’ magic and–

“Mounty?” he hears when he runs up the new palace’s stairs. He turns and crumbles to the ground, just violently sobbing right away because–

“You’re alive” and yeah. Yeah, Swiss is somehow alive

Keres is gone, Swiss is alive and he’s been fixing what got ruined

A few months later the city is ready to welcome back its people, those that do want to come back

Mountain and Swiss get married and move to Valun (that is now uncloaked) to rule there, and Rain and Dew get married and rule Bellimar

and here's the map of erlaria for reference! and if anyone would like to read some more of it or have some questions about the lore or some ideas then feel free to storm my inbox heh

[shai-manahan]

Thank you for reopening asks again! I literally have never truly stopped thinking about your game and the wonderful prose you have :)

I wanted to ask how Vincent feels about MC getting together with each of the ROs? Does his opinion of them dating Finn/Faye change alot pre and post betrayal if that was the situation?

Oh dear. Honestly, Vincent would not like most of them, though he might be a little better than Alex at hiding it (not that Alex would ever make an effort to hide any of his visceral reactions)

Alonzo: The relationship he'd be against the most. Mostly because of Vincent's job. And Alonzo's job. And um, the things MC may or may not have inadvertently done to earn Alonzo's ire. Vincent would believe there'd be nothing good to come out of this. He'd be afraid for his godchild, and he'd beg them to reconsider. A lot.

Wesley: This is a little more complicated for him. He never liked Wesley's parents, but Wesley was one of MC's very few friends and the two found comfort within each other since they were teenagers. He respected that and kept his own doubts to himself because he wanted MC to form good connections outside of their own family as well. That was before the betrayal, of course. Now he'd just openly warn them about the possibility of this becoming another clusterfuck, though he won't be too persistent about it (Alex is already there to do that for the both of them lol). The idea would never stop making him uncomfortable, however, and some of the reasons (aside from the betrayal itself) are too spoilery to say here. And if another betrayal like this happens again... Wesley better run 🫣

Owen: I think in this case, he'd warn Owen instead 😔 He loves his godchild and wants them to pursue relationships outside of their job, but MC's entire family is a complete mess, and he'd think Owen would at least deserve a warning. Also a little worried about how curious/inquisitive Owen could be. Might put them all in danger, eventually.

Jade: Very, very bad idea. He won't say it, though. He'd just observe.

???: Wouldn't trust this person ever.

[comicaurora]

spoiler thoughts in no particular order:

The theme of this season seems to be "replacement." Characters are constantly taking on other character's roles. Heimerdinger highlights that Jayce is his former pupil and Ekko is his new pupil. Jinx acquires a Powder-esque kid sidekick and finds herself in Vi's role, while Vi finds herself hurt and abandoned by someone she loves most in a very Powder-y position. Caitlyn struggles to replace her mother, and Ambessa very tactically places herself in that authoritative role to give Caitlyn the motherly guidance she no longer has - essentially replacing Mel in the process. Everyone is being shuffled around, and very few of them are taking it well.

It's interesting to me that, amidst all this replacing, two roles are conspicuously not being filled: Silko and Vander. Silko's death has left a gaping wound in Jinx and Sevika's operation, and neither of them are attempting to replace him - instead, they're trying to figure out their dynamic without him between them. In a strange way, it feels like Jinx is maturing. She's beginning to recognize that she doesn't actually destroy everything she touches; there are things in this world she CAN fix. This is extremely un-Silko of her. If anything, it's a genuinely healthy extrapolation of her dreams as Powder - to be useful, to help. If she's reaching the point where she thinks she really CAN make things instead of just breaking them, that's a legitimately good sign.

Vi is the obvious candidate to become the new Vander, and I think she will eventually. The first three episodes have taken her some of the way along a very complicated journey. A lot of people have pointed out that she sacrificed every part of her identity to try and help Caitlyn in her grief - she put on the uniform of the people who killed her parents and sold out Vander, the people who tortured her in prison. She compartmentalized her love for Powder and convinced herself she could kill her for Caitlyn, even though she demonstrably couldn't. She packed away everything except her moral code, and then Caitlyn nearly shot a child to get to Jinx, so Vi stopped her. And so she learns that Caitlyn didn't appreciate anything of what she was asking of her. She didn't understand the weight of the sacrifice Vi was making for her. She didn't see Vi as a partner, only as a tool for getting her shot at Jinx, and when Vi broke from that purpose, Caitlyn police brutality'd her and abandoned her at the bottom of a hole. We've never seen Vi at this kind of rock bottom before, because she always had her identity, her stubbornness, her anger. She gave them up for love, and when her guard was down, she was punished for it. Vi is the character most reluctant to change. She voices it overtly; she sees everyone else changing, she begs it to stop. Everyone is preserved in her memory from before the night everything went wrong. Powder's not Jinx now, Powder is dead and Jinx is a new problem. Ekko is still "Little Man." I think Vi can't start becoming whoever she's meant to be until she gets past that terror of change, and it looks like she can't do that until she loses absolutely everything.

I'm less clear on what to expect from Caitlyn, but I think it's going to be fascinating. She's really at her worst in this part of the show, and it's incredibly interesting. Her unchallenged worldview is on full display: the undercity is disgusting and evil, the enforcers are the pinnacle of goodness now that the one bad apple has been excised. She was doing Vi a favor giving her the badge, obviously; Vi deserves the badge so she'll kick up whatever fuss she needs to in order to make it happen. Vi's one of the good ones, so Vi can't be like the other Zaunites, those animals. Her mother sealed up The Gray to keep them from asphyxiating from the pollution? Well, they killed her mother, so they don't deserve to breathe that free air anymore. Vi defies her one time and Caitlyn snaps into the only alternative she can currently understand: you're just like them, you're my enemy, you're beneath me. She never really made an effort to understand Vi's world because she clearly thought she was saving her from it. You don't deserve to be down there in the dirt, you deserve to be up here where it's nice. The dichotomy of Piltover Good, Zaun Bad is so deeply ingrained in her that her raw grief has left it completely exposed. If Vi won't help her, she deserves to be left down there. I want to see where they go with this, because Caitlyn's at her own kind of rock bottom right now - a sniper's fixation on her target causing her to hurt and cast away every other priority. Ambessa's correctly identified her as a weapon and is precisely aiming her wherever she needs her to destroy, and Caitlyn is so fixated on Jinx she can't even tell. I expect "what are you shooting for?" to come back in a big way.

I don't know WHAT the hell is going on with Jayce and I am so excited to figure it out. They really sold the whole "whoops you've been meddling with forces far beyond your comprehension just like Heinmerdinger said" thing and the implications are fascinating.

In the same way that Jinx seems to be sort of building a role all her own instead of taking someone's place, Viktor seems to be doing the same thing. He's not taking anyone's place; what he's up to is totally new. He's doing exactly what he wanted to back in season one - using hextech to help the people in most desperate need. He can heal the poisoning of Shimmer and the toxins in Zaun. He has what nobody else in this show has - a form of power that is curative and presently unchallenged. It isn't a fight for him, not like everything else has been. All he's ever cared about was alleviating suffering, and as far as we can tell, now he can. Nobody else was doing anything to help. I am very intrigued to see where this goes and how the magic system gets fleshed out around him.

I have a hunch that wild magic situation might be yeeting Ekko out of the timeline for a bit. The act 2 preview had him on the Remembrance Wall, so I assume the firelights are gonna presume him dead for a minute - bit of a bummer, but if he comes back with his canonical time powers I'll take it.

Minor note, I liked how they highlighted that the council hall was aggressively non-wheelchair-accessible. A very elegant way to underline how Piltover has never actually been a beacon of progress and opportunity.

Have you watched the new Arcane episodes?

my first "oh FUCK yeah" happened during the opening credits when I noticed Ekko's two shadows were moving like the hands on a clock and that momentum carried for basically the whole rest of the viewing experience

[torgawl]

sometimes i think about how crepus probably wasn't father of the year and i go a little insane. the way he pushed diluc into becoming a knight of favonious at such a young age; diluc receiving his vision so early in his life; how he saw his accomplishments as both his and his father's; crepus planning to gift or getting a delusion for his son despite his vision; and, the way diluc's namecard references him as crepus' creation, which is such an impersonal and cold way to put being someone's son. not only that but, again, referencing his strenght specifically. i'm not saying crepus was a bad father, diluc loved him dearly, but the projection he did of his own dream onto diluc's life and the efforts he went through to make sure diluc was "strong enough" doesn't appear to have been the healthiest thing.

we obviously have little to no information about diluc's relationship with his dad outside of a few mentions here and there but from his character story it just seems that even the praise crepus gave diluc was always because he did well in, somehow, living his father's dream and not necessarily because of who diluc was. it's a little bittersweet.

[gay-cartoon-enjoyer]

Gravity Falls meme I made in 5 min

Might as well repost this, since it’s the month of Maybel. 💫

[clone-wars-retteyo-au]

One things I think I forgot to mention in my other reblog that I thought about more and want to comment on/clarify. As you mentioned, there is a likelihood that some clones will HATE the assumption that they are all close. I thought about this more, and I realized there was something I didn't think about/touch on in relationship to that. While my interpretation of the clones presents them as all considering each other family (both by blood and as an overall relationship), there are many different family dynamics and relationships.

Overall, the vibe between clones as a whole is "giant extended family where there is a general expectation/sense of loyalty to the broader family, but also you only know half these people." Loosely based on my dad's side of the family, tbh. But individuals within that family will have different relationships with different family members and different feelings about the broader family as a whole.

When it comes to clones they've never met, clones will typically see that clone as a sibling, but emotionally feel more like distant cousins who you just met at the family reunion and it's kind of awkward since your parents/grandparents expect you to hug or whatever and you're both just like "who is this guy?" Sometimes they will end up getting along great, but it will always start out a bit distant.

~~~

Clones like Cut Lawquane who left the GAR (or in this AU, never really joined Retteyo and went off to do their own thing) are like the family member who had to go no contact with their parents and as a result lost contact with the rest of their extended family and nobody but the parents knows what happened or where they went. So when clones like Rex find them, it's like one of their cousins accidentally finding them on Facebook and messaging them. And the one that left doesn't hate most of their extended family. They still see them as family, but not particularly close family, so they still kind of want to keep their distance.

They also have an awkward relationship with family in general because they were raised in an environment where family is everything. And even though they don't regret going NC, they still have a hard time breaking that mindset and feel at least a little bit of obligation to help out extended family members in need, even if it's just in little ways like giving them a little extra money one time and then never talking to them again.

~~~

Clones who hate each other are just family members who hate each other. They see each other as siblings, but not in a good way. Like "oh yeah, he's definitely my brother, but I'm still getting that restraining order." Still family, but in a bad way. And while there is a "family is everything mindset," that doesn't mean "therefore you must get along with every family member or stay in contact." If someone does something crappy and someone else chooses to go NC, everyone will understand and support the decision even if they stay in contact with both.

~~~

The "family is everything" part is more about a loyalty to clones as a whole. Similar to loyalty to one's country, but with a familial twist. As I said before, it's like seeing a cousin in need of help, and even though you don't know that cousin, you still help them because they're your cousin.

Even clones who don't feel that strongly about other clones will have this mindset a little, they just aren't super intense about it. Like, as I said, they won't get into a fight on your behalf, but they will give you $50 to help you out of a tough spot.

It's honestly the craziest part to me. They are all family, but the dynamics are complicated and not always close or good.

~~~

As you mentioned, they are still capable of forming extremely close bonds with natborns, some of which are closer than with certain other clones or clones as a whole. Some clones even prefer not being around other clones as much. It's just that they were created to almost need other clones in some way. Kind of like how ants will die if they don't have other ants around. I think this might not fully apply to all clones, but as you said with Rex and the Ghost crew, most clones will get antsy after a certain point if they haven't seen other clones after a certain amount of time.

For many clones, not being without other clones is like being a hermit. Some can handle it really well, especially by forming bonds with Natborns (similar to some hermits finding inner peace that allows them to handle isolation well). But most will get to a point where they will start to lose it a little. Like, they are fine for a while, but after 6 years or so, they're like "alright but I need to see another clone at some point or I will die."

At least, this is the case in my AU since I find the idea of clone basically being pack animals in the most extreme way to be interesting.

I've decided that Rex is the one who paints Kanan's eye mask with his bird of prey design.

Kanan's feeling pretty low still just after Malachor, he's still distancing himself from everybody, and Rex decides to go try to talk to him at one point and the first thing he comes up with to say is to point out that his new mask is pretty plain. It's awkward, he regrets it immediately, but then Kanan says that it gets the job done and Rex is abruptly reminded of himself so so long ago back at the beginning of the war.

He sits Kanan down and tells him a story about how, at the beginning of the war, only a few of the clones had paint on their armor, to designate things like rank and battalion in order to make it easier for officers to find them in the middle of a busy battlefield. The paint was practical and it was limited to a very select few. But the Jedi almost immediately started trying to encourage the clones to utilize the paint less sparingly, suggesting that maybe everybody could wear at least a LITTLE paint and use more individualized designs so that it was still easy to tell the commanders and captains apart from the others when needed.

Some of the clones had taken to it with gusto, but others had been more hesitant, and Rex remembers having been one of them. He remembers telling Obi-Wan that there was no real REASON to paint everyone's armor and especially not to come up with personal designs. The armor was practical and it served its purpose with or without the paint and special designs. But the Jedi had insisted on at least TRYING to come up with his own design and if he didn't like it, he could always take it off, so Rex had given in and chosen something to paint on the armor. And, somehow, it felt a little lighter the next time he put it on. It didn't erase the horrors of war or the pain of loss or anything like that, but it helped.

He tells Kanan that the mask right now is just a reminder of the pain of the injury and whatever other feelings he's still got all caught up in the Malachor mission (guilt over what happened with Ezra, grief over Ahsoka's loss). But if he puts his own design on it, it might turn the mask into something other than a constant reminder of something bad. Instead, it's a reminder of who he is, the combination of the person he once was and who he's become. He is more than just his injury or this mission and he can use the mask to declare that if he wants to.

Kanan says he never realized Rex and the other clones had cared so deeply about their armor and Rex says that the armor itself was meaningless. It's better than what's being handed out to stormtroopers, but not but a LOT. It was the design on it that had meant something and, more than that, it was what the design REPRESENTED: having a choice about how you were perceived by others.

Kanan asks why Rex had chosen his particular designs, the bird of prey eyes on his helmet in particular. Rex explains that he chose it because he liked birds and thought it looked cool, but he's kept the helmet for as long as he has because it's come to mean something ELSE now. It's not just a cool-looking design, it's a reminder of a better time in his life. It's a reminder of when he'd been a part of something greater than himself, with the other clones and the Jedi. It's a reminder of a time when he'd had hope that he and his people could one day come out the other side of this war towards a brighter future.

Kanan looks at the mask he'd grabbed from storage somewhere or something just to keep light from hurting his eyes as they recovered and to cover up the injury from other people's stares (even if he couldn't see them staring), then hands it to Rex and asks if Rex minds sharing that symbol because he'd like a reminder of that, too. Rex remembers the 332nd and their helmets that they'd painted to look like their chosen Jedi, almost blindly giving away their individuality in favor of that loyalty that had been stripped from them anyway. And then he looks at Kanan, choosing to make himself look LIKE REX, someone who had shared his face with millions once, because he wants to honor both the connections he'd lost as well as this new connection the two of them have built together now. And Rex says he'd be happy to share.

[freyadragonlord]

How do I explain how married Han Yoojin and Sung Hyunje are in the post-epilogue Side Stories without sounding like I am exaggerating or making things up...