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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years ago

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Gabriel Agreste: Interesting Villain, Horrible Character (400 Follower Special)

I'm honestly surprised more people didn't want me to talk about Gabriel, especially with how often I rag on how horrible of a person he is. But, three character analysis posts later, and we're going to talk about why the main villain of Miraculous Ladybug is a real letdown.

Gabriel Needs to give the Whining a Rest

The interesting thing is one of the few things I actually liked in Season 3 was Hawkmoth. His plans actually made sense (for the most part), and by playing the long game, he managed to turn Chloe against Ladybug and deprived her of several key allies. Granted, Season 4 immediately undid the latter, but I was still impressed by his strategy.

Generally, one of the better aspects of Gabriel as a character was just how over the top he was as Hawkmoth. Keith Silverstein is clearly giving it his all with his performance, and he is just so enjoyable to watch as a cartoonish supervillain.

And therein lies the first major problem with Gabriel as a character. While he is fun to watch as a simple supervillain, the show tries to give him more depth and unintentionally makes him worse.

In Season 2, when it was revealed that Gabriel was Hawkmoth, many fans speculated on what he needed the Miraculous for, until the Queen Bee Trilogy showed it was to save his possibly dead wife, Emilie. The idea of that is so the show can give more depth to its main villain, and I think it's an interesting idea in concept. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The problem is just how radically different Gabriel is normally compared to how he is as Hawkmoth. He always goes on about how he's “doing this for Emilie”, but it's hard to really sympathize with him when you consider he constantly gives evil monologues and evil laughs, really getting into the supervillain role. And let's not forget all of the “I'm going to wear Ladybug's skin as a suit” faces he loves to make.

Clearly this man is the picture of mental stability.

Gabriel's motivation for being Hawkmoth when compared to what he actually does as Hawkmoth is shady enough, but the thing is that the writers clearly want the audience to at least feel a little bad for him. They want to make the audience sympathize with him despite the way he acts with or without the mask. Without Miraculous Ladybug, he is routinely putting innocent lives in danger and never once shows regret for his actions. All he talks about is how “he's doing this for Emilie”, or that “he'll get their Miraculous soon”. There's no real reason to feel bad for him other than “because the script says so”.

Let's compare Gabriel to Malcolm Merlyn from Arrow. His big plan in the first season of the show is to create a machine that will cause an earthquake to destroy a crime-infested portion of Starling City, claiming to be trying to help everyone, but it's clear he is only doing it out of revenge for his wife getting killed by a criminal from that part of the city. In addition, throughout that season and future seasons, he always makes sure his plans lead to him benefiting in some way, showing he isn't just some noble man trying to achieve his goals with a less than noble method.

If we got some moments that showed that what Gabriel was doing was selfish, it would make him a more complex villain. But we don't get anything like that. What do we get instead? Well...

I Could Really Care Less About Emilie Agreste

We have known Gabriel's motivation has been to save his wife for a little over two years at this point, but at the same time, it's hard to believe that motivation because of how underdeveloped Emilie is as a character.

There have been a total of two lines in the entirety of the show that explain what happened to Emilie, and they're both vague as hell. One of them was from “Feast” that implied Emilie used the broken Peacock Miraculous.

Adrien: My mom used to have dizzy spells… just like Nathalie.

And the other that outright tells the audience what's happening to her in a clip show that most people will skip.

Nathalie: As I've watched Emilie falling deeper into an endless sleep, my sadness for her has deepened, too

That is literally all we get for an explanation, and nothing else. We have no idea of what she's like as a person or what her relationship with her family was like other than Gabriel and Adrien saying they miss her. Other than the way the narrative says she's important to Gabriel and Adrien, we don't really have a reason to care about her as a character. There have also been some lines that imply she went along with Gabriel's questionable parenting techniques, like how he was apparently only homeschooled as a kid (Origins) and never had a birthday party growing up (The Bubbler), so how do we even know if she's a good person? In fact, why not set up this question as a mystery to make the audience wonder if Gabriel has another reason to bring Emilie back?

It ultimately turns Emilie into a plot device and not a character that Gabriel and Adrien only bring up to make the audience feel bad for them, and meant to justify Gabriel's actions by saying that he's “doing this for his family”.

But hey, if he's doing this all for his family, surely Gabriel's redeeming traits come from his relationship with Adrien, right? Right?

As a Parent, Gabriel is Far From the Best

I've talked about this briefly before, but parenting in Miraculous Ladybug is written in such a black and white way, even by the standards of this show. Parents are portrayed in one of two ways. They're either amazing people who love and support their children unconditionally, or they're awful people who treat their own children like trash. And much like a lot of things in this show, there are times where the latter is treated like the former.

There are so many times where the narrative insists on making you see Gabriel as a troubled, but wellmeaning person who tries his best to be a good parent to Adrien, but it is far from the truth.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. Gabriel is a terrible parent. Like, he is awful at being a parent in so many ways, even before you find out he's Hawkmoth. In his first appearance, “The Bubbler”, he delegates getting Adrien a birthday present to Nathalie, his assistant. He literally can't be bothered to take time out of his schedule to get his own son a present for his birthday. And as the show goes on, he becomes more controlling and forbids Adrien from going out with his friends in other episodes (Captain Hardrock, Silencer). While this could be used to show Gabriel getting worse, it's never acknowledged in-universe, with Adrien continually defending his father essentially keeping him on house arrest.

“But IOTA!” You might say. “Gabriel has made efforts to bond with his son in some episodes.” While that might be true, most of those come right after his Akumas have almost gotten Adrien killed. He only hugged Adrien and made an attempt to learn more about him after Simon Says invaded their home, he only decided to watch that movie Emilie was in with Adrien after Gorizilla nearly dropped him off a building, and he only hugged Adrien again in public after he was turned into a gold statue by Style Queen.

In fact, let's talk about how Gabriel acts in the Queen Bee Trilogy. He actually decides to quit being Hawkmoth, but it's not because he realizes all the damage he's caused. Instead, he gave up because his “magnum opus”, a stronger than usual Akuma that only got the advantage on Ladybug ironically because of dumb luck, failed. Sure, he says he can't keep putting his son in danger, but he rarely ever acknowledges that he does so in the first place. When Riposte wanted to fight Adrien, Hawkmoth did nothing to stop her other than giving her a stern warning earlier on and nothing else. Where was this attitude earlier?

Hell, even then, he immediately goes back to being Hawkmoth as soon as he sees an opportunity, not even a day after his “mAgNuM oPuS” blew up in his face (because I guess Scarletmoth was just Plan B). If he made such a big deal about caring for his son, why didn't he try harder to spend time with him? Has he ever had doubts about what he's doing before? If Chloe didn't show up as Queen Bee, was he going to follow through on his promise and try to be a better father to Adrien instead of trying to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous?

And yeah, the whole irony is that Gabriel is doing this for his family when he is unknowingly fighting his own son, which could lead to some interesting drama if done right. The idea of how Gabriel would react to his son being Cat Noir could really lead to some internal struggles for him to go through. But then we got “Cat Blanc”, which shows just how terrible of a character Gabriel is.

In an alternate timeline where he found out his son was Cat Noir, what does Gabriel do? Does he try to steal Adrien's Miraculous while he's sleeping? Does he reconsider his actions or realize he was endangering Adrien's life?

NOPE! He just decides to akumatize him all while emotionally tormenting him, before causing the end of the world.

This is honestly one of the most appalling things I've ever seen in any TV show, because it's basically an abusive father ordering his son to listen to him all while referencing his (kind of) dead mother to back up his point. And rather than use this to show how despicable Gabriel is, the episode decides to blame Marinette for this happening. Yes, according to the show, her present to Adrien caused several events to happen which caused Cat Blanc, but this logic makes no sense. It's like blaming the JFK assassination on the man who sold a gun to Lee Harvey Oswald, instead of, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Not only was this episode yet another excuse to blame Marinette for something that wasn't her fault, it leads into the biggest problem I have with Gabriel as a character.

Sympathize with Gabriel? Surely, You Jest

After everything I've gone over regarding Gabriel as a character, after all the awful things I've talked about, are you really surprised that I don't feel bad for him at all?

Gabriel is just an awful character and a despicable human being, but the show just keeps wanting me to feel bad for him. It's just so hard to when you consider everything he's done has made him anything but sympathetic. I'm just saying, it's kind of hard to feel bad for someone who tries to start World War III with the only justification being “i'M dOiNg It FoR mY fAmIlY”, especially when he treats his family like crap.

The writers go out of their way to show how horrible Gabriel is as Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth, but they think because they throw in a few moments where he looks conflicted, we'll immediately feel bad for him. What makes so many people interested in seeing Chloe become a better person is that they can tell she's the victim of a troubled upbringing, and know that because she's only a teenager, she still has room to grow as a person, represented by having more honest moments of vulnerability. Gabriel is a grown man who once caused the apocalypse because of how terrible of a parent he is, and has even fewer sympathetic moments than Chloe does. Which one of these two is supposedly irredeemable? The answer may surprise you.

But the frustrating thing is that this kind of villain could have worked. Instead of making him this mustache-twirling psychopath, show how much Gabriel regrets what he has to do, but keeps pushing onward despite all the lives he's risking if it means that he can save his wife. Instead of making Gabriel like Lex Luthor, make him like Mr. Freeze, who is basic a better written version of him.

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But as it stands, there's a good reason why Gabriel gets little to no respect as a character in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, as a villain, or as a father.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #shadowmoth #shadow moth #emilie agreste #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #cat blanc #chat blanc #nathalie sancoeur #mayura #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug

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leviiattacks · 4 years ago

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Two Faced | Chapter Ten

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it’s all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared, for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au ??? (at this point idek) angst, fluff, slice of life etc ?? word count :: 4k author note :: haha.... wowww it's been long since i last updated. honestly my physical and mental health have just been horrible... that's about it, i lost a lot of motivation but if you're still reading i am very thankful and i will try to deliver the story well. i tried my best but writing whilst sick is very tiresome :-) tags :: @patience-is-here , @chwlogy , @a--nonymousse , @imkumichan

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Keeping yourself cooped up within Levi's estate and never daring to step a foot outside should have been what you had done. Blackmailing him to keep you confined within the walls of your bedroom would be much better compared to the problem you have to resolve now. Perhaps if you had done so you wouldn't have collided face first into this muddle.

Jean fiddles with the ends of his button up, he doesn't take the chance to glance up at any of his superiors. He's either much too embarrassed or has nothing noteworthy to start off with.

Erwin chooses to call the shots seeing as neither you or the Viscount by your side wish to begin.

"You both understand why we're here. Correct me if I'm wrong?" The Commander looks between you, Jean and your unfortunate excuse of a husband. Suddenly it looks as if the gears and cogs in Jean's brain move without warning.

Offering a demure nod you expect for him to follow in your footsteps and do the same only he stands there looking between you and Levi.

"Wait...The two of you are? A couple?" Stunned isn't the word, Jean's completely flabbergasted.

"If you figured that out this late, I do not understand why Erwin sees you remotely fit for my team." Levi's beyond insulted at the fact he's only just understood the situation.

Jean, now more intimidated than ever before straightens his back and coughs clumsily, "Sorry." He murmurs chestnut eyes making contact with the hardwood floors.

The Commander's laced hands sit atop his desk, elegant fingers moving similar to honey on a spoon. He sighs not out of fatigue but pride. Whatever plan he's come up with has to be decent at the very least, his body language is telling you that much.

"We have a number of possibilities we can choose from. We owe that pleasure to Mr Kirstein here." Erwin offers him an almost cynical smile, you can't help but gulp thinking about how this is essentially your fault. With all the constant training sessions and team building tasks it makes sense for Jean to have completely forgot about your unspoken rule. Solely blaming him is incorrect.

Raising your arm above your head to intervene you make it known that you're aware of Levi shooting you a look of warning by returning it. It's best he knows you don't care for anyone's opinion let alone his.

"Permission to speak Commander?"

Your request is agreed to immediately with the wave of Erwin's hand.

"It's my fault for not reminding Jean. I'll take the blame, I hadn't even told him the full story concerning me and Levi."

Levi doesn't enjoy your defense in the slightest. "I don't expect my wife to fling herself at other men and allow for them to snoop around gathering the details of our personal lives."

Scoffing you shield yourself with your arms over your chest.

"Oh dear husband. If you want to get personal do tell me where my family is?" It's an inside joke only Levi will be able to understand.

"If you call those people family your standards are disgustingly low."

"Maybe that explains why I settled for you."

Again, other's opinions are not at the forefront of your priority list. Regardless it's quite enjoyable pushing Levi further into a corner with that sentence. You see the internal struggle play out within him. Jaw clenched, hands balled together. He doesn't have an appropriate response

Jean bursts out unable to hold it in any longer, chest trembling with every quake of laughter that ripples through him you have to shove him with your elbow. For a Viscount his etiquette sure is nonexistent.

"My word, the two of you sound like..."

Levi stares at him most probably expecting something along the lines of "An old married couple."

But, no. It's nothing anyone in the room expects. That includes you.

"It's as if you're unhappy with each other..."

Not a noise is made after that. Jean isn't mistaken, your heart is miserable. You've never had many relationships to begin with, whether it be familial, romantic or platonic and for someone such as your husband to treat you the way he does - it feels futile having to navigate around the complexities. Even if he isn't really your husband it's disappointing to reflect on your marriage so suddenly.

Feeling your face droop a little you bite your bottom lip with your teeth. Hearing the truth from someone you barely expect to hear it from has an effect on you.

You're so caught up analyzing everything it takes you a minute to even register Levi grumbling and lunging forward pilfering the collar of Jean's shirt.

"Every day you prove to be more and more pathetic than I expect." Levi turns to look at you after that. His stare bores into you but he doesn't come off threatening, you assume his last remark is directed solely at Jean.

When he turns back only glaring at Jean now with even more tenacity than before. He's ready to snap but Erwin has clearly had enough of the unwanted altercation in his office.

"Enough. The both of you. This is most bothersome." At the Commander's orders Levi is silenced although it takes all of his resolve to do so.

Finally bothering you take a good look at Jean. He's calm in an incredibly out of character way.

Is this not the man who trembled in his boots the first time he and Levi came into contact? It's almost as if he seems pleased with himself for drawing out such a reaction from his Captain.

Erwin shuffles through stacks of paperwork on his desk. The man needs an assistant at this point. You doubt you could find anything in that haphazard pile. Edges of crumpled paper poke out uncomfortably and Erwin becomes increasingly annoyed when he can't locate what it is he's looking for.

Just as you're about to ask if he requires any assistance it seems he's found what he's been looking for, that's if his eyes are any indication of the relief he feels.

"This." He holds up the paper, all eyes in the room are trained on it. "Under normal circumstances would not have to become an option."

"But these aren't normal circumstances?" Jean's thoughtless question is irksome when the answer is so obviously staring him down in the face.

Nonetheless Erwin nods incapable of losing his cool over something so minor.

"Sign to confirm to my proposition."

The document he places onto the desk isn't what you imagine, you can practically feel the dread climb up your throat once you're done scanning it. Jean's full name placed right next to yours in bold lettering has your stomach lurching. You don't have to read the rest to understand the new circumstances you've landed into.

To make matters worse Erwin places two rings down right in front of the both of you.

A pot of boiling hot water is what you've been thrown in.

Are you supposed to be some sort of replacement for potatoes? What's Jean in this scenario? Carrots?

"It is troublesome to have the two of you put on an act to be involved with one another but I see it as our safest option." Erwin notices your parted lips and slacked jaw. "You need not worry this isn't a marriage contract, you're simply acting."

There's no path out of this pot, you and Jean will simply have to deal with the prospect of being boiled alive.

Ah, you forgot to mention who would act as the hot water but you're sure the suspect is obvious.

Even right now Levi's fury radiates off of him, it's unclear if he was given the details of the Commander's plan beforehand but if his furrowed brow and pursed lips are indicators of the truth he must have had no idea.

Your suspicions are confirmed to be correct once Levi reaches forward plucking the paper away, it just so happens he's snatched it away the very moment Jean leans in to get a closer look at it.

"I was never informed of this."

Erwin gives him a guarded smile. "Do you have any jurisdiction over what I think is best?" Is his freezing reply.

"Yes. When it concerns my wife and another man - Correction. I meant boy."

Jean's taken aback by the subtle jab and shamefacedly shoves his hands into his pockets.

You watch the scene go down with a perplexed look the entire time. Levi's frustration seems to be legitimate yet he has no logical reason for it to ever be present in the first place. Unless he has a plan which outperforms the one you've just been given he's doing this all for nothing.

"I assure you your wife is in safe hands so long as you stop interfering."

Levi's about to bark back until he catches your confusion. He's become aware of your tilted head and telling expression and only then does he silence himself permanently not before sighing deeply, muttering an expletive under his breath.

"I’ll sign it.” That seems to be Jean’s indirect way of asking what your choice will be.

“I... will too.” Is your hesitant reply.

Levi only becomes avoidant after that. Half way through Erwin explaining how you and Jean have to look believable Levi just ups and leaves without a word. Perhaps you've hurt his pride but for what he's done to you it's a small price to pay and so you do nothing to make amends. He has no reason to feel uncomfortable, you aren't really his wife, you're essentially strangers. Does he even know your favourite colour? Your favourite food? Your favourite pastime?

You doubt he does.

Jean and you are rather successful with your act. It feels pleasant having him brush your hair out of your face occasionally or lovingly place a hand on your forehead to check if you've come down with a fever. He laces his fingers with yours when others are around and when they aren't he lets the act go. It's satisfying having a cooperative partner.

Naturally Jean is still a tease, even now he makes the odd suggestive comment or two in passing but you can't say you hate it. In fact it excites you to think of a response that borders the edge of teasing and simple fun between friends.

The increasing openness between the two of you is enough for the cadets to deduce that he's most probably the noble man you wed in secrecy.

It's only been a few days since yours and Jean's newfound behaviour, thankfully you haven't been flooded with questions just yet. The higher ups sit nearby during breakfast, lunch and dinner keeping watch over the cadets. It leaves you able to eat and drink without having to handle the constant inquiring of your comrades.

However, you aren't as lucky today. A meeting's taking place and after yours and Jean's convincing act Erwin deems it safe enough to leave you unattended for a short while.

Of course it doesn't go according to plan because when you're involved when does anything ever go according to plan?

The cadets are flocked around your table at dinner as soon as they notice they've been left to their own devices. The opportunity to sit down without everyone invading your space is barely provided to you. Krista is sat to your right leaning into you rather animatedly, Annie has made herself at home sat across you which in itself is completely out of character and slightly unnerving, Annie never and you repeat never concerns herself with you.

"Why did you and Jean hide it?" Armin hovers over your shoulder as per usual. He can't be blamed for naturally being inquisitive and it does give you the opportunity to lay out the foundations of your plan. Now's your time to muster up one of your rehearsed responses.

"It would interfere with work." You respond immediately wanting to appear natural. Pondering on an answer for too long would raise suspicions.

Armin makes a sound of approval and shuffles into the seat next to Krista, that is until Ymir can be overheard telling him to move if he knows what's best for him.

"I have a question." Says a voice across the table, you don't have to look at the blonde parallel to you to know it's her.

For once Annie’s initiated a conversation with you, she’s not particularly great at keeping her intentions discreet. Maybe she doesn’t care if you can tell what she’s up to? But if that’s the case her plan isn’t all that foolproof, there's no way you're to let any details slip away.

Sharply inhaling waiting for what it is she has to say you find that her sentence never comes. Instead she shakes her head and murmurs a "Never mind.". You don't even have the time to ask her to stick around, she's already rose from her seat taking her unfinished plate of food with her, you let her go assuming she feels unwell.

"So how'd you two meet? Jean already told me earlier but I'd like to hear your side." Reiner's taken Annie's empty seat and his gaze is unwavering. The trap they've set up is a clever one. Surveying the hall for Bertholdt you know he has to be observing too. The two never operate alone.

You suddenly hate Reiner. For whatever reason he and his trio are endlessly obsessed with you, they've caught onto something that's for sure but you don't know what it is and now they've completely ensnared you with a backhanded trick. There's no way out of this, you have no idea what it is Jean said to Reiner, the chances of you providing the exact same answer are slim to none.

"My memory is really fuzzy, I don't think Jean gave off much of a first impression so I've forgot." Your horrible excuse doesn't fly by, everyone simultaneously narrows their eyes in disbelief. What you've said isn't convincing at all.

Husband and Wife yet you've forgot how the two of you met?

Fidgeting with the ring adorning your finger the cool metal isn't doing a great job at alleviating the pressure of the situation.

"Jean said the two of you hit it off almost instantly. Who's being dishonest?"

Reiner's either lying to catch you out or he's saying the God honest truth and right now all you can do is hope and pray for a miracle to sweep you off your feet. Mikasa and Jean still aren't within view. At this point you're hoping for Levi to save you, it doesn't matter how so long as you escape unscathed.

"Hey, I think we're just making her anxious with all the questions." Armin is quick to side with you, deep down you know he only does so due to the respect he holds for his Commander. You thank the Heaven's for Erwin's admirable smile and commendable leadership, it seems to be the only reason Armin believes you and Jean.

"Or she's lying." Reiner's resting his head in one of his palms, he's still boring holes right into your frame.

Your eye twitches, this is all unnecessary and uncalled for, whatever it is Reiner wants out of you it better be worthwhile.

He still eggs you on. "You walked out of the Captain's quarters. I saw you."

Standing up and leaning forward you plant your feet to the ground as firmly as you can you.

"And if she did what's it to you?"

Fighting the urge to sigh in relief you've never been happier to hear Jean's voice but something's off. His breathing sounds heavy - like he fought his way to get inside. Turning only then do you notice Mikasa standing by him. She looks equally as exhausted. There's been some sort of a struggle.

"You think it was funny getting Annie to guard the door?" He heaves and runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

"And you think hiding secrets from the rest of us is any better?" Reiner's adamant there's information that the both of you are hiding, he's not wrong but that doesn't change that he's challenging you unprovoked without a reasonable motive.

"We're hiding nothing." Unlike you Jean is sure of his words, he's confident speaking up and he seems to be able to pull off the role of a protective husband perfectly.

“I came out of the Captain’s quarters because he had access to hot water. He said I could use his shower. That’s all it was.”

Reiner quirks an eyebrow upwards and is pleased with your answer. God you’ve said something incriminating haven’t you? It's not incriminating per se but it's without doubt malleable and easy to twist.

“Jean, you were okay with your wife doing that at the dead of night?” Reiner's still leading the interrogation.

“I was the one who suggested it.”

“I don’t believe you’re a couple." If it were Reiner who said that you wouldn't care much, after all it's pretty clear he never believed it but to your displeasure it isn't him who's spoken. Ymir's lopsided grin is all knowing and you're beginning to lose your footing in this argument any second now if any more people start to side against you.

If Ymir disagrees that almost certainly means Krista has her qualms about you too, you've observed beforehand that Ymir tends to speak for Krista on occasion. This happens to be one of those times.

Krista timidly raises her hand and Ymir gives her an approving nod encouraging her to speak.

"I don't like the conflict going on but it is suspicious..."

"Why have I only ever seen you two hold hands?" She asks.

Ymir slings her arm over Krista's shoulder affectionately. "Yeah, I tell Krista I'll marry her every day of the week."

Mikasa mumbles something unintelligible, Ymir gives her a look of warning but Mikasa doesn't seem to care. Instead she repeats what she has to say loud and clear.

"Stick to only speaking when Krista is involved."

Krista holds Ymir by her arm so she doesn't get up, she knows how she gets when she's been provoked. Even if Krista has her suspicions it isn't worth Ymir gaining a permanent penalty point on her record.

Thankfully Armin cuts in. "There's no solid evidence to show they're lying and even if they are the Commander's most probably told them to. Don't you think there's a reason? Leave it be if that's the case. I trust him with our lives."

"We have a right to know." Annie's returned and insists to keep this back and forth going.

Just as you're about to fire back Jean takes a hold of your waist, you look down and seeing his large hands planted securely around your frame has your stomach bubbling with anticipation.

"What are you— "

And then he kisses you, he doesn't ask and instinctively your arms move to whack his chest but you stop yourself in time. You realize it's for the sake of your plan not falling through and so you gently place your hands on his shoulders attempting to ground yourself. It becomes increasingly difficult when you sink deeper into the kiss than you'd like to admit. Blood rushes to the tips of your ears and the thumping of your heartbeat makes it difficult to articulate any thoughts, all you really know is that you like this, whatever this is.

Jean's hands don't feel like they were made to rest against your back, they feel slightly out of place as if he's a key and you're an unmatched lock. In spite of that the circles he comfortingly rubs into the sides of your waist are appreciated, you almost forget you're in a room full of people until you're flooded by cold air.

You've been dragged off of Jean and something in the pit of your stomach has you wishing Levi isn't responsible for the interruption.

To your relief it's just Hange, they're glowing in mischief, the grin on their face shows they aren't mad. They might even find this entertaining.

"Well I be damned... maybe they weren't bluffing?" Connie's been persuaded by the looks of it and Krista's busy whispering to Ymir, you hear the faint sound of the word "Romantic" escape her lips, she's equally as convinced as Connie.

Hange smacks your back light-heartedly and looks to the door for a second. "We leave ya' both for a while and you decide to give everyone a show?"

Erwin's stood by the doorway with a humorous smile playing at his lips, Levi however is anything but amused, he glares at you with murderous eyes, he looks like he's ready to end your life then and there but you know he won't dare do so and for a second you feel braver than you ever have before. Without much thought you grab onto Jean's forearm.

"Me and my husband will get going now!" You allow your gaze to loiter when you get to Reiner. He grunts an apology and you're oh so tempted to ask him to repeat himself but you'd rather not instigate anything.

With that said and done you and Jean leave after giving the performance of your lives.

Slowly but gradually the sky outside becomes dark.

The will to sleep left your body long ago. It's by pure luck that you even manage to catch three hours of rest. Training is the only available distraction and dying out in battle isn't favourable by any means, your boredom may as well be used resourcefully - Strapping yourself up in your ODM gear is the best option.

A quarter way through your warm up you can sense a presence behind you, the leaves rustle and the wind feels noticeably quieter. You'd bother to turn around to see who's intruded but Levi's snuck close enough for you to be able to smell his perfume from where you're stood.

"Feel disrespected? Embarrassed even?" You jab at him knowing it'll rile him up, you don't face him not wanting to give him the pleasure of seeing your face.

"Watch your mouth." he warns sharply.

Rolling your eyes you go about your business, it stays that way for a few minutes. All the while Levi stares at you darting from tree to tree, his scrutinizing gaze scalding you repeatedly.

"Y/N!" He yells at the top of his lungs.

For some unknown reason you automatically stop and lower yourself to the ground

"I have something to tell you." Comes his tense follow up. A finger of his latches onto one of the leather straps on your back.

You can't believe he's still denying the undeniable.

"You can wait till tomorrow. I'll be going to bed."

Levi doesn't seem to care for your cold response and proceeds with no warning.

"I'm jealous." His voice shakes. The grip he has on your harness doesn't let up. With your back turned to him you're still somehow able to detect the very obvious crack of pain.

Levi, jealous?

Gritting your teeth together you feel deceived.

How much longer will you have to tolerate Levi's push and pull?

“May I ask, what he is to you, my love?”

Your breathing grows heavy, tensing up you're completely shocked by the term of endearment that falls from his lips. You haven't heard it for so long, Levi sounds eerily different.

You hate to admit it but a flicker of foolish hope lights in your chest.

"Levi why would you ask— "

"Why don't you call me Lev anymore?" He whispers sounding strangled. You can't take it anymore and hesitantly look his way.

His eyes are filled with tears "I'm sorry my love, I don't know what went wrong." you falter for a second not knowing what to think.

At that moment the flicker becomes a flame.

The man who stands right before you is meant to be dead, never to be seen again. By all accounts this should be impossible, but Lev has always been a fighter.

Bitterness stings your heart, the wounds you've collected are still fresh but despite your body's protests you don't flinch when he gently takes a hold of your wrist, bringing it closer to his mouth.

"Lev...? Is that really you...?" You ask desperately.

The warm kiss he presses against your pulse point provides you with the answer you've been longing for.

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everythingsinred · 3 years ago

Text

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 27)

The closer we get to the end, the more nervous I am, and maybe you are too, because things are going to go horribly awry and only suffering is to come. Fate is adamant that a specific twelve year old must die, and we really have no choice but to watch it all unfold.

In this part, we will discuss the chapters building up to the New Year's Concert, where Reo will attempt to assassinate the ESP.

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Six

Ruka finds Natsume in the snow. He asks where he’s been, and Natsume responds that he went to see Mikan. Natsume imagines that Ruka will be jealous, because he feels guilty. He’d been putting his own wants first this whole night, and he hadn’t even considered Ruka.

Expectation vs. Reality. Ruka, best boy.

But Ruka is not jealous, or he’s very good at hiding it. He beams at Natsume, offering only congratulations and support. He’s happy for them, that both of their wishes came true. In fact, Ruka was also wishing for it, that Mikan and Natsume could find each other.

Natsume apologizes, because Ruka’s cheerful support only makes him feel more guilty, but he doesn’t tell him for what. He will not recount the details of the night, particularly of the many kisses shared between him and Mikan.

There’s a happy moment between Natsume and Ruka until, of course, Natsume starts coughing violently. He coughs up blood again, and when Ruka asks him if he’s okay, he’s ready to downplay it, already hiding his hand so that his best friend won’t worry. But Ruka grabs his hand and looks at the blood on the glove, and there’s a somber moment between them. Natsume tries to talk, but Ruka knows he’s just going to try and downplay it again, so he interrupts.

The best friendship in all of fiction. I stand by this forever. You can't change my mind.

Ruka has watched Natsume suffer the whole time they’ve been at the academy, even before then. He might not have had all the details, but he’s known that Natsume’s life was agony. He was helpless, and even became a burden (in his own view, not Natsume’s). He pleads with Natsume not to hide from him anymore. They’re meant to be best friends, and all Ruka has ever wanted was to be Natsume’s support system, but Natsume shut him out in the guise of protecting him. He keeps all his pain locked away and deals with it on his own.

Watching someone you love suffer and not being able to do anything about it is a tremendous pain, Ruka says. Natsume must sympathize. He will say something similar later on about Mikan’s situation.

Ruka loves Natsume. Natsume might have thought that he dragged his only friend into a bottomless pit of despair but Ruka asserts he’s never once regretted following him to the academy, not even for a second.

Ruka is confessing now. Natsume must know now that his existence is important to at least two people who love him unconditionally, but he doesn’t internalize it. Maybe he can’t. He’s too stuck in the role of martyr that straying from it would go against the very fabric of his own identity. He exists and has always existed to protect others. Protecting himself or even considering himself doesn’t align with that identity. No matter how much Mikan and Ruka plead with him to keep himself safe, he can’t abide. They’re more important than he is. He fails to see how much heartbreak and sorrow he will leave in his wake of self-destruction.

Natsume can’t internalize it. He can’t take it in and change course. It’s too late for that, in his mind. But he can tell Ruka the truth, because supporting Natsume is all Ruka wants.

He confesses too. He’s afraid. He doesn’t like thinking about the future, not even a year from now, because he’s scared he’ll be dead by then.

He says his secret fear out loud, that he won’t be able to protect her, and it’s still so heart-breaking that he still only sees his own value in how much he can protect people. He will shorten his own life to get her out of the darkness she’s ended up in. He doesn’t see worth in his existence just for the sake of living, of breathing, of smiling and laughing and crying and existing. Instead, his value is conditional. He is only so good as he is able to protect others and when he can’t anymore, then he is no longer valuable. It’s a glaring sign of a ridiculously low self-esteem.

He wants to choose life! He wants to live! Oh, this makes it worse...

But something has changed. He doesn’t want to die. He wants to live and be with her forever. He can’t be with her if he’s dead. It’s a selfish thought, and as I’ve been saying, that’s a wonderful thing. If only that selfish impulse were stronger, than maybe things wouldn’t be so doomed in the coming week. But Natsume’s ingrained martyr complex is stronger than anything, and his new flicker of selfishness doesn’t stand a chance.

Ruka promises he’ll do anything to support Natsume and Mikan’s future together. And so Natsume asks Ruka to protect Mikan if he’s no longer able to.

I personally don’t think he’s handing Mikan over here. This whole conversation’s context is specifically about protecting Mikan, and how Natsume wants only to keep her safe, even at the expense of his own life (though he’s actually more cavalier with that than he lets on, so it’s not much of an “even”, is it?). If Natsume is dead, he wants somebody he trusts to watch over her and prioritize her as he has. Who better than Ruka, who loves Mikan too and will want to keep her safe as well?

Or. You could just. Not die. Just a thought.

Natsume has never treated Mikan as an object to be won. He’s in fact made several comments about not “competing” at all. If he was able to give Mikan to Ruka, those two would be together now already and Natsume wouldn’t be the one holding Mikan’s alice stone. He is not any more capable of giving her away then he’s been before, and he’s less motivated to now than he’s ever been. Mikan is his, after all. Why would he “give her away” so soon after promising to be together forever?

He’s only concerned with Mikan’s safety and freedom here. If he dies in the pursuit of that, which he will, then someone else needs to make sure she’s safe and free. What she does with that safety and freedom is not in his or Ruka’s or anyone’s hands. I imagine Natsume, who got jealous of Mikan thinking of all her important people when making her alice stone would also get jealous at the thought of Mikan falling in love with somebody after his death. It might occur in the distant future, but it probably wouldn’t be any fun to imagine.

You may disagree with me, but I just can’t see it that way. I just don’t see it.

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Seven

It’s New Year’s. Mikan’s birthday. There’s a celebration happening in the dorms, just like last year, but Natsume isn’t dressed in traditional garb to welcome the new year and feast like all the other students.

Instead, he’s waiting for Narumi in a hallway.

He wants all the information he can get, so he can get Mikan out of her cage sooner. Narumi isn’t talking, always willing to act dumb to get out of things. But Natsume knows better. He saw Narumi in the flashbacks, and knows how much Narumi loved Yuka. He would’ve done anything for her, even if it resulted in his own death. Narumi should understand how Natsume feels, then. He knows Mikan is suffering and in danger, but he can’t do anything about it. He says something to the effect that he shouldn’t even be living at this point, again reiterating that his life only has value if he’s able to protect people, particularly Mikan. If he’s unable to do that, then he might as well die. There’s really no difference, he says.

Jeez, kid, relax.

Narumi tries to point out that Natsume is dying, as if perhaps the kid is unaware of this, but Natsume grabs him and declares that he will not end up like him. Natsume seems to understand Narumi (probably more than I can! Haha) and that his life has been empty and soulless for a long time. Narumi is full of regret and has been for years, but Natsume won’t be like that. He won’t live with regret. He’ll do anything he can to save Mikan, and he’ll die without a single regret. He also claims he won’t give up on the idea of sharing a future with Mikan, and that makes the inevitable doom of their romance all the more tragic. Natsume isn’t planning on dying. He’s not imagining that he doesn’t even have a full two days left to live. He’s thinking he’ll push himself to the end of his rope, save Mikan, and then live happily ever after. It’s naive and childish and ridiculous that he really believes he can have his cake and eat it too, but he does with his whole heart.

"I want to live," is enough for me. I stopped reading after that. LET THIS KID LIVE.

Natsume tells Narumi to stop underestimating him for his age. But Narumi agrees: he doesn’t want Natsume or any of the other kids to end up like him and his generation did. He wants things to be better, for the new generation to have a happy and hopeful future to look forward to instead of surrendering to a life of misery and regret.

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Nine

Natsume and Ruka are something like partners-in-crime now. They both know that taking out the ESP is the only way to free Mikan. They are spying on Reo, who has come under the guise of performing for the New Year’s concert, who spills that Z wants to assassinate the ESP.

Tsubasa and Tono quickly join the conversation, although they’re somewhat unwanted.

Reo keeps talking, and now all four of them are privy to his plan. Tono scolds Natsume for trying to get involved when it’s obvious Z is already on the case. Let them do it, he says. Keep yourself safe instead of putting everything on your own shoulders. Naturally, this is Natsume we’re talking about, so no amount of logic will get into his head, but it was worth a try, Tono.

Natsume's little face here is my favorite. His little angry expressions are always the highlight of any page.

Hearing this warning, Natsume can see the sense in it. He doesn’t want to leave his fiancee alone and heart-broken by his loss (more proof that he doesn’t really believe he’ll die) tomorrow, but to his horror, Koko was reading his thoughts aloud.

Natsume is embarrassed to be put on the spot, and he didn’t want to hurt Ruka’s feelings, so he takes out his anger on Koko. Then he punishes Tsubasa for teasing him about how fast he’s going with Mikan when Tsubasa is actually just slow with Misaki. Then it’s revealed that Tsubasa did finally confess to Misaki and got the answer he wanted, which only pisses Natsume off more, inexplicably. He’d be angry either way, just because it’s Tsubasa. He probably just wants to take the focus off himself and the fact that he’s already proposed to Mikan.

Tsubasa was in fact inspired by Natsume’s commitment to protecting Mikan. He confessed because his kouhai was so determined. But he also expresses concern for Natsume’s recklessness. Protecting people is a worthwhile pursuit, but so is valuing your own life. Other people depend on him and love him, and losing would hurt. He doesn’t have to do everything on his own. Working as a team can ensure his safety and keep him living longer. They’re all on the same page, after all, so why not join forces and get it done more efficiently without Natsume being the martyr again?

Yeah, Natsume, go to therapy. Like, yesterday.

But as the group splits up, Ruka holds Natsume still. He wants to talk about what happened on Christmas, but Natsume doesn’t. He’d rather keep that to himself, not at all willing to hurt Ruka’s feelings after he’s been nothing but supportive.

But he can’t lie, and Ruka has expressed interest in hearing all the truthbombs Natsume can dish out, so he comes clean. They exchanged alice stones. It looks like it pains Natsume to admit it. He’s consumed by guilt for the role he’s played in hurting Ruka. But Ruka is still just happy for him. He again offers congratulations, and all is well until Koko announces that Natsume and Mikan kissed a lot too. Apparently, Natsume has been thinking about the kisses so often and shamelessly to the point that Koko is concerned.

Ruka gets upset, but not out of jealousy. He hits Natsume rather pathetically, adamantly demanding that he be honest and tell him everything instead of keeping secrets all the time. Ruka doesn’t care that Natsume has been “selfish” and has kissed Mikan and gotten engaged with her and met with her. He is a fan! He’s Team NatsuMikan now too! He just wants Natsume to stop lying to him, not even to spare his feelings. If Natsume can’t be honest, then Ruka can’t do his job of supporting him. Friendship is a two-way street and can’t work if the friends can’t rely on each other for help and support. Going through good and tough times together is the key to any lasting relationship, and for that to work Natsume needs to talk to him instead of holding back.

Ruka is so cute here. Absolutely adorable. I shall adopt.

Natsume apologizes and the chapter ends on a light note, with the four of them teasing each other and laughing.

But tomorrow will be a different story. Many horrible things will happen tomorrow night, and the bright future Natsume has finally allowed himself to consider will burn up and die.

Conclusion

In the Rapunzel story, the prince was blinded and forced to walk around the forest unable to look for his lost love. I imagine that's why the chapter title image for Chapter 147 has his face covered in bandages. The story of Rapunzel is a tragic one, but it ends in a happily-ever-after. The consolation we have is that the story of NatsuMikan is more like the story of Rapunzel than of Romeo and Juliet, though it certainly doesn't feel like it for the next thirty-something chapters.

I didn't reread this at all before posting because I'm really tired. Thus, I claim no ownership over any mistakes. They can't be helped.

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oatmilkovich · 4 years ago

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I'd really love if you made a post about Noel's acting this episode! If you still want to

hey!! <3

this episode reminded us (not that we needed the reminder, looks at the writers) what the show is missing out on when they reduce the characters and their storyline’s down to comedy with very little substance.

this is the first time in a long while that it feels like mickey’s trauma surrounding terry has been giving the time, space and the dialogue it deserves. I’ve been waiting many, many years for this sort of resolution for mickey...

my thoughts on noel’s performance under the cut (it’s a little lengthy!)...

as always, disclaimer: this is all my opinion, but i did go to drama school and have a degree. there’s a pandemic and nothing else to do, i just like talking about it.

firstly, something I’ve always admired about noel’s work is his ability to tell us a thousand things without saying a single word. we’ve seen it from the very first season – there’s very few other actors on the show that consistently carry that much power with their silence and noel really did the most this week. let’s look at this moment:

mickey doesn’t say anything until prompted by ian and yet because of the intensity in noel’s look and the sheer amount of tension he’s carrying, we’re completely aware of mickey’s feelings in the moment without having to hear any dialogue. his physicality tells us more than any dialogue would. his shoulders are tense, his face is fight – it’s a deep, visceral reaction to seeing his father. noel has clearly thought about mickey’s pov here – not only about terry, but about this moment in general, about the first time he sees him after coming home from the hospital, about watching the man who tortured him for years finally be met with even an ounce of the same pain he was subjected to. immediately, we’re thrown into the heavy weight of the moment and when mickey does speak, it only echoes what we already know from his physicality. the dialogue complements noel’s performance, rather than solely carrying it. he’s managed to tap into the perfect balance of allowing the lines to come from truth — they don’t feel planned out or rehearsed but delivering them in a way we can tell that mickey has thought about it – mickey’s history with terry is lengthy and incredibly complex and that’s completely embodied in how noel delivers each line. It’s important to me that we can feel the history there, but that history is left at the door when it comes to his work in the scene. he’s not displaying the history, he’s existing in it.

my personal ‘acting theory’ (to avoid sounding like a wanker) is that you don’t act as your character, but that you exist as yourself under those circumstances. mickey’s circumstances in the scene are noel’s circumstances and he reacts — as he would — in the moment. prep work for this is key. noel has said in previous interviews that when approaching mickey in the earlier seasons, he focused on having a secret and lengths he would go to protect it. knowing this, we have a small idea on how he approaches mickey now. he clearly has taken something in his own life and used it to personalise this situation with mickey, he’s thought about how he himself would react in those circumstances, because he is himself in mickey’s circumstances — this is why it feels so personal, this is why his performance is still so consistently nuanced all these years later. this is why he can tell us so much in a simple shift of the eyes.

take emma’s performance during this episode – in the moments she’s talking about sandy and how upset she is (eg: inside the ambulance with ian and mick) she’s very much really going for the oh my heart is so broken blah blah, but it doesn’t land because you don’t believe her heart is broken. the lines are empty. you compare that to the subtleties noel shows us throughout the episode and it’s almost unfair that they have her scenes next to his. this isn’t to roast her, but just to highlight the differences in nuance and depth. allowing dialogue to carry a performance vs actually living in the performance.

discomfort played a huge part in noel’s performance in 11x06 too and discomfort in scenes can bring wonders. mickey is uncomfortable — he’s faced with some horribly difficult decisions. we see a stark difference from his easy going ‘just pull the plug on him’ energy vs when he’s actually given the chance to. the stakes in the scene and situation are extremely high – mickey is quite literally battling with an opportunity he’s been waiting his entire life for. the weight of those stakes are heavy on his shoulders and the highlight of the episode for me was the physical journey on noel’s face as he holds the gun to terry's chest. noel gives us mickey’s internal battle – there’s the pent up rage he clearly had been carrying with him on the ride over, then the irritation, the fear, the sadness, the frustration. you can almost see everything mickey has ever had to go through because of terry in the way he looks at him.

this shot above in particular has really, really stuck with me. the way he doesn’t respond to ian, keeping his eyes firmly planted on terry – he’s lost in his thoughts, in his history and you can feel everything behind noel’s eyes.

it’s such a fantastically layered performance that he makes it impossible to look away. he allows the moment to play out and live and doesn’t speed run to achieve anything in his performance. he doesn’t push. noel doesn’t walk into the scene and go ‘oh i’m gonna make mickey feel this on this line and this on this line’ – he gives the emotions their time and place to land, we see and feel mickey’s journey without a single word. it all comes from his natural reactions to the circumstances. he doesn’t try and show us what mickey is going through when faced with the option to kill terry — he lives it, he sits in it and he exists in it.

we also had a great example of noel’s range this ep. he delivered his funny, usual one liners like he has done throughout this season but really hammered home his talent when given dramatic scenes. it was a refreshing balance.

overall, noel’s performance in this episode is a great example of how a well acted scene doesn’t have to contain screaming or crying or overt, obvious dramatics in order to be categorised as ‘good’. similarly to what I said in my post about ian’s vows, some of the smallest and subtle moments can carry as much as a 5 minute monologue or an intense shouting match.

this is long and probably a little boring, but I could honestly talk about his work for ages. thanks for the question (and the other anons too!) and please feel free to send me anymore – especially as we now have a 3 week break before the next episode <3

#i lied and got anxious so here it is an hour later #willa's acting thoughts #enjoy though! i hope i didn't ramble too much #but really i just enjoyed this episode so much #pls ask me anything else if you want to have a discussion!#noel fisher #shameless #tw guns #actingasks

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darthkruge · 4 years ago

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heyy Megan, I'm trying to do a character study on Anakin but im finding very limited information online. what do you think are some of his worst and best traits? his personality, humor and like his values? thank you so much,, hope you have a good day/night

omg hi!! thank you for asking me!!

*cracks knuckles* let’s get into it

anakin skywalker character analysis

best traits:

intelligence, overall skill, curiosity

anakin was building droids from scraps when he was a child. he spoke huttese and basic from a young age, as well. he’s an insane battle strategist, wonderfully skilled in battle/with a lightsaber, and incredible pilot! he can pick up new skills quickly, as well. i’m just gonna link this post by @chokemeanakin bc it just sums it up real nice.. but yes smart boy love him

compassion, capacity for emotions, empathy, understanding

anakin feels things deeply. i’ve talked about this a lot before lol. but yeah he is frequently in conflict over the sheer weight of the emotions he carries. further, as a jedi, this is not something his peers could relate to. but he always tries to be there for his friends and would do anything to ease their pain. and i think that anakin seeks to understand others. he’s spent so much of his life feeling alone and like no one related to him; he wants to know how other people work, feel, and think.

loyalty, friendship, caring

anakin is so fucking loyal to those he loves. and, tying into my previous point, he loves deeply. he cares, he always has. he treats droids as humans and forms attachments, even though they may be forbidden. he held onto that need for love, for connection even after he joined the order. and he would defend those he loves til the very end...

selflessness, protectiveness, bravery

anakin would literally dive headfirst into danger to save someone he loves. he doesn’t care about hurting himself or honestly whatever happens to him, as long as those he cares for are safe.

worst traits:

impulsivity, recklessness

i think we’ve all seen anakin be a bit impulsive at times... sometimes, he just doesn’t think everything through. this is especially clear when someone he loves is in danger. anakin’s lost so many people that when he’s faced with the threat of losing another, his judgment can become clouded.

insecurity, jealousy, fear

anakin is frequently jealous, which stems from his insecurities. he was probably conflicted a lot; brought into the order as a young child and told he was the chosen one. the weight of the galaxy was placed on his shoulders and, yet, he was held back in classes as a padawan, he didn’t make rank (canonically). i think these things are what allowed palpatine to manipulate him; palpatine knew anakin was afraid, insecure, and, yet, arrogant (my next point dw). he tapped into this and because anakin and the council did not have much mutual trust (aside from like obi-wan), it was easier to get to him. especially because palpatine used anakin’s fear of losing padme and his unborn children to do so. fuck palpatine bro-

arrogance

yes, anakin was insecure. yes, he was also arrogant. let me explain myself. he occassionally rushes into things without thinking, thinking he can handle them. i think a lot of this stems from being told he was the chosen one from such a young age. that title combined with his skill?! it makes sense he’d internalize it. i am now going to stop myself before i rant about how the gifted education system is a fuckfest. this is coming from someone who spent years in that program. anyway-

personality/overall rant about his life/motivations:

i think i summed up a lot of his personality within the best and worst traits because i got ahead of myself but im going to say some more!! i think a lot of anakin’s personality is dependent on his deep capacity for emotions. you can see that throughout ROTS, he was conflicted almost all the time. he grew up as a slave and all he wanted was to protect his mother. he built droids to help her and competed in podraces to tryand get them anything that could help.

then, he was taken to the order. suddenly, all these amazing traits he has make sense!! but then the person who’s supposed to train him (qui-gon) dies after anakin’s only known him for a short period of time. anakin’s attachment issues are abundant (i don’t think i need to explain that one) so of course he grows close to obi-wan! but obi-wan was trying to be strong for anakin. even though obi-wan struggled himself with attachment, he tried to be strong and put up a front as a “good” jedi for anakin to look up to. while this was helpful, anakin probably just felt more conflicted, as no one in his life could relate to the bredth of emotions he felt. this caused him to be more introverted and withdrawn (i talk about that in this post)

then, he loses his mother, she dies in his arms. the only person he’d wanted to protect from a young age, who he left to join the jedi, dies in his arms. he blames himself for this, thinking he should have gotten there faster, should have done something more. he probably also blamed the jedi, to at least some extent. why do these powers matter if they can’t save the people he loves? i believe he acted out of anger, killing the tuskens, because (at least to some degree) of the jedi. instead of teaching him how to express his emotions (pain, fear, loss, grief, etc.), they train him. to some degree, he might think all he’s good for is these skills. so he acts out of anger, slaughtering them.

and then finally he finds someone who loves him in the way he wants to be loved. padme stays by his side, even after he killed the tuskens. she sees the good in him and treats him as a man, not a prophecy. but once again, this motif of fear remains! he has to hide this love, one of the only pure and good things in his life! he has to live in fear every second of every day because, if the council finds out that he found happiness and love, everything is ruined.

but then he starts getting the vision’s that padme will die. and not just padme, now his unborn children could die, too. the one thing he has that is good and purely his could now be ripped away. he knew he was helpless, knew there was nothing he could do to stop it by himself. the council isn’t that helpful, telling him to learn to let it go with the force. while that might help any other jedi, it just pushed anakin away. he would never be able to just surrender and let go to the force, not when the life of his entire family is at risk!

and he finds palpatine, someonoe who has spent years trying to manipulate him. but palpatine is smart, he’s cunning. anakin didn’t know what the real intentions were and, truly, he probably didn’t want to know. he was blinded by his fear and if anything could save padme, he would do it. then the council try to get him to spy on palpatine. again, conflict. anakin’s loyalty is repeatedly questioned and pushed and prodded, he was probably so confused! he didn’t know who to trust. but, when you combine the current situation with his backstory with who he is and what he cares about, it makes sense why it all happened.

this is what i mean when i say conflict. he was pulled in a million directions constantly. and we all know how his story ends and i don’t want to cry so i’m not gonna detail it...

also: i’m not saying any of this excuses all of his choices, but it does explain them.

humor:

lowkey a dork

he is. and i love that about him. you can see this in the way he flirts with padme sometimes... like floating the pear to her and the whole “i don’t like sand” thing. he’s a fucking dork. can’t exactly blame him nor do i hold it against him! he didn’t have many close friends growing up and he was like pining for padme for years so it’s not like he spent that time creating a playbook

he’s also witty!

i think this comes with his intelligence; he’s witty and he’s quick. example: “general grievous, you’re shorter than i expected.” i mean he’s no sass-king obi-wan kenobi but anakin definitely can hold his own in a verbal sparring match!

also i headcanon him as having horrible puns but loving them!

values:

love, friendship, connections

at his core, anakin just wants to find someone who understands him and his emotions. who can relate to him. he wants those connections; in fact, he actively seeks them out. love is a key part of his identity. i talk about this in this post about his love languages so imma just link it there!

success, validation

tying into his determination, anakin wants to do well! he pushes himself and i think he’s a perfectionist, too. you can see this in the way he holds himself as a general; he doesn’t slack off, doesn’t not care. he understands the responsibility he has in that role and he takes it seriously! and just in his overall skill level, even though he was a bit of a child-prodigy, he clearly spent a long time training. he probably also had some imposter syndrome going on and was constantly trying to prove his worth.

----

uhh yeah i think i got everything?? yes?? he’s so complex and i legit love him immensely. doing character analysis for anakin is my favorite thing in the entire universe! if anyone has anything they want to add, please feel free!!

#anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker character analysis #anakin character analysis #this is a rant i apologize #anakin thoughts #character analysis

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softer-ua · 4 years ago

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I have no idea what Bakugou would have done if Izuku died in the sludge Villain accident. They had a lot of strong unresolved emotions, I just can't fully visualize it, the only thing I have clear is him trying to latch onto anger, but that would burn out fast because the Villian was trapped and the heroes did their thing (Winning, which at that point he believed everything was) so I don't know what would he do. Sooo...could you please give us your insight? Please :D

I’d love to give my insight! Thank you for asking!!!🥰

It would depend on which sludge incident, the one where Deku ran to save Katsuki or the one where Deku was on his own? 🤔 I’ve got ideas on both lol

Buckle up this is gonna be a long one, and it’s not a fun ride

For the first I think Katsuki would latch onto anger and be a self hating righteous little monster for the rest of eternity. Because obviously he’s never getting therapy.

If he can blame himself for AM’s retirement and his parents can blame him for getting kidnapped than I have zero doubt the Entire Bakugo family would blame Katsuki for Dekus death. That family loves to victim blame, and Mitsuki would have a field day with chart topping world’s lowest blows like

If Katsuki hadn’t been hanging out in an alley and had gone straight home the villain wouldn’t have got him

If Katsuki hadn’t just been randomly blasting the heros wouldn’t have had to divert their attention to the fire

If Katsuki hadn’t been so weak(what’s the point of that flashy quirk if you can’t even save yourself)

Going with him to make him apologize to Inko (trying to imagine this feels like my brains touching a hot stove, it would be a thousand times more horrible and scarring than being forced to apologize to his Idol and teach for being kidnapped)

If hs Katsuki didn’t have the tools to block out his mother and broke down over a 50 year old man retiring, then poor ms Katsuki doesn’t stand a chance against being forced to bare the blame in someone’s actual death, especially not Dekus. Plus whatever destructive aftermath Katsuki created.

Did you have to blow up the entire alley way??

Katsuki would also never stop blaming those heros, even if the villain was captured they lost what really mattered, Dekus life.

They should have stopped the villain before Deku ever showed up

They should have never let Deku cross the line

They should have saved him

I think his fear of being weak would have been magnified by 10000. And it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to believe that witnessing that kind of hero failure so personally would be his villain origin. But even if it wasn’t, I think 10 months of stewing in grief, rage and self hate at such a young age would leave some very permanent scars

He’d habitually train to the point of self harm(reminder to check in on your fitness bros)

He’d never ever let someone close to him again (he didn’t want Deku close to him in the first place and look at how bad it hurt anyway)

He wouldn’t give a shit about any heros opinion anymore, if it’s not about how he can get stronger than any would be mentor can fuck off

His ego would have taken a massive hit, he’s no longer trying to prove he’s the best

Instead he’s insuring it because he’s never losing anyone again

Even with that in mind I think the sports festival actually would have gone a lot calmer because he no longer gives a shit about showing off, he’s just fighting to test himself and Dekus the one who pushed Todoroki to the point anyone even knew he had a fire side(I always wonder how much longer Aizawa was gonna let that go on for) so he’d except his medal quietly so it’s possible the lov would never have tried to recruit him

I think he’d be a lot more proactive in helping his classmates get stronger

Just not in a cute tsundere way anymore, but in a “if you can’t keep up with me I will keep attempting to murder you until you drop out” way, because B List heros are not allowed to be a thing anymore

Eventually he would grow up to be the top hero and he revels in that victory by hating himself, his job, his coworkers, his family, and everyone and everything else. The best part of his days are the adrenaline highs and that’s not even a happy high, in a bad headspace it just makes you ansty and aggressive, still better than being a hallow husk of resentments

I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually did kill a fellow pro for not meeting his standards. Depending on what the hero did to earn his ire would shape wether he went on to be the new hero killer or simply stopped being a hero himself in custody or more permanently

Now if the villain had instead been captured after being caught hiding in Dekus flesh suit things would have been very different than the above

Katsuki would definitely be traumatized at this news, so would most of their class and they’d probably do some kind of memorial deal, and over the course of a couple of days Katsuki would slowly descend into madness at watching his class act like they have ever given a single fuck about Deku

Then he would speedball into it, because how dare they grieve over him, non of them deserve to especially not him

He’d be angry for as long as he could, at himself and everyone else, but eventually that’d putter out without anyone stoking the fire, no one else blames his class for feeling sad and no one blames the heros for not existing on every single possible street corner

Maybe he makes it through UA. He’s not as hot head, not as naive, but teens hold grudges like no other, he can be mad at the world a little longer.

Throws himself into the work so he doesn’t have time to think. He’s going to be the best because Deku always believed he would be and if he’s not allowed to be sad than this will be his only way to honor the nerds memory.

But the thing about pain is that it demands to be felt.

Eventually his regrets and grief would come for him, in a year or in ten years doesn’t matter they will eventually claim the time and space they need with interest.

He’d probably meet his regrets first so that he can be mad at himself for a little longer

He should have let Deku be

If he hadn’t held Deku up after class maybe he’d have made it home

His last words play on loop growing distorted and more malicious as the years go on(fun fact about memory ! It’s easily manipulated because each time you remember something you’re actually just remembering the last time you remembered the thing! Basically your brain reconstructs the memory completely each time! Fuck it up once and it’s all down hill)

He regrets not ensuring that he’d have more than his flimsy memories to hold onto Deku with, he never realized he’d want to, never could fully conceive that he’d actually have to.

He should have been kinder

He should have been less of a coward and faced his own insecurities

He should have talked to Deku about so many things

He can’t just focus on what he did and didn’t do forever tho, eventually he’ll have to recognize the hole Deku left behind, his regrets will paint the picture of his grief

Maybe he forgets the exact date of Dekus birthday but he knows it was in the summer, he regrets not going to his last one and grieves never going to a next one.

He regrets not going to the funeral, of course he was sad, he’d been an idiot to think he couldn’t be

He regrets not visiting Dekus grave, and grieves over how long he’s been gone now

He regrets that he had to learn what the value of saving is by having lost, god how he grieves that loss

Without Deku Kaminari never hears that nickname, Kacchan died with Deku. He grieves over never hearing it again

He wonders if Dekus hanging out with Kacchan wherever he is, he wonders if this makes him crazy.

He grieves over Deku dying so young, so alone, so horribly. It gives him nightmares, he can’t imagine the pain of having all his organs crushed down from the inside, and yet he’s some how intimately aware of its possibility. He debates looking for the autopsy results, maybe if he confirms it was asphyxiation and not internal blunt trauma the nightmares will stop. But you don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.

He grieves over the dreams Deku never got to chase, and regrets ever playing a part in taking away the happiness a dream is supposed to have

He grieves over the Deku shaped hole in his life that seemed to grow with him despite only ever getting to know the knobby knees version, he can’t help but think with every achievement and milestone “you should be here”

He doesn’t hate his life, it just feels half lived.

Without Deku pushing his buttons and no god complex shaped alarm bells people were slower to reach out to him.

Without Deku to vouch for his good qualities people were a lot more hesitant to see them.

He still did make friends it’s just a shallower connection and he doesn’t make time for them

He becomes top hero but the victory feels hallow like there should have been more of a fight for it. Maybe he is crazy but it feels like it should have been Deku fighting him for it.

His saves are legendary and numerous, he’s never able to shake the feeling that there’s someone out there who needs him just around the corner

Between the nightmares and the anxiety clocking off gives him he probably gets less sleep than any hero before him, even Aizawa.

It was a short career

#softy answers #tw child death #tw child abuse #tw selfhate #tw grief #idk what else to tag #let me know if there’s any I should put up #I like talking about heavy topics but I want to help keep bnha a fun space for everyone #I am so sorry about how long I made this #I’m on mobile and idk how to make it do the read more thing

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schnees-and-schnugs · 4 years ago

Note

All of the Schnees for the character meme? Yes, even Jacques. Klein counts as well. :3

Weiss

How I feel about this character: k-k-kween

All the people I ship romantically with this character: *cracks knuckles* SUN, blake, yang, jaune, neptune, ironwood, etc etc.

My non-romantic otp for this character: her relationship with ruby is adorable. Also her relationships with winter and whitley.

My unpopular opinion about this character: something that has been bothering me about weiss recently is that now that she is the Emotionally Mature One (tm), she's just not allowed to have internal struggles? This was super obvious with her conflicts with her siblings in v8. We don't see her have any second thoughts about her and winter going different ways and just seems pleasantly surprised when winter calls her. When willow tells her that whitley felt abandoned by her and that's why he lashes out, we don't see weiss have any normal feelings that would come with that sort of revelation.

If the last time I had seen my older sibling (one that I look up to and am close with), they were severely injured and following a man I considered a dictator- I would have second thoughts? Show a little worry? Idk. If my mother revealed to me that I hurt my little sibling by leaving them alone in a household with two abusive parents and that's why they hate me, I would feel a least a little guilt. Even if I shouldn't, I would. And again, second thoughts about my past choices.

Instead weiss is just constantly self assured in everything she does and shows no complexities (emotions wise) that we saw from her in earlier volumes. And I understand it's supposed to show growth, but it just comes off a self centered and callous much of the time, esp in her arc with whitley.

One thing that I wish should happen with this character/has happened: *bangs pans and pots together* let! her! have! a! conversation!with! her! brother! please!

Winter

How I feel about this character: disaster eldest sister energy

All the people I ship romantically with this character: cinder, marrow, ironwood, harriet?

My non-romantic otp for this character: her and her family uwu + penny.

My unpopular opinion about this character: don't really have an unpopular opinion about winter. I wish they would have addressed winter's complicity in what ironwood was doing in-show, bc her fight with ironwood just kinda rang hollow to me. I was just thinking "winter your ass was up there on the screens with ironwood in mantle oppressing them don't act like you were never okay with it". Winter stans don't @ me.

One thing that I wish should happen with this character/has happened: I want to see her actually have an arc with her brother instead of it getting half assed for time like they did with weiss and whitley (I know it sounds harsh but I'm salty).

Whitley

How I feel about this character: I get overwhelmed looking at his face I want to squeeze his cheeks so bad

All the people I ship romantically with this character: oscar, penny

My non-romantic otp for this character: him with his family, TEAM POWR

My unpopular opinion about this character: I would like to see him talk more with characters instead of only existing to be Dues Ex Whitley. Please.

Also I feel like whitley's turn around was a little too unrealistic? I appreciate that they tried to show that whitley is a good person with a consience underneath all of his survival mechanisms, but an abuse victim like whitley can still be a good person while realistic suffering from the after effects of being groomed and manipulated for years. Whitley showing realistic concern for his father would not have made him a bad person or hindered his healing process. Whitley seemed to truly be attatched to his father, even if it was unhealthy.

They even had whitley bring him up ("after what you did to father") and had shown whitley in jacques' office afterwards. But it was framed in a way that whitley's concerns were trivial and should be dismissed and disregarded (as shown by weiss basically telling him that whitley should get over it bc she's trying to save the world and shoving him aside). It's only until whitley goes along with what weiss wants and forgets everything that he was upset about before is when he's seen as a good person, and it was just a little too quick and convinient for me.

Like.... Whitley should be allowed to be upset about his father, his family reputation, and his mother locking herself up in her room. Even if it's trivial to weiss, whitley at that point had nothing else and was alone. And the resolution to that was basically "whitley gets over it because he saw ruby talking on the broadcast about how they need help and overheard weiss mention family to may in an argument". And idk. It just rubs me the wrong way.

One thing that I wish should happen with this character/has happened: I wish he would have had a conversation with weiss to flesh out their relationship and I also hope that they handle his relationship with winter well whenever they choose to do it.

Willow

How I feel about this character: I have a love hate relationship with this woman

All the people I ship romantically with this character: klein, ironwood, watts, qrow

My non-romantic otp for this character: her and her family.

My unpopular opinion about this character: her cracking a joke about how she's above drinking in the dark was so tone deaf djdjsjsj. Like ma'am u were just neglecting your 14/15 year old son during a literal apocolypse and he had no adult around at all to look after him at all for his physical and emotional needs. I dont think I need to explain how horribly abusive that is. Yes, before she was doing the same thing but at least whitley had staff, klein, and hell, even jacques around. And when whitley is rightfully angry at her about it, her response is to crack a joke at her own expense like heehee even I'm not that much of a drunk and I just-

I know that scene was meant to make me like willow but it literally did the opposite for me lmfao. She should have at least apologized.

One thing that I wish should happen with this character/has happened: I hope they don't pull a qrow on us and show willow just going cold turkey with alcohol esp after they drilled into us just how dependant she is on it. Like she's even lower functioning that qrow to the point where she was barely in her children's lives while they were being abused, so to have her just quite easily is just going to leave me thinking "so she could have quit like this anytime while her kids were suffering?" Not saying that that's what they're going to do, but just not something I want to see.

Jacques

How I feel about this character: bitch ass

All the people I ship romantically with this character: pain and suffering

My non-romantic otp for this character: more pain and suffering

My unpopular opinion about this character: a quick death was too good for him. He should have been forced to live in destitution as t the mercy of the ppl he caused pain to. This would have been better justice wise, and the schnees would get some sort of closure.

One thing that I wish should happen with this character/has happened: I wish we got to see him interact with willow and whitley. Esp whitley, since the fandom seems to think him and his father are a 2 for 1 deal, but yet we've only ever seen them interact once?

Klein

How I feel about this character: the goodest man on remnant

All the people I ship romantically with this character: willow

My non-romantic otp for this character: the schneeblings

My unpopular opinion about this character: nothing really

One thing that I wish should happen with this character/has happened: hope we see him interact with schneeblings that aren't weiss for once.

--------

I have A LOT of thoughts about this family. Too many.

#weiss schnee #whitley schnee #winter schnee #willow schnee #jacques schnee #klein sieben #ask

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idk-my-aesthetic · 4 years ago

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Let’s talk about Azula

For a long time I’ve had really really mixed feelings about her. She’s a kid, only 13 years old, and was abused by Ozai just like zuko was. Only in a different way. She’s a victim in her own right, the show makes that more than clear with her and Zuko’s final battle. It’s a tragedy that these two are fighting, not a triumph like the airship battle or the battle between Ozai and Aang.

But also.... she’s toxic. She controls people by fear, even her friends are terrified of her. She smiles when Zuko’s burned, and she suggests destroying the earth kingdom. She tries again and again to kill zuko. I never thought it was really her fault or who she really is, but I also thought she was just too far gone. that her mind had been too poisoned by Ozai and that she was by that point just a tragic image of what could have happened to zuko

Even saying that, I really wanted her to be redeemed. I’d read some fics with it but it never felt quite right or in character. I thought she was just too far gone to be redeemed

And then I rewatched the finale

And honestly.... I’m realizing I was wrong about her

I think that there are kinda a lot of misconceptions about Azula. In part bc the fandom in general is..... not really nice to her. Which I get!! Her character and the abuse she went through is even more complex then Zuko’s (which is saying a lot). The show focuses almost exclusively on her toxic side, and we don’t really see the more hurt/broken side of her until literally the final episode. Plus we don’t really see who she was before Ozai’s influence like we do with Zuko.

All of which is an unfortunate consequence of a real redemption arc being planned for her and then later cut for time.

So bc of all that her character is really really complex. And I think that with how difficult she is to understand + consuming fan content with how a lot of ppl misinterpret her, she ends up becoming a straight villain like Ozai in most people’s mind’s

Which, again, I don’t blame ppl for. I had the same mindset for a long time

And it’s easier that way. In order to understand her you need to put a lot of energy into trying, and most ppl don’t want to. And I don’t blame them. Azula as she is in the show is incredibly difficult to like

But I think if you do take a look, specifically at the things she says in the final episodes, you’ll see that deep down she’s just a scared kid. A lot like zuko.

If you look closely at Azula everything she does is motivated by fear. Fear others have for her and fear she has of her father

Azula is terrified of their father. In a way I don’t think zuko even is. Because he at some points wants their father’s love but Azula never seems to want that. His favor, yes, but never love

There’s a handful of scenes during the Sozin’s comet 4-parter that I think explain who Azula really is.

First, when Ozai starts to tell her she’s being left behind on the day of Sozin’s comet she panics. She’s terrified that she did something to lose her father’s favor, and starts desperately explaining why she still deserves it

And she says something insanely revealing. “You can’t treat me like zuko”

And I think that explains so much about her relationship to zuko. She grew up seeing how much her father hurt him. And she was so terrified of her father.... she didn’t want that to happen to herself

So she had two options. Be “weak” like zuko, or hurt him to gain Ozai’s favor and protect herself. I think it’s pretty clear what she did.... though I can’t really blame her. She was a scared kid trying to survive.

The whole reason the two of them have such a bad relationship is because she wouldn’t let them have a good one. She couldn’t let them have a good relationship, not if she wanted to survive living with their father

And when I say survive, I mean it. Azula does not love him or follow him out of a sense of duty like zuko. She relizes way earlier than zuko does that Ozai is a cruel horrible person. Everything she does is an attempt to not get on his bad side.

She literally says to the hallucination of their mother that the only thing that can control people is fear. And there is only one person who Azula will listen too. Her dad is the only one to have any control over her because he is the only person she is afraid of

And Azula doesn’t like doing this. She doesn’t enjoy being cruel. She convinces herself that she does, because if she acted differently she’d lose their father’s favor

How do I know? Literally look at the whole deal with her and Ursa. Azula knows Ursa was uncomfortable and unsettled when she started acting like Ozai. she kept doing it to protect herself, but when she talks about how her mother “thought she was a monster” she clearly hates herself for it.

She doesn’t want to act like this. She does it to protect herself. And then she justifies it again and again and again because she knows it’s wrong but she wants to be right. she wants to be good

She tells herself she has to treat zuko badly because he is bad at everything. That he deserves all the things that happened to him bc he isn’t worthy, or he’s untalented, or he’s a traitor, or he’s weak, or whatever.

She tells herself that she can’t have friends. That the only way she can control people is by making them fear her. That if they fear her, like how she fears her father, then they can’t betray her

She tells herself that love and kindness are weak, and that the only way to survive is to be cruel and ruthless

She makes herself believe all that BS and completely internalized it, all to seem strong to her father. All because she’s afraid of him.

And the second that those beliefs, beliefs that have kept her safe from her father’s wrath, are challenged, she snappes. Because mai and ty lee aren’t scared enough of her. They betrayed her.

She’s not terrifying enough to be safe. She’s not terrifying enough that people won’t hurt her. If they’re not afraid of her, then they’re going to hurt her.

She slowly unravels through the final episodes. She’s convinced everyone in the palace is trying to hurt her, because she’s not terrifying enough to be invincible.

And she’s struggling. She’s confused. Because if fear isn’t keeping her safe, then what was the point of all this? If it’s not keeping her safe, then turning into a monster that her mother hates was for nothing

But also.... maybe she was just weak. Maybe she just needed to be stronger, crueler.

And the whole time she’s walking on ice. Terrified of her servants and the dai lee and lee and lo. But she needs to keep her composure, needs to pretend every thing is fine.

Because she is so, so much more terrified of her father. Terrified she’s not composed enough, not cruel enough, not strong enough for him not to hurt her

So. Yeah. Sorry for the angst. But.... Azula is a very complex character. And most people try to just turn her into Ozai jr and... she’s not. She’s pretending she is, so well that she’s convinced even herself

Edit: BTW I’m in NO way saying that this excuses any of her actions. I’m just saying she deserves a chance at redemption while others like Ozai do not. And trying to bring attention to some aspects of her personality that I think are less noticed or misinterpreted

#avatar #atla #zuko atla #azula atla #mai atla #long post #atla meta #ty lee atla #princess azula #avatar the last airbender #avatar tla #child abuse tw #child abuse #abusive father #tagging for blacklist

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ultradoux · 4 years ago

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I have a (not so hidden) passion for minority languages, in particular the Celtic languages. I also have a rather unhealthy tendency to jump straight to the comments section of articles I know are going to attract certain fine specimens of brain rot (if you're ever looking for a cheap thrill, type "Irish language" into the news section of whatever browser you use and feel your blood pressure rise 10 points). I went down this rabbit hole just yesterday, and of course the same tired tropes we're all familiar with were there in full force.

Now, analyzing the real, underlying structures for this particular branch of bad faith reasoning, while ultimately the actual issue here, is just too complex and too deeply rooted in systems of colonialism and imperialism to handle in a Tumblr post. What I'd like to focus on instead, however, is one particularly insidious argument that pops up again, and again, and again, so much so that it's managed to position itself at the center of the debate despite being based on a false premise.

Go to any article and you’ll see it. “Why are we teaching our children Irish/Welsh/Basque?” UKBrexit_rule_britannia@BorisJ1945 will bemoan. “There isn’t any money at all in it!” This is the Bloody Mary of language articles; write “Gaeilge” three times and it’ll appear, smelling of roast beef and unwashed ears.

The problem with this question is that at face value, it’s hard to answer. That’s because without a bit of reflection it seems to be true. After all, learning a Celtic, or an Iroquoian, or a Siberian, or what-have-you language likely won’t ever land you a job in sales; no one’s going to be interviewing for Google using Breton (for now, at least [Hep brezhoneg Breizh epet!]). The same bad faith commenters will also argue that the opportunities that do exist (translation, teaching, careers in the media, etc.) are those meant to propagate the language, a linguistic pyramid scheme of sorts. If taken as a rational position, it is hard to argue that any of these languages are as economically viable as their more dominant counterparts.

Yet still, this still feels wrong, and if we look more closely at what these people are saying we start to see why. Basically, language is being boiled down to its economic utility. Why learn something that won’t earn you money down the line? It’s common sense, right?

Now, you could respond to this with socialist ideals; believe me, I’m all for socialist ideals. Yet instead, I’m reminded of a conversation I once had in college, and what went wrong in that conversation seems to apply here as well. At that time, I lived in a close-knit dorm with a group of math majors, which was just as unfortunate as it sounds. These math majors, who to me at least seemed to act in a sort of hive mind, once said that global linguistic diversity was more of a hindrance than anything else, and that it would make more sense (or at least be more efficient) to eliminate all the world’s languages and replace them with one, international language. That language, of course, just happened to be English.

And there’s the rub, isn’t it? When asked if they would theoretically consider switching to languages like Esperanto or Mandarin Chinese, their response was that that would be impractical, that English was the dominant language and that it was going to stay that way. The idea that their language, their way of thinking, could one day become extinct was too frightening, too unthinkable for them to even humor. Even if they had answered yes for the sake of the argument, I think in a real world scenario their response would have been a little less motivated by efficiency and reason.

Rationally, the idea of replacing one language with another should not be a scary thought. Yet it is a deeply unsettling idea, one that often bring out the worst impulses in people and cultures. It is also a concept that most English speakers rarely have to consider. Not that the idea is completely foreign to them; for example, look at the horrible racism speakers of Mandarin and Spanish face across the English-speaking world, partly because their language (and therefore their way of life) is perceived as a threat. Economically, both Mandarin and Spanish could make more sense as the international language of business; they are the two languages with the most native speakers in the world, both represent economies that are playing larger and larger roles across the globe, and in the case of Spanish, its pronunciation is more accessible than other European languages (certainly more than English). Yet the vitriolic, racist “great replacement” theories that these language communities are met with act as grim proof that issues of language strike nerves that run far deeper than its use in commerce.

This is because language is so much more than just a tool. Trying to make rational, economic decisions about a community language will not work because language exists outside of these metrics. Language is as mundane, crass, and mercenary as it is beautiful, sophisticated, and sacred, and our relationships to our languages, be they our native tongues or ones we’ve picked up along the way, are so intricately tied to our relationships with ourselves and our surroundings that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other. The thought that the languages we speak in, think in, love in could one day disappear is enough to make most of us begin to shudder. People still study Latin in high school; maybe 500 years from now, niche groups will speak what we now know as English together over card games. The minority languages being targeted now, however, are living, community languages, languages that people use daily and want to pass on to their children to secure their future. It is an insult, and a gross misunderstanding of the role language plays, to try and put a price on them.

The Breton phrase I gratuitously quoted above (Hep brezhoneg, Breizh epet) translates to “without Breton, there is no Brittany.” In Ireland, a phrase commonly used at language rights events is “tír gan teanga, tír gan anam” — a land without a language is a land without a soul. Language is our soul — and what, exactly, is the cost of that?

#language #minority languages #language rights #irish #breton #gaeilge #brezhoneg #my two cents

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linkspooky · 5 years ago

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Ten Favorite Female Characters

I was tagged by @midnight-in-town, so now I have to show them how much I love my favorite women.

Name your favorite female characters from 10 different Fandoms and tag 10/or the amount you wish people

Tagging: @hamliet @amonmahboi @inumaqi @thyandrawrites @kaibutsushidousha @harostar.. yeah, I don’t know ten people.

Enoshima Junko

“Hope is harmony. A just heart, moving toward the light. That is all. Despair is hope's polar opposite. It is messy and confusing. It swallows up love, hatred, and everything else.”

Junko wishes she was a psychopath. She’s spent her entire life pretending to be a crazy psychopath, because living that life is just so much more interesting than the one she’s stuck in. Enoshima Junko is just too smart for the world, and everything is too easy for her, and rather than try to dumb herself down a little bit she’s decided to knock everything else down. She’s a girl kicking down sandcastles because building them out of sand all alone is no longer doing it for her.

Junko’s interesting because of the weird logic and loops she runs her brain into. There’s a complex character behind the whole “I exist only to spread despair” thing. She’s perfectly capable of forming emotional attachments to people, and genuinely caring. But the people she likes are generally far worse off than the ones she doesn’t care about.

Junko wants so badly to, just not be human. She does the most inhuman things possible to prove that she’s not human. What really made me love her is the lengths she’s willing to go, to the point in Dangan Ronpa Zero where she basically took a screw to her own brain and started acting like a normal girl only when all of her memories were removed.

Junkos relationship with Matsuda shows two conflicting sides of her character. How much she's humanized by her love of him, and also how much she wants to completely destroy that part of herself. It's like she physically can't be a normal girl. Or rather she doesn’t want to be to such extremes she’ll break everything and then herself.

And if she can’t be normal than Junko decided that self destruction is her next best bet. There’s just nothing that will satisfy Junko, and it’s interesting to watch someone that empty decide the world is going to end, or she’s going to end herself and she doesn’t really care which.

Ajimu Najimi

“Call to me with affection, Anshin’in-san. Well, I don’t really care what manga characters call me.”

Hey, I put Junko on this list twice. Both Ajimu and Junko live in a world that is too easy for them, and therefore they have no reason to get emotionally invested in others or try to attach themselves to anything. Which is why it’s fun to see Ajimu attempt the same thing as Junko to kill herself in style and eventually get saved from herself.

Medaka Box is such a meaningful manga to me because they take the weirdest characters and no matter how deranged they are they find the parts of them that are relatable and go, well guess what you’re human too. Ajimu literally calls herself a non-human and she’s just as human as all the rest in the end.

The best part is it’s not her good points that make her human, it’s all her flaws. It’s easy to feel like the world isn’t real, that nothing in the world is worth living for, to feel no emotional attachment. Those are all human emotions. Not because they’re good and shining, but because they’re petty and terrible. Ajimu is this brilliant character, but she’s also kind of just a petty little girl using a ‘fiction is reality’ lens to cope. She’s not that special actually, she’s just suicidal, and kind of awful in general. It’s nice to see that human side behind the mastermind character.

Azula

“My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course but it still hurts.”

Azula is someone thoroughly dehumanized by everyone even the “good” members of her family (Uncle Iroh, Zuko, her Mother). I like how Azula in some part seems to be aware that both her brother, and mother seem to kind of consider her the “bad sibling” and she just decides to embrace it. Like it’s... not emotionally healthy in any way and it’s terribly tragic but there’s something about characters who actively make the decision to be a monster that gets me.

There’s something about Azula’s writing that makes me uncomfortable, and it makes me sad that Zuko like... continually associates her with his father’s abuse, and demonizes her like she wasn’t also a kid going through the exact same situation, but Azula getting increasingly unstable is at least an appropriate response to that.

Even if her brother, her mother, or her father won’t see her as her own person and they all see her as an extension of her father’s abuse on her, Azula is just so determined to be her own person even if it means burning the world, or herself A common theme I guess, but a lot of these characters have narratives about not being allowed to be their own person or shown any kind of humanity or normalcy.

Morrigan

“Well, well, well what do we have here?”

Morrigan is mean, and nasty, and grumpy and bitchy and witchy. She’s allowed to be unlikable, because Morrigan never bends to anyone. Her survival, and freedom will become first before anything else.

It feels like Morrigan is the main character in her own story, and you just happen to be a part of it for a short while. You may even be an important character to her, she may be attached, but ultimately you’ll never be more than support to her.

Morrigan is such an ambitious an singular entity that her character development is letting you be a part of her life and not the other way around. She'll always survive on her own. Morrigan is irrevocably shaped by her environemnt, and yet she craves freedom in that too because she doesn’t want to be bound by her past or shaped by her mother. So much of herself is dedicated to being better than the environment that she was raised in that she defeats her mother not by killing her, or freeing herself, but rather by being a better mother than her.

Raven / Rachel Roth

“Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos...”

Raven is fun, because a bunch of monks thought the best way to teach her to handle her emotions was to never allow her to feel any emotion ever. So, Raven is eternally running on a zero. She’s terrified even a small amount of happiness will end the world. She’s not allowed to be her own person, neither her bastard father, nor the monks treat her like one.

Raven is so gentle, and selfless, and emotionally perceptive and sensitive to others needs but she can’t ever display almost any of these good traits because she’s internalized the idea that she’s such a bad person. She always believes all the time that she exists to hurt others and that makes it so difficult for her to connect to others.

Which is why her true friends bond with the Teen Titans is so meaningful, because Rachel found a family in spite of all of that. She has friends who think she’s a good person unconditionally despite the fact that Raven continually tells herself she isn’t. There are people in the world willing to navigate the maze of walls that Raven has built around herself, and that her environment forced her to build and closed up, and she’s so happy to have them.

Midna

“Some call our realm a world of shadows, but that makes it sound so unpleasant... The twilight there holds a serene beauty... You have seen it yourself as the sun sets on this world. Bathed in that light, all the people were pure and gentle...”

Midna just steals the show. Her story now. The game’s not called Legend of Zelda anymore now it’s Legend of Midna. Not only is she the most important character in the game she appears in, but she’s also in character someone so selfish she’ll always prioritize herself over everyone else. However, only because she feels that she can’t exist as anything other than the princess of the twilight and has to prioritize her survival for the sake of her people. Midna even says so at the start of the game, she can’t be kind because she wasn’t spoiled like princess Zelda in the bountiful kingdom of the light.

Midna is so selfish and yet doesn’t really have her own wants and needs as a person outside of the role she has to play for her people, which is why she’s so terribly lost without it and just because this terrible selfish little gremlin. Link and Zelda affect Midna so much because they humanize her. They both sacrifice themselves to save Midna the person and she doesn’t get why. She doesn’t get why two people would help someone who has been so unkind to them and who has failed them this much so far.

That act of selflessness moves her, and also freaks her out. She even says she didn’t want to be saved by either of them. Which is what makes her redemption in the second half of the game so interesting, because Midna really improves herself so she can become someone worth their kindness. She doesn’t want the selflessness of people like Zelda and Link to go to waste, and because of that begins to care about things outside of her kingdom and her role as princess

Vriska Serket

“After all of this is over. Do you want to go on a d8?”

Unfortunately one of my top 3 favorite characters of all time comes from a really terrible source material. Vriska is everything I like in a character. She's a mess. She's really hard to swallow. She's a character that's not meant to be liked.

Nobody really likes Vriska and it's all her fault for being such a horrible person, nobody wants her damage. Which is so interesting because usually main characters get forgiven over and over again. Everyone leaves and if they don't Vriska will burn those bridges herself. No character better embodies what it's like to be stuck in a self harming cycle

Authors are always so obsessed with making characters look good or showing what a good person they are few characters are allowed to be just plain unlikely in ugly ways. It’s what lets Vriskas genuine desire to be better actually seem like a struggle.

Kocho Shinobu

“Are you angry? Yes, I’m angry Tanjiro. I’ve always been angry.”

Shinobu is just all pleasantries on the surface, but so full of negative emotions in ways women aren't allowed to be. I love the medicine / poison dynamic to her character and how it rots her to the core. Too much medicine is a poison, while poison can be a medicine when applied to the right situation.

Shinobu is, two faced. She’s beautiful and kind, and full of ugly emotions and empty. She nurses people back from the dead, she sees no point in living herself and purposefully throws herself into a suicide in her plan against Doma. There’s just such a destructive dance between extremes for her because Shinobu is such a unique individual, trying to deal with all of these emotions she just can’t deal with. She can’t be noble, or better than her trauma, she just pretends to be a good person while she slowly rots away inside.

Shinobu can put on smiles all day -

But she can't be like her sister. She can't love people like her sister can. Maybe she could once but all that's left now is anger. Bitter, unpleasant, and completely in denial of it and still masquerading as a good person. The most beautiful kind of poison of all.

She’s not her sister, but she’s also not really her own person. She doesn’t know who Shinobu is, doesn’t know who Kocho Shinobu lives for. She just doesn’t imagine herself living past her revenge, and even though she’s surrounded by love she’s just so cracked it all pours out of her and absolutely nothing could be worth prolonging her life after everything she’s lost.

Toga Himiko

“What exactly is a normal life? I also live a normal life, you know.”

Himiko Toga is a girl who lives entirely on her own terms. Which is just so rare for a female character, you know? It’s so genuinely subversive to know that Himiko was once a nice girl, who always smiled, always put other people’s feelings first, and that sort of ‘good girl’ behavior drove her completely insane.

Toga deciding to be true to herself is an act of rebellion against the world.

For Himiko everything is flipped. What others regard as psycho behavior is her normal. She doesn’t let other people define her story as a tragedy, and even murders the one person who tries to control her story. In a story where female characters constantly downplay their own importance to support the male characters Himiko is the only character important enough to be the center of her own story. Himiko’s story is so subversive as well, both of how society treats her, and how the story treats characters like her.

Himiko is such an excellent yandere, all yanderes wish they were himiko. She comes off as this batshit stabby girl, but then you find out that shes actually emotionally perceptive. She first comes off selfish, bratty, and self-centered but she turns into one of the most sensitive characters in the manga. She eschews the ideals of being a good girl that was forced down her throat, but that doesn’t mean she’s not empathic, or that she’s not capable of goodness. She’s good to twice. She’s good to the people who accept her.

Himiko no matter what will always be a deviant. Always be an outsider. Instead of trying to make room for her her parents forced her to lie and wear a mask until her identity became completely shattered. I like Toga because under the knife wielding psycho she's a normal girl. Then under that normal girl there’s also a knife wielding psycho ready to fight back, and both of them are the real her.

Ihei Hairu

“I saw the reaper, he was very beautiful.”

Every character from the garden is just fundamentally broken. Hairu and Rize are interesting foils, because if you think of about it a loveless childhood turned them both into ruthless killers. It’s just they decided to live for different things, Rize lived rejecting love and Hairu lived chasing after love. However, fundamentally they are the same. They are children starved for any kind of love or nurturing. Hairu is so desperate she devotes her entire life to the first person who acknowledged her. However, the same sort of desperation to live, that tragic need to make the most out of the few short years they have exists in all garden children.

Hairu wants so badly to be a person, but she’s not a person. She’s half ghoul.

There's just something about a girl who was never meant to be born and never meant to live, still trying. There's a dark side to her character, she's violent and inhuman exactly like the environment she was raised in but she was also still a child at heart seeking love.

Which is why though her narrative is a thoroughly unhappy one, it does make me happy that there was someone who loved her in the form of Koori Ui. There is someone who wanted her to live longer. Her life was short, but she did live, and it’s that struggle to connect to others that made her truly alive.

#hairu ihei #ajimu najimi #enoshima junko #toga himiko #kocho shinobu #midna #rachel roth #raven #azula #vriska serket #morrigan #morrigan dragon age #meme #spooky speaks

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kadomoni · 5 years ago

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I always thought I might be bad, now I’m sure that it’s true…

I really can’t tell you what to think of Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz. I can’t. It’s something you have to decide for yourself, but I’m going to explain why she’s one of my favorite characters of the show, but I also think she is the villain.

Now, I know what Pink Stans are saying, “She’s not the villain! She’s morally grey and trying to change!” And, to that I say, yes clearly. She’s an incredibly well-written, nuanced, and complex character. But, as much as she has done good, she has also done very, very bad. And, I’m here to explain why I think Pink is not evil—she’s just bad (and she knows it).

There is no doubt about it that Pink was raised in an abusive family. White is a pretty typical narcissistic parent (over-reliance on perfectionism, wanting people to please her and be like her but no one ever living up to her expectations, trouble with empathy, ect.). Yellow and Blue love Pink but have no idea how to raise her. That’s pretty typical of dysfunctional family dynamics. None of them had a good role model, so they can only replicate a bad role model.

I understand this dynamic. I had a “mother figure” who was very emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive. My parents were nice and good parents but they had anger issues. I went from being petulant to shutting down, but I think I fit more into a Pearl archetype because instead of acting out my pain, I kept it inside and felt like it was me that was wrong. Pink does this, but not before causing a lot of issues, and often exploding outwards.

((Major Steven Universe/Future Spoilers under the cut))

We’ll start with what we know about Pink, which is very limited.

The first “memory” we have from her is the astral projection dream Stevonnie had where she threw a tantrum about wanting a colony. It was childish, yes, but Yellow response was no better considering she just yelled at her. They both threw tantrums, and no doubt, she was going to get locked up in her tower after. Pink got angry, she punched a mirror (hopefully, she’d only punched mirrors, please, Rebecca, don’t hurt me like this).

Secondly, we have the dream Steven had about Blue, who begged Pink to stop being combative and letting her “organics” loose, but ultimately just ended up admonishing her further. It’s also implied that she had her stay in the tower room.

Also, that tower is even more fucked up than just isolation. @singlepalerose explains this in her meta that Gems need light to live, not food. Rebecca says in an interview when asked that she “can’t say” what would happen if put in a place with no light. But, @singlepalerose comes to the conclusion that this might be literally akin to starvation, which is torture. There’s a good chance that Pink was literally tortured by her care-givers.

And, poor Pink Pearl. I don’t know what happened, but whether it was a scream or some physical altercation, it was frightening enough that she broke her pearl so badly, it couldn’t be repaired, which as seen in RS’s concept drawings, Pink is really fucked up by this. She becomes more introverted with her feelings because of this.

Don’t Break This One.

I’m not going to comment on whether these actions make her “bad” or “abusive.” She was clearly a child in an emotionally maladaptive environment, and she did decide to change and to keep her anger and frustration internalized at the risk of harming the people around her.

But, unfortunately, the information after this is where I begin to feel disturbed by Pink’s actions.

She got a colony. At first, she liked it, but clearly, she either grew bored or disenchanted with managing it. I feel as though she was expecting some sort of freedom, when really, the extra responsibilities probably just weighed her down even more.

The events of ‘A Single Pale Rose’ come into play now. Pearl suggested they go down to Earth, and Pink felt her first taste of unrestrained freedom. She liked interacting with other gems, liked interacting with humans, and finally decided that she didn’t want to destroy the Earth. And, she did beg all the Diamonds to let her give up the colony, but not only had Pink kinda shot herself in the foot with this one because she begged so hard for a colony and made so many big scenes about it, White and Yellow are incredibly steadfast in tradition and rules, and this wasn’t going to fly.

So, she decided to take drastic action.

I personally think that the idea to fake her own death was…weird. And, pretty extreme. I understand her reasoning, but this was the first time where she made a decision that benefited her far more than it did others (and I’m not talking about the planet right now because that’s a whole separate thing). This action traumatized Pearl to the point where she doesn’t eat, won’t shapeshift, and can’t talk about it. Yes, I know she commanded Pearl not to talk about it, but this caused significant emotional distress for her later on in the series.

This also traumatized the whole gem race, specifically the Diamonds, because she’d framed it as a terror attack. It would be way different if she stood up to White herself publicly, but there was so much deception going on that it fundamentally changed the course of Gem Culture and the fate of the Earth. Mostly what bothers me here is how manipulative this action was and how unnecessarily complex it was. Pink did everything she could to wipe her slate clean, be seen as a martyr of Gemkind, and also live freely on Earth.

It was a very good way to get her freedom, but it was also extremely harmful to all parties involved.

The War only escalated at this point. They had to fight Homeworld as a full-on army, and countless of gems were shattered.

Now, yes, of course, these actions saved the Earth, which is good in our perspective because we live on Earth. Earth is essential to us because it is our only frame of reference. But, something that continually complexed the Homeworld gems was why someone would fight for one measly planet at the cost of so much. It makes sense to us because we would sacrifice a whole heck of a lot to keep our planet from being invaded by space aliens, but the gems were colonizing tons of planets and destroying them for energy. It was obviously horrible as colonizers are horrible, but it’s sort of like how different armies will invade other countries, but because we’re being told that it’s for good, most people don’t really care.

From the gem’s perspective, this was all a horrible disaster—a loss of countless life, resources, and pride.

And, for The Crystal Gems, the “loss” of the war meant that all of their friends were corrupted, except Rose’s closest friends (which I’m personally unsure if this is completely truthful. I would hope it would be, but it’s also very suspicious because letting only the people that trust her the most survive would make it easier to control her own story).

Speaking of which, wtf is up with her bubbling Bismuth? It just feels like it would be easier to hide her away instead of trying to explain why she doesn’t want to shatter the Diamonds. But, Rose shattered Pink, anyway? I personally believe Bismuth was too close to figuring out her story, and she didn’t know what to do. I can’t think of any other explanation that would explain her actions and make sense with telling the Crystal Gems she’d been shattered. It feels very manipulative and selfish.

All of this obviously traumatized Pearl (we see it in her Pearl within a Pearl within a Pearl), and it had to have traumatized Garnet considering her reactions to mentions of the war and the “fusion” experiments. It was especially bad on Garnet’s end because she thought the war was actually what Rose said it was, which is why she freaked out when it wasn’t.

She kept secrets from everyone, even Her Pearl. But, Pearl didn’t know that she didn’t know everything. You could call Pearl delusional, but I think this is more proof that Rose never did something in front of her that made her feel like she was being untruthful.

And, I said y’all don’t want to get me started on Rose’s treatment of Pearl because I go feral when I get worked up about it. I would like to personally thank @theroguefeminist for their meta on Rose/Pearl and Fandom Ableism. It’s super good, and it was the meta that made me finally sit down and watch all of SU way back in the day. But, it illustrates the point that fandoms tend to look down on characters that act “bitter,” “weak,” “jealous,” “depressed,” or “neurotic.” It’s even more sinister because the reason why Pearl acts the way she does in the first two seasons is because she’d been manipulated by Rose.

She was Pink’s Pearl, her partner in crime, her renegade. They were the Heroes of The Rebellion. Pearl admitted she had feelings for her, and Rose’s response was enthusiastic (“Don’t ever stop!”). From what we’ve seen, the disregard of her feelings only began when she started dating Greg, considering Pearl didn’t see “the men who came into her life now and again” as threats because they “didn’t really matter until [him].” But, the treatment that we see of Pearl in “Story for Steven” and “We Need to Talk” is dismissive at best and cruel and uncaring at the worst.

After Greg was trying to flirt with Rose, Pearl said defensively, “I can sing!” and they laughed at her. Even Rose beamed. They were basically making fun of her when Pearl was only reacting that way because she loved Rose and felt threatened by Greg, even at this point.

I do want to add that I think Rose was trying to be a good person by telling Greg to go away. She made a good point that he shouldn’t give up on his dreams to be with her (especially considering that she knew that nothing would become of him in a place like Beach City). But, she was wooed by him. She laughed and gave into her instincts to surround herself with people who look up to her (even Vidalia said something about how Greg worships her).

But, I find Rose’s treatment of her in “We Need to Talk” to be unnecessarily flippant. Obviously, Pearl was very upset during the whole “What Can I Do For You?” song, and her last ditch effort was to show off Rainbow Quartz and try to belittle his efforts, but Greg was rightly defensive. This doesn’t mean Pearl was being “salty” or “abusive” or “bitchy.” She was reacting negatively towards the emotional neglect that Rose was showing her. Of course, we don’t know every interaction that Pearl and Rose had, but it’s very heavily implied that Rose never communicated with Pearl how their relationship was developing.

I do not, I repeat—I DO NOT—think that Pearl was owed Rose’s love. What I think is neglectful about this situation is that Rose didn’t either apologize or properly explain the nature of their relationship. It’s implied that Rose made her believe they were an item and then proceeded to sleep around and eventually find an alternative partner. No one is owed affection with someone who doesn’t want to be romantically involved, but to lead someone on for thousands of years is horrible, and the idea makes me nauseous, especially since the fandom is more likely to blame Pearl even though Pearl was literally her glorified slave and only able to break out of that thought process years after Steven was born.

Pearl was so emotionally fucked up by Rose’s possible emotional neglect that she had several traumatic episodes starting from “Indirect Kiss” and culminating in her “Cry for Help.” She literally believed she was powerless and felt so weak that she thought the only way to feel agency was to manipulate and extort affection from Garnet. I’m also not defending Pearl for doing this, but it’s clear that she did this because she was mentally ill and not because she was knowingly or maliciously disregarding Garnet’s feelings to fulfill her own needs. Trauma episodes often cause you to act in destructive ways towards yourself and others, but it’s also very different from how Rose did disregard the feelings of others to get her way, or have fun, or “play” with people.

It also reminds me of her treatment of Spinel. Pink was having fun with Spinel until they decided to give her a colony, and then, instead of bringing Spinel with her or sending her back to the Diamonds, she told her to stay there, and she abandoned her for 6,000 years with no plans of returning for her. To be fair, it would really mess up the Crystal Gem dynamic if she suddenly returned with a Spinel who was gifted to Pink Diamond. So, in Rose’s perspective, I get it, but as myself, I don’t think it’s right.

Greg, even, I think was taken advantage of. He’s so sweet and trusting and good that she would easily have been able to get him to do anything. I’m not going to go too much into this because there’s not too much evidence besides her behavior towards him in “Greg the Babysitter” and how she laughed at him in “We Need to Talk.” I just have the feeling that Greg knows something that no one else does and that his perma-sunburn might have something to do with Rose and/or Steven’s conception. Don’t take my word for it since this is just a theory, but I do think there’s something we don’t know yet.

Alright, now that most of the character stuff is out of the way, let’s talk Rose symbolism. In almost every episode, there’s a shot of Rose’s portrait with her eyes covered or something obscuring them. This is classic anime imagery of a suspect character, and it’s foreshadowing of her suspect actions. All of her organic experiments eventually go rouge without constant maintenance from Rose (see: the moss in “Lars and the Cool Kids,” the thorns in “Indirect Kiss”). We don’t know why this happens, but it points to the idea that there’s something malignant lurking underneath Rose’s creations.

Rose’s Room also has disturbing implications. The fact that it gives Steven whatever he wants, but more often than not, it turns into psychological horror is telling. It may be that Steven just doesn’t know how to use the room, but also, the Gems didn’t want him to go in there. (“It doesn’t know how to handle a task like that!” What do you know, Pearl????) The creepiest one, in my opinion, was how the Fake Connie he made in “Open Book” eventually turned on him, attacked him, and basically physically forced him to admit feelings he wanted to keep hidden. I’m not saying this is the intended purpose of the room, but I find it troubling that it can be used in this way and defaults to it when there isn’t anything stopping it. It could also be that when the illusion the room makes is broken that it reverts to an angry (and dare I say Pink Diamond-esque) temperament.

My final point is how her decision to have Steven, even though eventually for good, hurt many people, Steven included. To make the decision to die and have a kid was confusing to everyone, but more so, the gems. They don’t understand human reproduction outside of a biological level, and the fact that gems normally can’t sexually reproduce makes the concept even more foreign. It seems like she explained that she was doing it and would die but didn’t fully prepare the gems about what that would entail. I think this is most clearly seen in “Three Gems and a Baby” because the Crystal Gem’s behavior towards baby Steven reflected Pearl’s response to emotional neglect, such as acting impulsively and dangerously just for not understanding the complexities of the situation.

Their whole dynamic was screwed up, and they all felt deeply hurt by Rose’s death. If you compare how they act at the beginning of the series to the end, they were basically all at each other’s throats because they couldn’t communicate properly due to all the undealt with baggage that had been left behind. It ended up becoming Steven’s job to emotionally support the gems when he should have been the one being emotionally supported. This imbalance of “the parents being the child” and “the child being the parents” is a huge reason why we see Steven in such emotional distress during Future. He’s internalized the idea that he should be the leader, the supporter, the helper, and he hasn’t properly been able to find his own identity because Rose looms over all of them (see: “Rose Buds”).

It’s hard to say whether Rose intentionally left Steven to clean up her mistakes or if she just felt like he could fix it all when she couldn’t, but there is no denying that Rose’s actions have seriously messed up our boy. This is the clearest theme presented in the show, so I’m not going to go super hard on this topic because basically the whole show is Steven angsting over his mom.

So, the point of all of this is that, yes, Pink was abused. There is no doubting that she was very badly abused and developed her personality and coping mechanisms due to this trauma. However, Rose has hurt her friends, family, and gemkind due to her actions. A lot of abusers have been abused. I know my abuser was abused in the same way I was, but that doesn’t give her an excuse to enact that abuse on me. It’s the same as Rose. Her bad upbringing gives context about why she turned out the way she did, but it’s incredibly short-sighted to say that Rose acted in mostly good ways towards others.

And, she knows she’s bad. Whether or not Rebecca will outright admit what the song is about, we have enough context to know that “Love Like You” is Rose talking to Greg (if not the other gems as well).

“I always thought I might be bad Now I’m sure that it’s true ‘cause I think you’re so good And, I’m nothing like you

Look at you go I just adore you I wish that I knew What makes you think I’m so special”

Rose is admitting that she thinks she’s bad and isn’t special and doesn’t understand what Greg sees in her. She knows she’s done bad things, but in my opinion, she didn’t do enough to fix her problems. She made Steven instead. It was her final act of avoidance. Maybe she gave up on herself. Maybe she knew she couldn’t “Love Like You.” I don’t know the answer to that. I just know that Rose’s actions were abusive. She’s not good. She’s morally gray. She did good things, but she did many bad things as well. She’s not evil, but she is the series’ antagonist. She has good things about her, but she has many bad things as well. People can be two things. But, saying she’s not an abuser is making excuses for her behavior.

Here are my answers to a few common complaints on my shitpost meme.

Q: Rose didn’t want to cause war! She just wanted to free the planet/have freedom/save the gems, ect. A: If she didn’t want to cause war, she very well could have…not started the war? There are much less destructive options than pretending to be a rebel when she really was a Diamond. The double life thing is so ridiculous, no one in the show could even guess it. Q: Don’t discredit her Rebellion! A: I just think she cared more about herself than she actually did the Earth. The Rebellion did save the Earth, but not without crazy death and destruction. Q: Pink was good compared to Japser, the Diamonds, Lapis, ect. A: All of you saying that those other characters are bad while Rose is good totally misses the point. All those characters did abusive things. So did Rose/Pink. Pink is good and bad. It’s really showing your ass that you hate x, y, z but will cape for Pink even though she’s probably caused the most harm of the entire series. Whatever happened to all those morally grey arguments?

Q: This take is bad! A: soz bruh cry harder Q: This is black and white thinking. A: I shouldn’t have to explain every aspect of a character in a shitpost. This meta is my full explanation, so here’s my morally grey meme uwu

Q: Blue, Yellow, and White are colonizers and also really abusive. A: Yes. It doesn’t negate Pink��s actions, though.

Q: Pink Pearl was an accident! She changed after!!! That’s not abuse!!!!!!! A: Abuse isn’t always intentional, and we don’t canonically know it was an accident. Pink Pearl said that it was, but she admitted she was making excuses for her. But, accident or not, hurting someone deeply can be abuse if it’s not dealt with. Pink Pearl was not dealt with. She was brainwashed for 8,000 years, instead. Pearl-Pearl helped her deal with it. The continual explosive anger from Pink was abusive, hands down.

Q: She’s not a villain! A: She certainly is framed as Steven’s villain. Regardless of what you personally think of Pink, Steven is deeply disturbed and harmed by Rose’s actions. It’s literally the whole plot of the show! If Pink is eventually redeemed, I won’t mind, but she’s irredeemable in my eyes.

#steven universe #steven universe future #pink diamond #rose quartz #su #suf #steven universe future spoilers #steven universe spoilers #su spoilers #suf spoilers #mine #meta #abuse

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allthebest20 · 4 years ago

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Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

8/10. A joy to read and a great debut novel. I think the author has even better work ahead of her. The characters are complex and unique, and the book explores modernity, pain, and generational spirituality in a very readable style. I couldn’t help but make assumptions about the author as I read the book: definitely Nigerian, definitely a cook, definitely spent time in London and Canada, definitely queer, definitely raised in the Church, but also definitely spiritual. The authenticity with which she writes, especially in regards to being queer in the modern world and the cultures of different places, is what makes this book great. The story dances between the gruesome details of reality in the twenty-first century and romanticized views of youth and love. It raises a lot of questions in me about the international class system, wealth, and privilege.

The only real complaint that I have is around one of the main plot points: the rape of Kehinde when she is 12. While this is a turning point in all their lives, I feel as though it is also simultaneously underappreciated, as if the author choose this event simply because it was one of the worst things she could think of. I think this is a common pit fall for authors. A lot of traumatic things happen to this family: Kambi, the mother, is very mental ill, Banji, the twin’s beloved father, is murdered, Taiye, the queer twin, struggles with her own mental health. Yet, the rape is regarded as the primary Bad Thing and all the other traumatic events are hardly discussed. I appreciate how the author takes some time, maybe 1 chapter, to discuss Kehinde’s relationship to sex and her body. Yet, Kehinde’s life seems to be mostly unaffected by this event, except in the way she punishes her family with her silence. She is in a healthy relationship. She does not abuse alcohol or drugs. She has a successful career. Ultimately, it’s not a book about overcoming childhood sexual abuse. It’s a book about mending a family after years of pain, resentment, distance, and silence. I almost feel as though the book could have been stronger if it focused more on the effects of Banji’s death and Kambi’s violence and depression on the twins. Ultimately, though, sexual abuse is just a thing that happens to a lot of kids, and perhaps it serves a purpose to write a book where it happens, it’s horrible, but it doesn’t need to be put under a magnifying glass. It just reverberates.

This book could have been about a lot of things. When I picked it off the shelf at the library, I barely read the entire description, immediately caught by the spiritual nature of Kambi’s being and the brief mention of “reckless hedonism.” I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Taiye was a lesbian, and I saw a lot of myself in her: the serial string of intense relationships, always slated to go nowhere, the indulgence in food and weed and dancing and occasionally other drugs, the loneliness and missing family but not being able to connect with them, the exploration of religion and spirituality and non-monogamy, seeing and feeling things you don’t know are real. I feel like a lot of modern young adults live like Taiye does, unsure what to look for except comfort. I love how the author mentioned the chaotic draw of dating apps. I love how Taiye is a stoner. I love how Taiye loves organic butter and fair trade chocolate and cooking extravagant meals for anyone who will eat it. I LOVE how the author includes recipes for what Taiye is cooking. Although I probably won’t use those recipes, I did want to cook what Taiye was cooking, and it reads just like my brain reads when I am absorbed in a culinary project. This book could have been more about what it means to be a lesbian, but it only barely describes her formative romantic and sexual experiences. The author details the first time Taiye calls her self gay out loud and has queer sex, but this is long after she has had gay feelings and gay experiences. The author does not explore Taiye’s inner turmoil, and it is unclear if Taiye struggles at all with her sexuality in the long term.

I also like how the book explores mental illness. It doesn’t shy away from both the good and the bad parts. It doesn’t shame medication use. It explores the spiritual powers of those who’s brains work differently. Kambi’s voice explores suicide in an interesting way: both from the frequent pull of the voices, asking Kambi to escape the pain of living, and Kambi’s own knowledge that she wants to remain here with her family. Although I have perhaps 0 hard examples of mental illness being spiritual, I still want to believe that those who hear voices, who see things, who feel things, are connected to the spiritual in a way that those who live entirely in reality are not. This book explores one such case. I also found it interesting how Taiye inherits some of Kambi’s crazy (struggles to speak as a young child, depressed, sleep walks) and some of Kambi’s magic (draws people to her, sees and hears beyond). This make Taiye feel closer to her mom as she ages, while Kehinde remains unsure. This book could have been more about generational mental illness and the pain and distance it causes, but instead the author focuses on the magic of it all. It asks, quietly, if the girls should be mad at their mother, can they be mad at her? From the outside, Kehinde knows that Kambi is respoinsible for the scar on Taiye’s face, but yet we, the audience, know that Kambi had to do this to prevent Taiye from killing the rapist, Uncle Earnest. Does Kehinde know this? How can she understand? In a family, we have no choice but to forgive and let live if we cannot understand, or else remain alienated. This is the underlying message of the book.

The book has a complicated timeline: the main story line follows the events of a six month period in which the three main characters are united again in Lagos, after over a decade apart. Slowly, in tangents, the three characters’ backstory is explained.

The book features a few key locations:

Nigeria (specifically Abeokuta, where Kambirinachi is born, Ife, where she spends her youth, and Lagos, where she raises her family),

London (where the twins were born and where Taiye lived for 9 years during and after university),

and Canada (Kehinde lives in Montreal since attending university there and Taiye lives in Halifax after London).

I’ve never been to Nigeria or London, but I love the way the author writes the dialogue and the characters from each place. I cannot say if they are accurate, but they have a clear and unique voice, not homogeneous but also representative of those place-based qualities that unite an area. The characters give me a glimpse into what it feels like to be Nigerian abroad vs. Nigerian at home. She rarely writes about interpersonal incidents of racism: the characters are mostly well liked, treated nicely by the people in their life, given opportunities. I think that contributes to the feeling of romanticism in the story. Racism is discussed on a more systematic level: they have problems at the airport, Taiye learns about the history of racism in Canada. As someone who has been to Canada, knows about the history of Canada, and lives very close to Canada, I enjoyed hearing about Taiye learning about Canada’s dark side, something that is so rarely discussed by the general public. However, for those of us who are interested, the evidence is everywhere. The history is just waiting to be explored by anyone who is interested in looking just slightly beyond the state-issued textbooks. I thought the way the author wrote about Canada was really authentic, which convinces me that the way she writes about London and Nigeria must also be accurate. What it must be like to be Ekwuyasi, so intimately familiar with places so far apart.

There was one line in the book that really stuck with me: as Taiye is traveling home, she passes through the busy streets of Lagos, crowded with street children, and she is reminded of her privilege in a very visual way, something she doesn’t get in Canada or London. This is the view the West wants us to have of Africa: a whole continent made of dirty huts and begging children on busy urban roads. Yes, poverty looks different in Nigeria than it does in Canada, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in Nigeria is somehow poorer. In fact, this family has a beautiful compound and a trust fund. Despite having a trust fund, Taiye still makes decisions on a strict budget and denies herself luxuries to save money, the way I do. I don’t really know a lot of people with trust funds, so I can’t tell if this is an international thing or if there are American kids who act like this. It kind of annoyed me when Taiye wrote to the culinary program saying she didn’t have enough to pay for the program, when in reality she just didn’t want to dip into her trust fund. I don’t know if there were limited spots/funds available for people who couldn’t afford to pay full price, but I hate when rich people forget what it means to actually not have money. Being cheap and being poor are two different things, often way more opposing than people think. Rich people are often the ones who know how to exploit the system to get what they want for less, while the poor are left with less connections and less time to work it.

Still, I refrain from delivering too harsh judgement on Taiye. I do not know the size of the trust fund. I know their family home was a gift, so perhaps the fund is to be saved for medical emergencies and property taxes. I’m not sure how insurance or taxes work in Nigeria, although I know the government is very unstable. How did they pay for international university? Did that come from the trust fund? The whole plot line has me thinking a lot about wealth and class on an international level. While I grew up comfortably, I often felt like my family was poor because of how rich everyone in our town was. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a compound and see homeless children often, but also ingest international media that cast your entire country as poor and to know your government is unstable.

All in all, the book touches on many of the central issues of modern life While it only brushes the surfaces of these topics, it had me thinking for days and wanting to know more. Perhaps I will search out an some Nigerian autobiographies / memoirs in the future.

#book #fiction #francesca ekwuyasi #butter honey pig bread #cooking #nigeria #lagos #canada #london #halifax #twins #queer #family #spiritual #religion #wealth #class #mental illness #mental health

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