#i'm not even necessarily upset with the results i just also REALLY want to watch severance

[interpolationz]

everyday i wake up and go, wow i really want to watch severance, and then i watch five hours of sonic gameplay on youtube instead

[winged-cries]

Sorry if you've already talked about this before, but what do you think about the notion that horror is generally bad because it has a misogyny problem, and that exploitation / r&r films are problematic and the ppl who watch them are suspicious? i don't really know how to explain what i mean too well but i know you usually have very nuanced takes about this kind of thing 🤍

i think i understand what you mean, no worries 🖤

honestly i don't think horror has a greater misogyny problem than any other film genre, though how the problem presents itself may be different. it's maybe more blatant within horror but not necessarily worse. movies have a misogyny problem across all genres, i don't think horror is special in that. horror films do inspire some strong reactions though, so i can understand why it prompts more discussion in that vein.

rape & revenge is a particular case, and it's difficult to discuss. i have a lot of thoughts about it, but i find it hard to put it down in writing because they're not very cohesive. i actually did a little research and asked around for material about r&r because i wanted to give an informed opinion but i didn't find much. it'd be easier for me to discuss particular movies anyway, because i don't think i've explored the genre deeply enough.

there are some &r movies i really really love and i know some people watch them because they find the degradation of women titillating -- that upsets me but it doesn't stop me from enjoying or admiring the movie itself. some r&r movies are, in my opinion, really interesting and engaging and i'd go so far as to call them beautiful and thoughtful. of course for each of those you'll probably find a greater number of misogynistic drivel -- but i can't affirm that for sure because so much of my experience has been guided by what other women have watched, enjoyed and recommended, so i've probably avoided whatever didn't have much to offer. but then that's always really subjective -- for example, i don't care for i spit on your grave but my mom sort of loves it. i don't think her opinion is any less valid than mine, and i find opinions differ a lot when it comes to r&r.

i do have a question that i'd like to pose to you but also anyone else reading this, which is -- what you think of when you think of rape & revenge? do you consider only exploitation movies or do you also consider titles like the virgin spring or kuroneko? because of course there's a lot to be discussed about exploitation films, and how some directors managed to make genuinely interesting works while trying to remain commercial and please a certain audience. like, there are things in r&r exploitation films that i could do without but i can still admire the final result. but then sometimes i think of like, thriller: a cruel picture and how the pornographic scenes impact the movie in a way that i personally find interesting because it makes it all the more brutal, and the director really managed to make it all very non-erotic and even cold and distant... sort of going through the motions in a way that imo fits perfectly with what's going on.

but there's just so much to discuss about exploitation and about r&r specifically, a lot of my thoughts are not very cohesive or well informed. i'm curious to know how others feel about it, especially other women, and i'd love to discuss it more. but it's hard to give a solid opinion because i can see the matter through many different angles. like, of course the fact that r&r often targets a male audience while exploiting the suffering and degradation of women is a problem and reflective of a bigger one. but many r&r movies have genuine value and, more importantly, have real value to a lot women.

[lillyanne4writes]

JJK/Gege Akutami appreciation post

Yeah, you read that title right. I get it that the entire fandom is upset with the latest leaks but I've seen so many angry/hateful comments toward Gege and it's making me sad. So here's a post to highlight some things I like about JJK. :)

This is in no way a complete list, so feel free to add on with your own takes too! Also, it's a long post, so I'm putting the meat of it under the cut.

The characters & their dynamics

Jjk has a huge cast, and yet every character is so unique and compelling. The reason I got into this anime (and later the manga) despite not really being into anime in general was how charming the main four characters were. Yuuji, Nobara, Megumi and Gojo immediately hooked me; I could probably watch 10 seasons of a slice of life show that's just them getting into shenanigans.

Fun interactions aside, my favourite thing about the characterisation is how everyone in this manga is allowed to have their own view on the world, especially on what it means to live a good life and die a good death. The narrative allows those views to clash without preaching about who is "correct". Characters disagree and learn from each other and their views develop organically (not necessarily in a positive direction, but always dynamically in a response to the situations they find themselves in - Yuuji's arc on how he views himself and his goals comes to mind). That stuff is really hard to write.

And it's not just the main cast either. The supporting characters are very memorable too; even minor ones have distinct personalities and clear motivations and often a backstory to explain why they are the way they are. My personal favourite background characters are Mai, Noritoshi and Tsumiki.

The worldbuilding

Can we talk about how creative the concept of curses and cursed energy is? Negative emotions accumulating into physical manifestations of things that people fear, hate, etc. is a hell of a cool idea. This is why the curse villains are my favourites in the series: from Mahito as a representation of the worst of humanity in his childish glee and sadism and cowardice to Jogo's philosophy of curses as "true beings" because they don't hide their nature and Hanami's almost sympathetic care for nature are all interesting explorations of how we view the world around us that would not be possible in a different kind of magic system. Add to that the array of creative techniques that sorcerers possess, the cursed objects, and the grade system that conveniently allows us to keep track of the danger levels of all this - you get an impressively complex magic system that still remains understandable (and fun to watch even if you don't want to keep track of the nitty-gritty and are just here for the spectacle).

Not to mention that jujutsu society is, well, a society. We get a sense of who the powerful and the oppressed are in this community, how their powers factor into that, how different characters feel about this, what they are doing to change it or on the contrary, to keep the traditions going... Every character exists in the web of a clear power structure which they interact with, influencing it and being influenced in turn. This results in a super interesting dynamic where certain characters can be enemies one moment (for example when the Kyoto students try to kill Yuuji during the exchange event on Gakuganji's, and by extension the higher-ups' orders) and allies the next (when it's time to pull together against a curse).

I'm reserving my judgement on the plot, themes and overall character arcs for now, because those things can only be really analysed once the story is complete. But even if I'll be unhappy with the ending, I'll still be very grateful for this unique world and its loveable inhabitants.

Of course, you might disagree with me on all this, and that's fine. Dropping the manga because you don't like the direction the story took is fine. Choosing to live in fanfiction delulu land is also fine. Gritting your teeth and sticking it out till the end despite disliking the plot because you're too invested to quit is also fine. Criticism and jokes are fine. The one thing that isn't fine is hating on the creator for the way they are choosing to tell their story.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Tl;dr: If you're upset about the direction JJK is taking, please try to remember why you cared so much about it in the first place. And remember that Gege is just a person sharing a story with us, and disliking someone's story is not an acceptable reason to hate on them.

[c6jpg]

okay okay arlecchino story quest thoughts

overall i liked it but mainly the whole duel sequence which was fucking awesome but some points that bugged me:

the release of arlecchino's animated short basically spoiling the entire story quest

mentioned in the tags of my previous post but yeah i think the story quest would have been a lot more... idk interesting? revealing? if the animated short had been released after this patch/story quest. you basically spend the entire first half of the story quest already knowing the "twist" and have to watch literally everyone else figure it out which is never really engaging nor fun story telling.

like you KNOWWW arlecchino is not "that evil" and you KNOWWWWW all these atrocities were from the previous knave so seeing literally everybody go through these theatrics is a little. sigh. idk. like i was just waiting to get to the boss fight bc i knew the corresponding cutscenes would be awesome (and they were) and getting random fatui insider knowledge was fun i enjoyed having what was effectively seeing arlecchino and childe in the office break room but we didn't really learn anything we didn't already know

also. arlecchino is hardly the first but it really is just kinda. sigh when you basically get a whole scene of the character explaining their OWN tragic backstory. once again genshin fails to show not tell

freminet

i know a lot of people are upset about the freminet timeline. honestly idc at this point i'll suspend my belief whatever yadda yadda but i do think it was a cop out for freminet to have like. not at least been SUSPICIOUS that clervie was possibly talking about the previous knave just because crucabena "didn't talk about it and all the experiments ended" by the time he joined the house

like he spent a significant time with clervie (half a month right?) trying to help her out and even if clervie was "a child stuck in the past" she wasn't exactly trying to hide anything and they ALL knew she was some sort of ghost or maybe something tied to memories/leylines. and he KNEW crucabena so i'm just like. a little aghast he didn't have any damn idea like at least make him suspicious right so he and the traveler can join heads and be like "hmmmmmmm something is not right here HMMMMMMMMM" like if you are SO sure arlecchino isn't "that kind of person" (ig this was more lyney saying this but still) wouldn't you consider maaaaaaaaaaaybe the previous knaves were?

there was a single moment when they were at the table sharing intel that freminet was "lost in thought" and i think that would have been a fantastic moment for freminet to be the star and voice his suspicious but we got literally nothing from that.

honestly just disappointed freminet didn't do more in the story tbh. the trailer was really hyping him up to literally change the game lol

the results of the duel

i mean we saw it coming we knew she was gonna spare those children somehow. idrk how to describe it like on one hand yes would be nice to have more morally fucked up characters and its a little disappointing that arlecchino isn't "that bad" she's actually super normal all things considering (childe fucking LIED) on the other hand i don't necessarily hate this is the way they made her character? but the result of the duel still felt like a huge cop out lmao like it was basically an indirect "your resolve towards family impressed me so i'll let them live" which was exactly how i didn't want this to be resolved but also don't know how they would have done it otherwise

arlecchino's curse/flames/????????

GIRL CAN YOU ELABORATE PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE i know it has to do with her being part of some khaenrian (?) bloodline or something but lajdksfldjflads can you elaborate what do you mean your flames can be extracted and burn memories we're just all gonna take that and run with it huh

anyways.

regardless i loved the main battle cutscene in her boss form. loved that bit where she blocked freminet and lynette's dual attack and was like "sorry for what? this pitiful excuse for an attack?" i was banging my fist on the table i loved that bit sooooooooooo fucking much dear god

ending cutscene was expected and bittersweet but i liked it a lot as well. really the graphics and me just really liking arlecchino saved this quest for me LOL i think it has a lot of plot holes compared to other story quests but also a much more interesting story (bar is in hell) although you're guaranteed to get some sort of lore with a weekly boss but anyways it averages out to being a pretty okay but not spectacular story quest 👍 maybe like a 6/10, would have rated it higher if the animated short didn't spoil everything

[shivasdarknight]

I got tagged by @mxkelsifer to take a uquiz for my wols about what's inside their chest

Tagging @hyllhund @lordguru @morgmot and honestly anyone who wants to do it .o.

Hilariously, both Surkie AND Melisande got the same result:

Alt text available. What's funny to me is that it way fits Surkie more than it does Melisande. While Melisande is definitely burnt out and scarred from all that has happened to her, it's not really because she burnt from personal connections. Sure she's upset about Laniaitte and the people she managed to connect with, but she's more focused on herself and puts herself above everyone else.

It's Surkie who's that way because of reaching out and getting hurt. Ysayle's (seeming) death is what fucked with her the most, and in AUs where Surkie is not the wol and Ysayle does die, it's borderline irreparable damage that fucks her up even more. Her relationships with Estinien and Aymeric are very much so built on that idea of soothing the pain through time, trust and forgiveness - Aymeric in the immediate fallout, Estinien in the long run - but this only applies if she's the WoL. If she isn't, it doesn't really get resolved. Somewhat through Cylva, but they're both chasing people they shouldn't be.

Gwen's is...

Idk. I'm not really sure with Gwen. She's also a loner type who looks out for her own interests, though she's more charitable than Melisande. She wants to help, but she doesn't want the personal connections that come from it so that she doesn't wind up attached. Her becoming a WoL is what threw a wrench in that.

She's not just a pretty face or pleasant song to most; like, she's someone who's very firm about her boundaries and establishing what someone's relationship to her is. Being unsure if adoration or love being sincere absolutely is a factor, but she's just reasonably suspicious of everyone. Too much goes wrong in her field to begin with (since she built her conjury skills on healing those the Elementals denied), but once she's a WoL her cautious attitude about people (not necessarily the illegality of her research, though) becomes an asset. She does need someone she can trust, but it's not so much a soulmate situation and more having to build that for herself. And that's honestly found in her Warrior of Light companions, and especially in Surkukteni. For her, bonds are harder to form for her own safety, and watching Surkie be destroyed by bonds only firmed her stance on the matter ever further.

[robynrileyart]

12 and 16 for character of your choice :D (or cause i just saw him o'connelly if thats how you spelled it)

character developing questions!!! // @tacticaltaxonomist

oh HIII thank you so much for sending me some questions!!! o'connelly is my baby boy call of duty oc who was first born in my soapghost fanfic series 'CRUSH.' over on ao3 :') he's in both POVs of the CRUSH. fics, and in GLASS DELUSION. too as a little cameo! at that point, he wasn't anything major. he was really just a side character i didn't care about to fill out the action scenes. BUT! he's grown on me and now he's all i think about so i'm very excited to get to talk about my boy o'connelly ♥

12. In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been?

first things first: connie is NOT a calm man. he's constantly stressed out and while at work, he's tense. serious. almost sombre. outside of work or during downtime, he's a lot more relaxed and can laugh with people, but for the most part, and for his entire life, connie accepts that his neutral emotion is to be stressed. despite that, though, he's got a very calming presence and is great at deescalating situations. connie is the medic you want tending to you if you're hurt, that's for sure. he will tailor the care to the individual's perceived needs. BUT despite looking so, he is not calm at all in those situations. he's in control, but not calm.

the most calm he's ever ever been has got to be some time when he's with someone else. if he's by himself, he's thinking everything over and that rarely results in much peace. also, if he's with someone, he feels safer in case something happened. so i'll say he's watching a movie on the couch with his boyfriend, snuggled in close. so he's distracted by the movie, feeling safe because Rush (@/ithinkthiswasabadidea's oc!) is there and he's getting cuddles. all connie's needs are met, he's content. until someone does some really bad medical work in the movie and then he's annoyed because HOW HARD IS IT TO RESEARCH THAT???

16. Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success?

HAPPINESS. success IS happiness for him. if you'd have asked him early on in his life, though, he would have said success would have been a nice house, good money, to be married. but with all of that in perfect reach in his early twenties, he realised that success isn't as easily defined. he had been engaged at the time to someone he loved who would also become a doctor. they'd have a nice house, they'd make very good money, and they'd be together. but as he looked further down the path, he wondered about how kids fit into their allotted agenda. maybe zach would be interested, but what would the world look like with little zachs running around? a lot more stuck up, probably, and less accepting.

(this was the first in a series of red flags that connie picked up on in his final year of med school, that suggested he wouldn't be a good fit with zach. connie loves kids, and knew he'd want them too if possible, but zach isn't a parent kind of guy. he's never wanted kids. he doesn't express his love or his thoughts easily.)

anyway. did success mean a family? not necessarily, but it is something he always hoped for. connie did a lot of soul searching instead of revising during the exam period (BEEN THERE), and he realised that the nice house was just a building, and the money would sit in a bank account, and even the marriage was seeming less attractive. when he decided to change careers, though, he hadn't intended for it to break the engagement. he was really shocked by zach's negative reaction to connie wanting to join the military and ultimately they split up. honestly? connie kind of wasn't that upset about it. he has the opportunity to start afresh, even if that means not having the man he had assumed would be there through thick and thin by his side.

in the army, connie's expectation that he will live a long life is completely cut short. he doesn't like to think about it, but genuinely lives every day as if he could just die on duty tomorrow. not an unreasonable thought, really, but it means that in order to feel fulfilled in his life, he has to redefine success. it is easily attainable, almost everyone manages to achieve it. success becomes survival. and when he's emotionally stable enough that he can give himself room to hope, success will eventually become happiness. he isn't happy in the military, he is always stressed, but he is sometimes happy off duty. and he's happy when he gets to call his family, or hang out with his boyfriend and not have to think about work.

in the future, when he's out of the military, he thinks of himself as successful. as it happens, he has a nice house, and good money, and a loving marriage. he even has kids! but besides all of that, he's happy. (he's still stressed, don't get me wrong, but he is more commonly in the position to see the happiness in every day.)

[revoltinggirl-urethra]

growing pains are an interesting thing to consider, especially since i've always been a bit of a late bloomer. and i don't mean the literal kind necessarily, moreso the emotional and social sides. sure, the first puberty results in a ton of new physical sensations and shifts, but you can also see a grander sense of self arise as well. except middle schoolers don't quite have the practice at being a capital p Person yet that comes from years of having this social awareness under their belts. so they're bumbling, awkward, brash, shy, and so on.

i am going to do my best not to ramble too much. each time i go to start a new sentence i think of three things i want to say simultaneously and its resulted in a number of meandering paragraphs with no purpose (like this one ;p). i trust anyone who reads this (if anyone even does (not that it really matters)) to be able to do so without my millions upon millions of disclaimers and elaborations and vain efforts to contain the entire scope of my thoughts as well as their infinite addendums that strive to acknowledge the depth of discussion that i am not engaging with, because if i didn't allow myself to just fucking say the thing i would be here typing until the heat death of the universe. holy fucking shit dude that's all only three sentences. physically restraining myself from deleting that entire post-intro preamble and MOVING ON

so. i was a late bloomer. i've always struggled with this. the people around me seem to move through life at a pace i'm not quite capable of. i remember anxiously waiting for hair to finally start growing on my body years after my friends had fallen prey to voice cracks and gangly growth spurts. between this and my short and scrawny body i've always had a bit of a complex about my masculinity. it felt like something that others found very natural and yet i was constantly having to work to maintain mine. i once got very upset at a girlfriend who would not stop calling me cute. i wanted to be handsome, i wanted to be hot, i wanted to be desirable and respected as a Man. cuteness reeked of femininity and emasculation, of a debasement that felt awfully validating of my inkling that my grasp on manhood was tenuous at best. it's bad enough to think it, but now other people thought it too, and worse, they Liked it

as i got older i approached this issue by carving out a niche into masculinity that felt more comfortable for me, as opposed to trying to live up to an ideal that i didn't fit into. i began taking pride in looking bad. i grew out my facial hair despite being very aware that it was sparse and scraggly and unseemly, clad myself in garish, loud and clashing clothing, and played up my voice cracks for comedy. being me became a comedy performance, and it was around then that i think my fixation on finding social acceptance through humor really blossomed. i found that if i discarded my shame and made myself a spectacle purposefully, it became a kind of confidence that many people were attracted to.

this isn't to say that i didn't find genuine happiness in these things, whatever "genuine" means in this context. making people laugh made me very happy! it's satisfying, and almost nothing on this earth compares to a strong audience reaction to a piece that is honed as closely to perfection as possible. i took to theater like a fish to water because i think that i carried that infamous fourth wall with me anywhere i went. i was content to plop it down wherever and whenever i felt and make myself into a kind of show. behold!! an iconographic class clown, the ever-watched ADHD wonderboy! David himself is democratically constructed in the purest fashion! go ahead dear audience member, cast your vote with nothing but a laugh, and see as your pleasure becomes flesh manifest.

i'm getting pretentious. i'll back off it a little. the point is that i've spent a very long time struggling incredibly hard to figure out who the fuck i even am. i am obsessed no longer with an ideal of masculinity for my fixation is now one on an ideal of the self. as i say that i think that they are the same hunt, merely with different labels. it just so happens that i've found masculinity no longer essential to defining who i am as a person.

my egg cracking feels very similar to that middle school awkwardness. i can see in my younger brother, who is about that age now where he has begun to conceptualize the world in firmer terms than however the fuck a four year old does it. i watch him fumble about and play at a burgeoning sense of style (inspired by the perceived men around him, including me, funnily enough. i've lent him shirts and accessories of mine a number of times now) as well as dig deeper into what he wants out of life at large. his future career is no longer a mild dream but a goal to be worked towards, and with that comes both self-actualization and the growing need to define a goal to fulfill.

i also am going through the hell of puberty once again, even though the hormones haven't come yet (working on that though, fingers crossed on my HRT consultation going well and my anxiety not making me shit myself to death about it all). but even then, isn't that the norm for me? to experience that social awakening and then have to wait for my body to catch up? i'm a bit of an old hand at this song and dance, which one would hope means i'm more adept at it than otherwise. that doesn't really seem to be the case, however, hence the growing pains in question. i've become once more painfully conscious of my body and voice and self and expression and the way that the world interprets all of that and paints a picture of me in response.

it's.... harder now, even. maybe that thought is born of the distance between the me now and the me who yearned to be a proper Man, but in this case i am striving to break out of both that masculine box and the box that i've constructed myself independently to cope with it. there's a russian doll of eggs to crack here and they only become more intimate and raw and tender as i make more progress. instead of this threshold crossing becoming one in which discomfort is assuaged by the crafting of a persona, it is one in which i escape the comfort of falsehood and attempt to come down from my stage and be "me". how terrifying! what does that even mean!

there's a concern in the back of my mind now. one that wonders if chasing femininity now is not just another side step into a box. even now, on the eve of being twenty years old, i have not really figured out what it means to be content or happy with something. it's hard for me to conceptualize joy and to recognize it as it happens. or perhaps i can recognize it, but acknowledging it is what is hard. because it is true and real and things that are true and real are a little foreign to me. i'm making strides to remove the performative filter and in doing so exposing myself to a world of sensations, and well, it's overwhelming.

it would be easier to stop. it would be easier to sink back into this role and play the part of David the Man.

but just as much as i hope becoming Lily will be "good" for me, i must consider that remaining David will be "bad".

it's aggravating that there is no real way to quantify this, but that's just sort of how the cookie crumbles i guess.

but for now i am Lily. my name is Lily. my friends and family all call me Lily. i am a girl, even if i don't look the part yet, even if the painting that the world constructs based on the input i give it contradicts this idea. because that painting has always been wrong anyways. it's always been subject to my own manipulations and i am well within my power to separate my Self from it, because that's how it's always been anyways.

[lazaruswitch]

@star-archivist In response to your comment, since mine was getting long lol

Firstly, I'm really glad you like it! I knew while working on it that a lot of people would not care or would even dislike this AU because it's so different from what the desired idea of Jason or what they want from him. It was always going to be pretty specifically for me only, but I'm glad someone else is enjoying it.

Also yea definitely there will be internal conflicts resulting from the Bruce-Lily off, especially with certain bats over others. They range from similar reactions to other capes of "why are you upset your dead kid is alive/why are you upset a teen assassin reformed and settled down well as an adult" to kind of like uncomfortable with Lily's Everything TM and thus not caring to involve themselves or think too hard about Bruce's weird emotional thing, to just like "literally who cares this is just some lady".

Some of them would be awkward or uncomfortable with Lily definitely (see: Tim), but it will be for Very different and more boring generic reasons than Bruce's thing. Actually have a post about that in the tag that elaborates on the more personal/social aspect.

Others will probably get a bit agitated about the push and pull, like Stephanie. She's removed from the situation personally so she has more of an outsider's view, but to her it really seems like another "nothing ever satisfies Batman" thing but in some ways worse, which tbh she's not wrong for that. I will say at least for her, especially considering her limited information or involvement, there's probably at least some projection affecting her feelings on the matter, but that projection probably isn't wrong either.

Cass I think would be most normal about Lily besides Duke. For Cass, Lily is a random woman she has no history with, who obviously has no killing intent or criminal plans, is literally just some mom who doesn't like them being around or capes butting into her business. Like sure Lily used to be an assassin but she doesn't want to be a killer anymore and hasn't for years, she's happy to live a normal and fulfilling mostly civilian life with her daughter, that's great, Cass loves to see more people genuinely living better lives.

Cass doesn't have any of Bruce's baggage or weirdness attached to Lily at all, she doesn't care to pick apart Lily's very specific reasons for not killing because she doesn't care and like obviously it's working out perfectly fine, so Lily is just a reformed civilian woman with some vague past ties to Bruce and Dick that has nothing to do with her. She also definitely won't have Tim's hangups or discomforts because she doesn't care about those things. If anything she sees the genuine joy and contentment within Lily about how she looks and lives as something reassuring.

(Sidenote: I use "reformation" a lot when talking about Lily's history from the perspective of the bats/capes, but I would add that it has nothing to do with my personal view or how Lily perceives herself and her experiences. It's just a term/view that certain bats and other capes would think was appropriate.)

Duke is aware that a thing is happening, but ultimately much like Cass, does not care about the civilian woman he's never met before and has no connection too. He's watching this all go down and doesn't know why anything has to go down at all. Honestly besides affecting the moods and interactions between bats it really has no bearing on him.

Damian is interesting to think about because he straight up knows Lily, on a personal level. They're more acquaintance-y by the time any of this would theoretically happen, and Damian would have grown quite a bit, and they'd be polite enough but distant. But even without the shared connection to Bruce, Lily would basically be his cousin given her relation to Nyssa. (Backstory I never talked about? More likely thank you think!)

Damian wouldn't necessarily be Close to Lily, especially given how much time would have passed by the time of this series of events, but Lily was pretty decent to him as a kid, which he appreciates even if at least some of it was an obligation. He has this like, vague limited sense of respect or filial piety by virtue of her being an older sort of cousin who babysat him often enough. He would get occasional correspondence from her so he was never totally out of the loop about what she was up to, but it was more a distant awareness of yea I have this one kind of relative around somewhere.

Damian would be confused and even agitated about the Bruce-Lily conflict because he wouldn't understand why Bruce was upset with Lily for her past or her beliefs (why is Lily specifically a problem?), but also no one will really explain anything to him or want him in the loop. It gets a little more personal with him since again it's technically family and there's also some like cultural sensitivities being touched on. If left to his own devices Damian probably would shoot Talia a call or something at some point for consultation if anything but Lily would ask him to stay out of the situation.

On that note I imagine Damian and Lily would kind of reunite which wouldn't help Damian's inability to feel too close to the matter. I don't think they'd be buddy buddy best friends or anything, but an accessible and reliable older cousin who'll probably help you if you asked is so valuable to have in your life.

And as for Dick, well. What a mess is all I can say lol. He's kind of at the center of everything and the one always conflicting with Bruce over the matter. There's so much I can say about his role but that's what my attempt at a fic is for. He's like the most important and involved with Lily, literally knew about her long before everyone else and kept her secret upon request, wants so bad to be able to maintain this tentative connection to his sister, and then everything goes to shit because his family was getting nosy and decided crossing boundaries was the way to go and now he's practically back to square one with Lily and deeply angry with the situation and the bats and especially Bruce for not only ruining this for him but also being a bitch to him and Lily about it. It's so bad. Pray for Dick's sanity and well-being, genuinely, he's having such a bad time and trying so hard to regain some control and he's scared Lily will give up and leave and then he will never see his sister or niece again.

All this being said, I will confess that quite frankly I don't want the bats to find out Lily exists. I think everyone would be much happier that way, and it's also literally what Lily wants. Contemplating the possibilities is interesting but for the main au I genuinely would prefer that it's just Dick (and you know, Damian, though that's only revealed later) knowing about Lily, about Dick being able to cultivate a closer relationship than he was able to originally without the threat of bat interference. So this entire post is more of a hypothetical thing I'm toying with, au of an au if you will, but I would prefer that The Lily Pot au stay centered around Dick and Lily so batdrama probably won't be given as much thought or written out for a long while if ever.

Thinking about that take that's basically "if Jason gives up on killing it should have nothing to do with batman and co, and do little to improve their relationship because Bruce doesn't understand that other reason why Jason stopped"

(Fully agree with and love this for the record)

I always figured that if I ever decide to have Lily and Bruce meet in The Lily Pot au, it will not go well and absolutely not end in reconciliation

But I realized furthermore that Lily would definitely have killed many people some time during their post resurrection youth, and then decided to stop (excluding certain extreme cases that mostly don't involve humans anyway) and been satisfied not killing for several years before the theoretical reunion with Bruce even happens

But she also wouldn't regret what she had done, not in a way Bruce could accept, because ultimately her reasons for killing and for not killing have nothing to do with Bruce or his code and is entirely about herself and her beliefs and her growth, and Bruce in turn isn't able to really understand where she's coming from

It would be a source of strife between them (presuming Lily didn't pack her bags and go off the grid the second the bats got distracted)

Bruce wouldn't be able to understand or accept Lily or her thinking and beliefs,

and Lily would not in the slightest care about compromise or sympathy or reconciliation or being in his good graces (in fact her entire aim was to live long and well without ever having anything to do with bat and co or having them know she existed)

So she's antagonistic and angry and high-key a megabitch but in like very normal humany ways that don't entail any killing or criminal activity

Like oh this lady doesn't get along with her estranged father and says really mean things to him. Genuinely no one around (as in civilian neighbors etc) cares about it, to them it's another bitter parent-child relationship and thus unremarkable

Whenever Bruce gets all bat broody about Lily, others get confused because "you're mad that she's... Not killing anymore??"

So to outsiders this situation and the animosity just doesn't make sense because it's Batman having personal familial beef with a random lady who is as good as a civilian to them

And to Bruce it's like "you wouldn't get it it's more complicated than that it's personal with lots of layers and nuance stay out of it" but to everyone else they're just confused why it's a bad thing a teenage assassin reformed and settled down peacefully and hasn't killed in years. Like who cares the specific how's and why's so long as nothing insidious is going on

Lily quite frankly is mostly deeply normal compared to the bats or other capes, it's like she's just a mom in a small city who very very occasionally will help with certain missions if absolutely necessary and more often than not it's only of the intel kind

[wishful-soda]

Max or Lewis for the championship win? 😬 I’m literally so torn because part of me wants Max to win because I really want someone new to win the championship and I think he’s worked incredibly hard this season and is insanely talented but then again Lewis is fantastic and deserve so much respect and all the credit for his dedication and determination. It’s seems like the momentum has swong back in his favour but serious all it takes is a power failure, tyre puncture or someone to crash into either one of them and it’s all over. It might not even necessarily come down to to their racing. The politics between the teams/ team principals is ridiculous and should be separated from the drivers and racing because I don’t think Lewis and Max have said anything particularly malicious or bitchy towards each other. It’s so hard! I honestly as much as I want Max to win and will be absolutely gutted if he doesn’t I think Lewis. I don’t go for any team specifically (although I have a major soft spot for Charles he’s so cute and think he’ll be an absolute force to be reckoned with as soon as Ferrari get their shit together and Daniel because my mum is Australian) I’d be happy if Max or Lewis to win but I think I’d be a touch more happy if Max won

Honestly, I am just shocked at how much this sounds like I wrote it because you hit almost every single thing I've been thinking!

I am a Max fan (I know that's polarizing right now) but I'm also not a Max fan to the degree of hating Lewis and being upset when he wins. When the season started, I wanted Max to win wholeheartedly, but watching the way Lewis stayed resilient and in the fight and just his character in general, has made me conflicted.

The team politics...I just talked about this today, I was literally telling my husband how exhausted I was with it. Everything has come down to tattling on the other team.

"He just did a practice start from the pit lane!"

"He's not staying within 10 car lengths behind me!"

"He overtook outside the white line!"

etc etc etc. I get that this is what happens in the sport but I'm just over all of it and want it to come down to Max and Lewis racing. And like you said, it probably won't come down to who is the better driver, it'll come down to penalties, wrecks, things like that.

All that being said, I can honestly say that I do not *hate* or root against a single driver on the grid. I don't want any of them to fail or crash or anything of the sort. I really hope that whatever the ends result is, the fans can reign in the animosity and hate towards the other driver. (Naïve, I know....)

Thanks so much for this ask! I love hearing others thoughts and discussing it, seriously enjoy it so much 💖💖💖

[shihalyfie]

hi! this is out of curiosity, since when do you start to watch adv series in its original jap. ver.? do you find any difficulty in trying to adapt, get used to it? like the voices, names of the characters, music, the way the story is presented. i first watch the series in my own language and the english ver (not the us ver., more like asian english ver.) before i encounter the original jap. ver. during my teenage years and get used to it over time until now. i'm okay with dub ver, but i always prefer, love to watch the jap. ver. more than other dubs.

(Note: This was cleared up later with the asker and various parties, so mostly leaving this for posterity: while it's not universally well-known, "J*p" is a slur originating from WWII, so I ask that people please be careful about not using that even as an abbreviation.)

Regardless of language, I've always been interested in original versions of any dubbed media for as long as I've been consuming media (I won't say I'm necessarily a purist, I just happen to have a natural curiosity for what must have been the original source), so I'd been interested in the Japanese version of Digimon ever since I first got into it, and had been following it ever since it started getting translated. If you know anything about Digimon and subbing, it actually took some years for most early Digimon series to get decent quality subs in full, so I thank everyone involved for their hard work, especially since the prevailing attitude at the time was that "the (American) English dub didn't change anything substantial anyway" (ignoring the fact that there would still be good reason to have the Japanese version on hand even if that were the case...) and the demand for it was even more niche than it is now.

I didn't really have problems getting used to names. I did have to get used to the voices, because since I got in with the American English dub initially, I had a strong attachment to the voices I'd associated with them there (and I still do, even if I haven't fully watched the dub in years!), so there would be things like Yamato (Kazama Yuuto)'s voice being much deeper than I'd expected, or Agumon's voice being completely different in general, but I got used to it quickly because I felt like everyone fit their character perfectly in their own way. The music was a bit surprising, but I was never too incredibly attached to the original music anyway so it was mostly just discovering something new and fun. Other than that, I guess I was incredibly surprised by how different of an impression 02 gave me, especially Daisuke; having been eyeing 02 in Japanese since translation efforts first started, I knew there had been some changes (Hurricane Touchdown...) but the actual degree really surprised me, especially since, as I said, the prevailing attitude was that "it didn't change much". Part of the reason I write so extensively about how much the 02 dub changed is that I personally witnessed firsthand how much my perception of the series abruptly shifted after my first time watching it in Japanese, and how nearly impossible it became to hold analytical conversations about certain smaller details with people who mistakenly over-applied dub things to the Japanese version because "we're actually talking about two different things, aren't we..." never comes up thanks to how prevalent this myth is. Driving this home further, I don't have this issue at all with fans who had their own local dubs more closely adapted from the Japanese version, so the problem really isn't whether it was in Japanese or not, or whether it was a dub or not, as much as the fact "the script really did change that much".

Currently, I guess I would say I have a pretty complicated relationship with Digimon's American English dubs. Like I said, I don't necessarily think I'm a purist or anything, and even though I have an increased stake in watching things in Japanese since I can actually understand much more about the language than I used to, I myself still enjoy a good dub and also completely understand and appreciate the nature of what dubbing entailed in those days, the dub's role in getting Digimon to a wider audience, the reason people prefer dubs and how important this one is to people, and, heck, I still love the voice actors. At the same time, this "it didn't change anything significant" myth has been really damaging and frustrating to deal with, because you get pointless, unnecessary arguments about people trying to talk about two very different versions of the series and arguing because they don't realize the characters they're discussing weren't even written similarly (hi, Mimi and Daisuke). Even if people do acknowledge the changes, there's also a tendency to worship that dub, so even though I feel my complaints about it are pretty legitimate ones (my gripes mainly being that I'm uncomfortable with the characterization changes, I feel many of the changes caused a significant adverse impact on the story and characterization integrity especially in the case of 02, and I get a bit of a bad feeling about some of the cultural localization attempts in dialogue borderline crossing into racism), it's frustrating to constantly get shut down because everything should be excused as long as it was in someone's childhood, and it's also frustrating to see these dismissals applied to people who had their own aforementioned local dubs and are upset at how this impacted their own childhood, but are thrown under the bus because their own dub is treated disrespectfully as if it were "secondary" to the American English dub somehow being the enforced, mandated standard for any kind of localized Digimon outside Japan.

I completely understand that a lot of this is lashback developed from Japanese-version-only purist camps being obnoxious about dunking on dubs, but it's uncomfortable observing the results of the fallout when you're kind of here in the middle not wanting to dunk on it for the sake of dunking on it, but also having concerns that you feel everyone is dismissing you for. (Not helping is also the fact that obnoxious purists love to dunk on people for having a personal preference for dubs; there are a lot of reasons to prefer them even if you're aware of the changes, personal emotional attachment and accessibility reasons being among them, and my grievances have more to do with the "it didn't change anything" myth still being prevalent, the experiences of having any criticism I have of it being so easily dismissed, and the fact that a combination of both means that having strong loyalty to the Japanese version gets you pinned as being an unusual purist or being overly picky.)

Also, I think one thing that isn't often talked about is that there's a huge difference between the dubs of everything up to 02 and the dubs of everything between Tamers and Savers (Xros Wars we'll...leave aside for now, haha). In the case of the latter, the aggressive joke-adding is much less intrusive, the changes (including to characterization) are less significant, and you can even see this in that Diablomon Strikes Back's dub has much closer dialogue and characterization to the original than anything else from the 02 dub. So a lot of what I said above actually just applies to Adventure and 02 more than anything. For series after, I don't make it a habit to watch their dubs as often these days, but I'm still familiar with them and have my own pretty strong sense of nostalgia for the Tamers and Frontier ones in particular, and for anything after 02, I haven't had any particular experience with other fans regarding trying to discuss the series but finding we're talking about two different things, other than maybe one or two minor things that had to be cleared up every so often. So in that case I myself also agree more with the idea of mostly treating the dubbed and Japanese versions as the same thing, whereas with Adventure and 02 I honestly feel they need to be treated as separate and distinct things.

In the end I guess the take-home I have here is that I feel like my experience going from the dub to the Japanese version has been a lot less shocking or eventful than dealing with the perceptions and stigmas around them from other people...^^;;

[cherry-flavoured-thot]

I'm feeling kinda angsty. Could you do 40 on the Angst part of the prompts list with Levi?

Prompt list can be found here 

Only the real mvps know that i posted this on ao3 first lolol, also this is 1.4k words long, if this post flops i will be disappointed

You had really thought things between you and Levi had been going really well, you and him were spending plenty of time together, playing games, watching anime, geeking out over random things together, just over all having really good times together overall. And when obviously when two people spend a lot of time together it's only natural they grow closer, although you had grown closer to him then anticipated to the point where you noticed when every time you looked at him your chest would start pounding and your face would feel hot. When he smiled or laughed your stomach did backflips and whenever he started excitedly raving about a new game or anime you felt yourself staring with a half-lidded expression and an overly wide smile.

You were in love, that much was obvious, so obvious to the point where you wondered if Levi actually knew that you might feel that way about him, regardless of he did or didn't know about your feelings it was really hard to figure out his own. You had attempted to hint at your feelings, you’d give him gifts and he’d look at you strangely, in fact almost suspiciously like any boxes you gave him had something horrible inside, you'd compliment him and he'd tell you stop joking around, you’d try to touch him sometimes and he recoiled like you had burned him, he apologized afterwards but it still stung.

With those reactions you'd assume he just didn't want you to be around him, but he did, he texted you every five minutes trying to get you to come hang out in his room with him at any given opportunity. If couldn't get you to come to his room, he'd go out his way to hang out in yours, and when you did spend time together you noticed how he'd go out of his way to make you laugh, sometimes when he succeeded he would blush at the sound. Naturally you grew tired of figuring out his feelings, which is why you went to confess your feelings to him directly. You and him were hanging out in his room, you had asked him if he could pause the game so you could tell him something important, he did as you asked turning to you with a look of concern, then you began to confess how you felt.

"Don't even finish that sentence." His cold words had completely cut you off, you stare at him noting how his expression of concern had contorted into one of pure anger, a harsh glare had been directed straight at you, you could feel yourself shrinking underneath it, you attempted an explanation or to at least continue your confession, babbling any words you could think of in hopes to either get your feelings across or to calm him down. All that did was infuriate him, he stood up from his chair, pushing it away from him to the point where it almost went flying.

“Who put you up to this?” He had hissed, taking you completely off guard causing any words to get trapped in your throat. “There’s no way you could love anyone as a gross as me, so you’re lying, you have to be, get out.” You tried to console him, to reassure him it was the case but that only seemed to make him angry. “Get out!” You’d only ever had seen him that angry once before and that was after the TSL quiz. That could be used to explain as to why Lucifer quickly appeared to escort you out, not even allowing you another glance at Leviathan.

The eldest brother originally scolded you, not necessarily for making his brother angry, but mainly getting yourself into yet another mess that could have resulted in your instant death. He had noticed how upset you seemed, with every scolding word you flinched so instead of punishing you, he granted leniency out of pity, allowing you to explain yourself and what happened. Upon hearing your explanation of the situation, he frowned, sighing deeply, quickly telling you not to feel guilty about Levi’s outburst but also not to blame his brother as he was most likely only acting that way due to truly not believing anyone could ever love him.

After that incident you didn’t see or hear from Levi, you ask his brothers if he's okay but they all say he's not letting anyone in his room or speaking to anyone. You texted him, worrying about his wellbeing, when you kept left on read you started sending apology after apology everyday, begging him to talk to you or to at least reply with something, then begging him to at least talk to his brothers. Again left on read, and he continues to ignore the world. When you realised the texts didn't work you started knocked on his door, never getting a single reply only deafening silence. This cycle repeated for about two weeks, until you’re about to give up, sitting at his door making one last plead for him to at least acknowledge your existence, in between knocks.

“Please Levi, please talk to me,” your plead is met again with that deafening silence that you are convinced might actually be killing you, but then you’re surprised when you finally hear movement from the other side of the door and footsteps walking towards it. Even more surprised when he actually opens the door, he stares at you with tired eyes and a blank expression.

“What?”

“Please let me-” you quickly try to assemble all the apologies and thoughts you had come up with over the past two weeks, only to be completely cut off by his cold, almost robotic reply.

“You don’t love me. I get it, just leave me alone.” With that he goes to close the door again and in the moment of not wanting him to block you out again, you call out to him.

“Why are you scared of loving?” He stops, the door staying open just enough so you can still look at him, you see how his face has twisted, almost as if he’s in genuine pain. And the sight makes your heart hurt.

“Because who could ever love someone like me?” You stare at him with a sad look, which he doesn’t notice as he refuses to make any eye contact with you, has self-loathing really warped his thinking this much? That he couldn’t even let you finish confessing because he thought it was a sick prank.

“I love you,” with those thoughts in mind you voiced the three words aloud that he hadn’t wanted to hear from you and you aren’t surprised by his eyes quickly darting up so he can glare at you.

“You’re lying stop it,” you shake your head, daringly pushing the door all the way open, looking him straight into his eyes.

“I’m not lying. I love you.” He bares his fangs at you, so angered by your words that he switches into his demon form. He closes any space between you, making himself look as big as possible to scare you away.

“You don’t love me how could you ever love someone like this?” Despite the blatant fury and danger in front of you, you reach out resting a hand on his cheek, the action causes his eyes to widen, but then you smile at him, with a warmth that shouldn’t be there for how much he pushed you away and he starts to shake.

“I do and I’ll keep saying it until you get it, I love you.” Your words seem to act like tiny knives that cause him to stagger back, he stares at you with a look of anguish and confusion.

“Why? Why do you...” he trails off completely lost in thoughts, self-loathing questioning your every word but the way you’re looking at him shows the truth in them.

“I just do.” There’s a silence, his gaze drops to the floor as he body begins to shake again, you call out to him only to be surprised when he moves at an alarmingly fast pace in your direction. You don’t register what he’s trying to do until his arms wrap tightly around you, chin resting on your shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” His apology is followed by soft sobs and freely falling tears. You wrap your arms around him, not saying a word just rubbing his back while he cries.

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 1 for the first time. Random thoughts.

This show is kind of nice because I have no memories of the original She-Ra show, or even any of He-Man, honestly. I'm not sure if I ever watched the original, so I have no frame of reference for how the series is "supposed" to be. I can just take it and judge it as is.

Of the bat, all I know is that supposedly She-Ra and Catra get together as a romantic couple later, but I'm also a huge My Hero Academia fan and the fandom around me ships every character with every other character, so for all I know that might just be shipper wishful thinking I've been seeing and hearing. Given fandoms for Gravity Falls, Thor, and Supernatural ship even siblings together, I've learned not to trust anything except for what I see in the series for myself.

By the way, this isn't a review, just random thoughts and comments I'm having as I'm going through season 1 for the first time.

Episodes 1 and 2: Right off, I really like Catra's "No duh" response to Adora about the truth of the horde. She knows they've been lying to them and have been doing terrible things, she just doesn't care. If she and Adora play their cards right they could end up being the ones in charge and then they'd have all that power. Not necessarily to make things better but enough to where they could do whatever and live however they want. That's a good build for an antagonist. Not ignorant to the fact what they're doing is wrong, just simply so selfish that they don't care.

Episode 3: It really feels like there was no good reason why Glimmer didn't just outright introduce Adora to her mother and every reason she should have known it was a bad idea to try and hide her for a surprise. Being a former horde soldier she'd probably get treated with hostility if Glimmer brought her to the front gate but you'd almost guarantee Adora would get arrested or outright killed if she got caught while no one else knew she was there.

On the other side, we have Hordak being pretty intelligent in promoting Catra. He probably knows Shadow Weaver already doesn't like him, so it's not like he's losing anything making her upset with him, and it's clear she favors Adora way more than Catra, so that little bit of advancement towards Catra probably goes a long way in earning her loyalty to him and a person on the inside with Shadow Weaver.

Also, I'm not the only one who saw Madam Razz and immediately thought Adora had found her Yoda, right?

Episode 4: I don't know how it was in the original She-Ra and He-Man series but I kind of like She-Ra being this title from legend. Adora is not the first She-Ra, given what Razz was talking about with a Mara, so instead of being something new, impressing everyone with abilities they've never seen before, and creating the legend, Adora is placed in a position WAY over her head where she's having to live up to what came before her.

Episode 5: Calling it now, as long as her personality is genuine I think Scorpia is going to be one of my favorite characters in this show. She's...endearing, I think is the best word. She's like a mix of Kronk and a nicer Shego.

For a little bit I thought Mermista was voiced by the same actress who played Poison Ivy in the Harley Quinn animated series. She's not but they do have the same kind of Daria-ish inflections, thus by confusion. Given the prom episode, Sea Hawk feels kind of like her Kite Man.

Episode 6: Okay, now it's between Scorpia and Entrapta who are likely to be my favorites by the end of this. She's fun and quirky.

Episode 7: Quite the lore drop. Shadow Weaver was once a Mystacor sorceress known as Light Spinner. I like to imagine we'll get more on that later. Her haunting Adora reminded me of the Teen Titans' episode where Robin was similarly haunted by Slade. This didn't go as far as that but that's probably for the best, since TT had two and a half seasons to build that dynamic up with Robin and Slade while we're only now halfway through the first season.

Episode 8: Well dang. Again, I don't know for sure if Adora and Catra do end up together but boy do I buy why they're shipped together after that dance. Also, good on Bow for standing up for himself. It's clear that he'll always be Glimmer's friend and this won't change that but that doesn't mean he has to just accommodate her. I understand where her issues stem from but I am still glad he gave her a reality check. It helps him feel a little more like his own character.

Also, another nice little bit of lore and worldbuilding. Scorpia's a princess, the horde landed where her people lived, and they seemed to join them willingly.

Episode 9: Surprisingly don't have a lot to say about this other than I don't buy for a second that Entrapta is dead (EDIT: She's not). This was mostly action.

Episode 10: Not going to lie, this one kind of annoyed me a little, at least the first half. The conversation between Glimmer and her mother saved it a bit. It was a bit of a trifecta. You have the alliance breaking apart, saying that the loss of Entrapta only happened because they were all together...even though Entrapta only "died" because of her own machine obsession that caused her to deliberately walk back into the purging chamber. You have Entrapta who might be turning to the horde's side because she feels abandoned by the other princesses...even though they thought she was dead, and again it was her fault they got separated. And you have Glimmer refusing to tell her mother that Shadow Weaver's dark magic has caused her powers to go on the fritz and is causing her great pain. It just feels like none of this would be an issue if most of these people would stop being self-absorbed for three seconds and talk like any normal person would. It feels very CW drama, like something I'd see in a bad season of Arrow or The Flash. The only person whose issues I buy is Adora, who is basically a soldier who was never properly raised to deal with emotion or loss and is already struggling with the burden of being She-Ra, the legendary savior. I get why she's beating down on herself for not being able to do more even if nothing that happened was her fault.

Episode 11: JEEEEEEEEEZZZZ, that was such a good episode! Focused entirely on Adora and Catra and their past together. Like, just showing someone this episode alone could probably get them to want to watch the series. That was everything you needed to know about their dynamic and history together.

Also, that moment when Catra and her past self are looking at each other, while obviously Catra takes the opposite lesson, it reminded me of this fanart I'd once seen of Jason Todd, the Red Hood, looking at his past self as Robin. The past says to the future "You ruined everything". Catra could be happy but, ironically for someone who hates Shadow Weaver, she's probably going to be a lot like her, sacrificing everything for power and ambition.

Given the way she looked, I'm guessing Shadow Weaver is either addicted to the power of the Black Garnet or she suffered some kind of past injury and its power is the only thing keeping her going. Or both.

Episode 12: I'll be honest, Swiftwind being able to talk kind of gobsmacked and I needed a moment to recover. What a great voice they chose for that character.

So She-Ra is kind of like the legendary heroes from Rising of the Shield Hero, coming from a long line of people chosen to wield the sword. I tend to dislike chosen one types of stories because I think prophecy takes a lot of weight out of the character's actions, so this and Avatar are more what I like. The MC is special but not the only one who's ever been special and they can still easily fail. Their destiny was only to be able to use the weapon, not that they would succeed in any specific purpose.

And dang, Catra's turn against Shadow Weaver happened faster than I thought it would but I'm not complaining. That great "This is what you've really been preparing me for" speech and Hordak, again, being an intelligent villain. "Oh, this experiment could net me a MASSIVE gain and all it could potentially cost me is this rock I already gave away to someone who lately hasn't been producing any results and has been consistently disobeying me. Yeah, I'm going to let this play out."

Episode 13: That was kind of a brutal fight between Adora and Catra. Not the worst I've ever seen even in other shows for this age range (Samurai Jack, for example) but those punches are connecting and those claws are leaving marks.

Also, maybe I'm just misunderstanding the exact situation but shouldn't the good guys' side be called the Resistance instead of the Rebellion? Being a rebellion would imply they are rebelling against an established power or rule over them, but the actual conflict we are shown is the established power and rule that is the kingdoms of Eternia resisting an outside force that wishes to establish a new order over them.

Season 1 verdict: I'm into it. I'm definitely more invested in the villains' side of things but that's not a fault of the series, that stuff is just way more geared towards me than the current princess stuff. I actively am at attention whenever the horde main characters are on screen. For the good guys it's mostly Adora and the She-Ra stuff I'm invested it. That isn't to say I have any real dislikes for that side. Bow especially I'm liking much more than I thought I might. He has kind of this gravitational pull around him. You will be his friend regardless of how much you might want to resist. He's definitely the rock for everyone else to hold onto.

Minor side note, kind of like Korra in Legend of Korra, I love how even when her powers aren't active Adora is shown to still be pretty strong physically with how easily she was lifting people up at the prom.

And I was right, Scorpia is my favorite side character.

On to season 2!

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/nyll2e/going_in_blind_watching_season_1_for_the_first/

[aresrl]

Helloooo, I want to try this too, it's sounds very interesting.

I hope you don't mind me being anon.

Could you write me a matchup for a vision, a male partner and a best friend and, only if you're in the mood, a enemy?

WARNUNG: It's a long text. I'm sorry ;.;

Most people are telling me "I'm too good for this world." because I'm always friendly, I try to help the best I can, doing my duties without complaining and never really fight with someone.

But actually, I'm just someone who likes to analyze people and react accordingly to they behavior. I want to understand people and I think the easiest way is to watch them. I'm very calm with a lot of patience and like to give advices. That's why people often come to me if they have something on they minds. I'm getting kinda uneasy if there is something I can't figure out. So, I like when people give me detailed explanation or description about something they want or need.

And even if people think I'm so friendly and kind, what I am, don't get me wrong, I love my peace and alone time. I'm way more productive if I'm on my own, because I can focus more and it's quiet. Also, I'm not the type of person who likes to be surrounded by many people. Mostly because I'm not so good at keeping a conversation alive, but I try. I like being around people I'm close to.

The friends and family I have are everything to me. I hold them dear and I always be there for them and try to keep them away from any harm. If they would betray me (what some really did) I would be completely heartbroken. I'm always scared that my loved ones will leave me. It's my biggest fear.

For a relationship, I think the person need a lot of patience with me because, like I said, I like to be alone. I'm also not a very affectionate lover, because I don't have many experiences. I'm fine with all those holding hands, cuddles, kisses and all but I would rarely be the one who make the first moves. If my lover is upset about it, I would trying to be more affectionate for the love of my partner to make him happier. I just want him to be happy.

But there is one thing I absolutely adore. Lying down, holding each other and just enjoying the atmosphere. No words (maybe a few) just cuddling and listen to each others heartbeat.

Some more informations if they're necessarily:

Things I like: dogs, drawing and painting, reading, warm weather with a soft breeze (I love this), respectful and understanding people, nighttime (including stargazing), meaningful conversations

Things I don't like: heat, arrogance, loud noises, to be bossing around, uncertainty, crowds

I'm sorry, it truly is pretty long. I hope you don't mind.

I hope everything I wrote makes sense to you. Thanks for doing this, I'm looking forward to read it :D

Have a nice day and stay healthy!

(chin up if your day was not so pleasant❤️)

Hey! I don't mind people being Anon at all! I don't know if you will find it funny or scary but I always think people “too good for this world” will die early. Eh anyways here are your results!

You received... A Hydro vision! Generosity, devotion to people, always helping others, and mastery are the main characteristics of the Hydro vision. • Last time I forgot the mastery thing and reading the analyzing part made me remember that it was also a characteristic of the Hydro vision. It seems that you are a great analyzer, you have your own way of analyzing people and you seem to do it accurately. • I feel that if you want to have clear indications on what you need to do for someone it's not only to greatly fulfill the task (which would mostly look like a Geo trait) but it's to satisfy the person the most. • You have a strong bond with people. I don't know if that's the case but I wouldn't be surprised if every time you have to make a decision or you think about something important, you will first think about people you love, like if it would hurt them if it would be more convenient for them or what would they think about it. Your partner would be... Diluc! A silent but soothing relationship. Two icons of Mondstadt. • The first time he heard your voice was at Angel's Share where you were talking with Eula. The bar wasn't crowded so you were feeling comfortable enough to talk properly with her. You were debating about Kaeya. You didn't really know him but you still shared the feelings you had about him with her. Because of Eula's presence, the few present people at the bar became a bit more silent, letting Diluc hear better of what you were saying. “Kaeya? Hmm... I don't really know him but I feel something off... The few times I've seen him he seemed quite dramatic. But the kind of drama attitude you use to hide weakness.” • In addition to your calm voice, he also liked your perception. He wanted to know more about you. As you were about to pay with Eula at the counter, Diluc spoke: “I heard you talking about Kaeya earlier. You seem to have good intuition.” He paused and crossed his arms, looking elsewhere. “You can only trust half of what he says... At best.” • Sometimes you went back to Angel's Share (not purposefully but most of the time it was during his shift) to buy a bottle of a drink to your liking, and little by little you began to appreciate each other pretty well. • At the beginning of your relationship, both of you would be clumsy because of your lack of experience but slowly, you would learn together. After being more confident, you'd both engage things equally. Diluc would be very romantic with you. • You share a common thing with Diluc: serving Mondstadt. You during the day, helping people, friends or friends of friends with their tasks or problems and Diluc at night, preventing the evil to reach the city. • Even though his facade can show a grumpy man, you can see what's really inside and that's what you love. • You would share a lot of relaxing moments privately. Both of you like a calm atmosphere, perfect to share a great moment together. • You two are popular in Mondstadt. Diluc already has his reputation but you, you are loved because of your pure kindness towards everyone. You won't spend a lot of time together publicly but when you do, people feel like seeing celebrities in front of their eyes. Your friend would be... Eula! “How dare they befriend me while being so popular? They will just bring more attention to me and my plans of vengeance! For this, they must pay!” • You get along very well with everyone in Mondstadt (except one person that we'll mention later) but your best friend remains Eula. • You are very close and actually, there are no specific reasons why you get along well but you do! • Both of you talk freely and most of your discussions are interesting. • When you hang out, you always go somewhere to eventually improvise things. • She likes the fact that anything you'll engage you into, you'll do it with finesse and without a complaint. Your enemy would be... Kaeya! And it's not even Diluc's fault • You find him suspicious and you know for sure that you will never truly know why. • He considers you like a sort of threat so he will be especially careful

around you. He knows how to lie but he would get better at it to cover himself even more. Which is a clumsy move from him because it will make him even more suspicious to you. • You try to avoid his case with Diluc for fear of getting him annoyed. • Deep down, there is no hate between you two. Kaeya knows you're perceptive and it just makes him insecure while you just wonder what he is hiding, by innocent curiosity. Worth to mention (but you mentioned you didn't like uncertainty plus, this is a long list, so you can ignore it if you want) : • You would be a great ally for Beidou but I think you would refuse to be a part of her crew because of the inconvenient lifestyle. • You, Xingqiu, and Chongyun would form a great trio! It would be mainly led by Chongyun who's heading out for an exorcising, Xingqiu willing to join him and by the way, inviting you. You would accept because all the moments spent with them are wholesome and also because you would be curious about ghosts, even if at first you thought you'd be more of a bother than anything else. You'd be a great ally for Chongyun too: he needs calm and you are, both of you don't like heat and you could help him with anything, it would always be easy and not tiring tasks. • Xingqiu finds you honorable. • You are a great support for Ganyu. • Jean respects you a lot, she could even admire you. • You share similar values with Keqing so you get along well too. You can count on each other and you would even be invited to a shopping session with common friends. • There could be interesting things between you and Xiao because he would truly appreciate you. A common situation would be you going to Wangshu Inn because you'd need a place to sleep for a night or two and during your stay, you would meet Xiao randomly. You would both say hi, pleased to see each other, Xiao's face would relax by seeing you. But there's nothing more. If this happened in a universe where there is a reincarnation process, I'd say that you were together in a past life, only death has managed to separate you, and now, you meet again but live your lives respectively. I hope it suits you and I also hope you don't mind Diluc's part being very long (and the worth mentioning too) and actually my answer being longer than your description eventually haha I almost did nothing yesterday so I'm gonna catch up today. But before, I have to do my dailies

[sharkbaitouhaha]

Alright I mentioned a rant yesterday, now you all get to deal with a rant. It's about shoes and accessibility, I'm gonna put it all under a read-more, I just gotta get my feelings out.

So Nike was releasing a pair of handsfree shoes, Nike Go FlyEase, here's a link to the shoe announcement. If you watch the video they mention that "the original concept around the shoe was to support our adaptive athletes better" and then they mention how throughout the process they found it was a shoe that could be really universal.

I genuinely think this is an awesome idea, and remember being so excited when I saw this announced. Now as someone who has joint issues, particularly in my fingers and toes, this shoe is an absolute dream! And Nike making shoes that can benefit people with disabilities is great, it normalizes these types of shoes and with such a large portion of the market that Nike has these shoes should be easy for people with disabilities to get. The keyword there by the way is SHOULD.

At the very end of the new release you'll see the Nike Go FlyEase "available initially via invite for select Nike Members, with broader consumer availability planned for later this year"

Great, broader availability later this year, that's not particularly helpful but at least they're coming. Here's my issue with this though. The shoes that have been released, to this select group of people, have gotten into the hands of resellers. Shoes that are supposed to sell for $120, are being sold upwards of $600 in some cases. That is some next level bullshit! By no means am I a sneakerhead but the gist I'm getting from online is that this happens every time Nike releases special shoes. Here's a tweet that gave me a good chuckle yesterday morning amidst my absolute breakdown over this

The designers of the shoe state that a large part of the reason shoes like this were even thought of were for people with disabilities. You cannot create a shoe, flaunt its accessibility, and then ... not make it accessible! I get that Nike is going to release more later in the year but what does that do now for people whose lives could be improved by shoes like this? Not a whole lot.

This article talks about the upset with these shoes for people with disabilities, I don't necessarily agree with everything Cooper Lewis says in this interview but I totally get where he's coming from. I don't know that people with disabilities should be given first access to these shoes, solely (haha pun) because how would that work? People don't always want to disclose their medical history and to do so to get a pair of shoes seems a little silly in my mind. Trying to explain my frustration to my partner resulted in me being almost in tears, over a pair of fucking Nike shoes, that also don't even look good, but I was so excited about them. My heart fucking breaks for people who need shoes like this more than I do. Would these shoes be a game changer for me, especially with my joints being worse off than when the shoes were announced? Absolutely. But there's a whole group of people who need shoes like this more than I do, I know I'm pretty lucky.

My simple thought is really just that these shoes, whether a bigger release happens or not, should NEVER have been released to a specific group of Nike Members like this. It's absolutely ridiculous to flaunt an accessible shoe and not make it accessible, Nike absolutely had the power to do a wide release of these shoes but chose not to. For a company so large, that does release lots of limited edition shoes, or specialty shoes, with drops like this WHY did they have to do it with these shoes?

Anyway if you got this far thanks for letting me get my words out. My anger isn't placed with people who had access to the shoe, it's with people who turned around and gouged the prices to resell them, and with a big ass corporation who absolutely could have and should have done better.

[dwellordream]

Hello I've got 2 questions: The first one was if you could do a directors cut of toms chapter from grass crown? The second one was if you have any tips for writers, specifically dealing with criticism? I'm not great with constructive criticism and have a hard time putting my work out there and I was wondering how you deal with it?

I like how chapter 10 of Grass Crown is now just known as ‘Tom’s chapter’ haha it sounds so foreboding. I was both very nervous and very excited to write Chapter 10 because I’d never attempted to write from Tom’s POV before, despite being tempted a few times during Barbed Wire. I know I discussed that chapter pretty heavily in the comment section so I’ll try to avoid repeating anything I said there. the chapter begins with Tom waking from a dream because I think it speaks to his nature- he has a lot of dreams for his future (most of them good for him, bad for others) and it could be correctly said that he is, in many ways, delusional. but he’a also got a pretty good track record with making his dreams (thus far) into reality, through a combination of smarts, cunning, blackmail/intimidation/threats, and networking.  Amy has mentioned before, because nothing is really ‘off limits’ to Tom, he very rarely doubts that he can achieve something; he’s like that meme of ‘everyone should have the confidence of a mediocre white guy walking into an interview he’s unqualified for’ haha. He’s used to getting his way, either sooner or later. the only ‘thing’ he’s ever dreamed of that he failed to materialize was a life with Amy in it. It was also important to me that everything in his house be described as modern and new and top of the line and carefully selected by him or Lydia. it’s really his version of a ‘fuck you!’ to his childhood at Wool’s, where he had very little control over his surroundings. now he has all the control.  we then go into the intro of the pensieve, which I knew pretty much from the start I wanted/needed to include, given the constant flashbacks and references to the past in this fic. Tom using a pensieve was a smoother transition to the memory than him just brooding on it for an hour straight.

what’s also interesting is the memory he’s chosen to ‘replay’ over and over again; yes, it is his and Amy’s ‘first time’ but his interest in watching this doesn’t really seem to be pornographic- he acknowledges that he’s not even interested in watching the act of sex itself over and over again- but what precedes and follows it. that level of vulnerability and intimacy which he had once and has never had again. I think it both intrigues and repulses him, the idea of ever opening himself up like that to anyone again. he mocks Amy’s appearance and his younger self’s devotion to her because that’s easier than confronting the pain of losing all that. he pretends to focus on the fact that sex just isn’t super exciting or even interesting to him anymore to avoid dwelling too much on the fact that being with Amy made him feel appreciated, not just in the physical sense for his looks, but appreciated and accepted as a flawed person, not for any other reason. we then get the creepy segue that A. Tom hasn’t been celibate since then, unsurprisingly or not and B. the one sex worker he frequents bears a passing resemblance to Amy. that sort of speaks for itself. Tom looks for her in the people around him, especially the women, and is both infuriated and pleased when they either live up to the standard she set... or miss it entirely. we then jump back into the memory and see Tom and Amy joking with each other after the fact and having a playful argument. this is obviously very painful for Tom, but he masks that by acting shocked and appalled that he ever let someone speak to him like that or mock him to his face like that. the lack of agenda or manipulation in his younger self at that point disturbs him, for all that the relationship between the two was already damaged at the time. we then see Tom head into work, which is pretty straightforward until the infamous interrogation with Jaime. Jaime is pretty much Tom’s opposite; referred to as a ‘conman’ and a ‘common thug’ and known for moving in the same circles as a lot of organized crime, he’s essentially the blue collar outlaw to Tom’s white collar, just-under-the-surface corruption and deceit. Jaime might not be trustworthy, but he doesn’t pretend to be, either.  Tom is so dismissive and derisive of him that he is enraged when his usual tactics don’t work, and Jaime fails to immediately turn on Amy, as Tom had expected him to do so. the idea of a ‘common criminal’ having some kind of code or honor or even loyalty to anyone but themselves both perplexes and angers Tom. he pivots to assaulting Jaime’s mind in an attempt to get the info on her by force, and is further incensed when Jaime’s memories of Amy conjure up feelings of warmth and affection. the idea of her even having a friendly relationship with Jaime Isola clearly does not sit well with him. unfortunately for Tom, his attempts to then imperius Jaime our cut short... and we see the transition to home again and the anxious wait for the election results. his conversation with Lydia is always interesting for me to write because they are both very calculated but trying to play it off as casual and innocent, and both always think they’ve got the upper hand at the moment. Tom suspects Lydia is not nearly as pure of mind and heart as she pretends to be, but is ambivalent about this, content to wait until they’re married to pry much deeper, and acknowledges her intelligence and charisma in the sense that it will be an asset to his career. he ‘scolds’ her a little by bringing up the fact that he knows about her visit to MESP, but is surprisingly unfazed by her lack of cowering or subservience when she gives a clearly overacted apology. she still, of course, demonstrates plenty of deferral to him in other ways, fixing him a drink and getting his mail.  also, of course, the note that Tom seems to like her best when she acts in a more ‘Amy-esque’ manner; he’s thrilled by her verbal approval of him and not nearly as put off as he usually might be by her open display of affection when she hugs him.  re: dealing with criticism: this is something I continue to struggle with, although I do my best not to get into sparring matches in the comment sections and I try to ‘see the best’ in every comment and not get derailed into a pointless argument over semantics or fixate on someone’s wording. I’m a sensitive person (I think a lot of writers are) and I think it’s okay to feel upset or hurt by someone’s criticism without feeling like you are being arrogant or selfish. sometimes constructive criticism can be delivered unkindly or in a convoluted manner, especially when it’s mixed in with more minor critiques or compliments, and sometimes criticism isn’t really criticism and is just someone expressing their frustration in the comment section. I know a lot of writers choose to moderate comments or disable non-ao3-user comments for this reason. I don’t do this because I want people to be able to read my comments and get an accurate sense of how readers felt right when the chapter was posted. even when the comments are embarrassing to me or make me feel bad about my writing. this is a personal choice and I’m not saying you should or must do this.  mostly I deal with it by trying to wait a little to respond; it’s easy to get upset and type out a snarky reply but sometimes if you wait a little you can get a better perspective on how the reader might have felt or what confused or annoyed or felt incongruous to them about your writing. when I do respond I try to just address things very point by point and straightforward, and I also generally do thank people for commenting unless they’re being a blatant troll and just looking for a rise from me.  overall I feel like it’s just something you have to get exposed to over and over again. I’m much better now about not taking comments too seriously or letting them direct my writing than I used to be. when you gain confidence as a writer you can sort of develop a better filter for what critique is useful to you and what isn’t. just because someone has raised a valid point in the comment doesn’t mean they necessarily have the best solution for said problem.  sometimes it is really just a matter of interpretation of a character. it also heavily depends on the fandom (if you are writing fic). in my experience the ASOIAF fandom, as much as I love it, tends to come in swinging a lot harder than the HP fandom, which I think is a little more chill and mellow and more ‘you do you’. if I mess up a worldbuilding detail or don’t explain myself properly in an ASOIAF fic, especially if it involves popular characters or plot points, I know I’m going to get heat for it in the comment section from someone. overall, I would say try to come at it from the commenter’s perspective, but also don’t let yourself obsess over it. it’s hard to remember but most fics do have a silent majority, and there are so many people who are just going to read it and enjoy it and who just don’t leave a comment because that’s not how they roll. if moderating comments and being able to approve them before they go up will make you feel more in-control and secure, then you should do that. I do find that if you reply to comments, a lot of times people might seem less abrasive or intimidating on comment #2 than #1, mostly because they’re not expecting to get a reply from the writer. you shouldn’t be afraid to go ‘actually, I agree with you regarding *insert*’ or ‘well, in my view, *character* is acting this way because...’ it’s good practice to be able to calmly state your opinion or defend your work without it turning into an online brawl, and it’s not a mark of weakness to agree with someone’s critique or acknowledge that you could have done something better. plus, you have to write a lot of crappy fics before you can write a good fic. I try to remember that when I look at my old works. nothing’s set in stone and you can absolutely continue to improve and adapt your writing as you go along.

[sunset-spring]

Hey, I'm kind of scared to ask you this, but I wanted to know what you thought of the epilogue in Season 8. I'm terrified of what you'll say, but you seem to be a very logical and clear-headed thinker, so I am kind of curious. If the answer isn't good, then please respond privately. Thank you.

It’s ok, I’m not gonna lie I’m nervous about a lot of questions related to season 8 just because so many people have such hard line stances and opinions on it. I have a lot of the same fear talking about it for the same reasons I’m sure you were scared of even asking. Whether you like or dislike s8 or like it, it’s not a big deal to me - no judgement either way. Opinions are varied and everyone has their own reasons for either.

On to the actual epilogue, some context I wanna give is that I had seen spoilers for the season even though I couldn’t watch it til a few days later. I had a prior family thing and I was stressed and I went to tumblr on my phone to look at some art to keep me calm. So I saw a lot of reactions to the season as a whole, but I couldn’t tell what reactions were genuine problems or what were over dramatized hate when I didn’t have full context. 

So when I watched the season, the expectations I went in with were “there might be some things that I’m not going to enjoy, and some that are overblown.” And when I watched it… that was pretty much what I got. There were definitely some problems, but there was also a lot that I think was made out to be way worse than I personally found them to be.

The epilogue itself gets a lot of weight and importance put on it. And personally I wonder if it’s in part because it was leaked before the season aired. When I watched it, I felt very neutral to it. No super strong feelings either way, mostly just “oh, that makes sense for this character, but this doesn’t work very well and is not a great fit.”

Which I guess is a segue to talk about the individual bits in detail. This is going to be long and I’ll do my best to organize it for ease of reading, but I want to go into all my thoughts and logic as best I can and that might result in a bit of a lengthy read, so if it gets a bit ramble-y and confusing, I apologize:

Pidge and Hunk ended up in a place that I felt was very natural for both of them. 

Pidge using her passion for technology to help defend the universe alongside her family was something that felt like it was true to her personality and something that’s a very good world-building aspect for what would happen after the story took place. The concept was something I interested in all the way back in season 3, and is part of what inspired my cadet squad AU initially. So seeing that happen didn’t feel out of place to me. 

Hunk as well had always had his passion for cooking as a big part of his character. Seeing him become a chef and using that passion in a way to bring cultures together is a really good and is very in line with his character. We’ve seen him using that skill in other meetings, such as in season 3, and the way he uses cooking to bring people together is a big thing in the final season, as well as for his character overall. Space Mall is another good example, because while it’s mostly for fun and antics it also showed Hunk connecting and changing Sal for the better. 

Keith, Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid slowly turning the Blade into a humanitarian organization is something I’m a bit neutral on. On the one hand, seeing them come together to change a rebellion group that was no longer necessarily needed into an organization to help others has logic to it, and is a very good thing for them to do. But I’m not sure how I feel about it based on their characters and arcs:

We didn’t get a lot of time to get in depth with Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid, so the grounding for them is a bit iffy. I can sort of see it  since they were in a sort of similar position as Lotor’s generals as that Blade of Marmora is in terms of role: a rebel group that is based on taking down the old empire. And due to what we know of their backgrounds, they were people who were in an “us vs them” mentality based on how they were treated. The conflict of Ezor and Zethrid as warlords vs Acxa who chose to go on a separate path was supposed to show how the damage of that mindset could escalate into something harmful, even with people who had genuine reason to have it - I think that could even be applied to Lotor at least to some degree with how he broke down in season 6. 

I personally think Ezor is probably the best example of this based on her personality, specifically in season 7. We see the fear she has over being hurt and tracked down by others, and then we see her taking joy in the concept of hurting others who she has power over. Because of that fear, whenever she has security and power, she uses it in a very sadistic and spiteful way. That trait is a very natural thing that can occur in situations like her own, and is very understandable. But it’s also very damaging to herself and others.

So having them shift from a mindset of hurting others in order to protect themselves to helping others on a personal level isn’t a bad road to take; in fact it’s one that I think works really well. But because we didn’t get a lot of time to explore their characters more in depth and get to see that transition, I don’t think it works for just a single shot epilogue sequence. It would’ve worked better as it’s own plotline, but with how much already going on and a limited number of episodes to work with I have no idea where they’d fit it. 

Meanwhile for Keith, while he has a basis for being in the Blade already, I don’t really see a strong foundation outside of that. And I think for me, the reason it didn’t have that grounding was because we didn’t get as much with Keith outside of his familial arc with discovering his heritage and mother. That was his sole character focus outside of becoming a leader and Black Paladin, and his arc with becoming a leader was sadly sidelined in season 4 for the other. Which I can understand from a character perspective too - his heritage was an important thing he needed to connect to and understand. But as a result the other sadly didn’t have as much to go on. 

And I think that’s why this was his spot, because had he gotten more development in terms of leadership, I think he would’ve been in that Galactic Coalition leader spot with Krolia and Kolivan. Because with the scene of him with the two of them prior to the feast in the final episode, I feel like that’s where the story wanted him to be, but they also knew that they couldn’t get him there and make it seem earned. So him being the leader of the Blades as a new humanitarian organization feels like a compromise of that. He’s in a leadership position, but not on as big of a scale as the coalition. Which isn’t necessarily that bad, it’s working with what they had to try to get a good medium of what they wanted and what could be done. But it leaves it feeling a bit lacking in terms of personal motivation for Keith. It doesn’t scream “this is Keith making a choice and committing to a cause,” it feels much more like a structured narrative decision rather than an in universe motive for the character.

The final two are the ones I’m most nervous about talking about, because they get the most strong reactions from others. But I’m going to do my best to explain my thoughts.

I can see some of the logic in Lance’s end, but I ultimately think it didn’t convey the message they wanted with his arc very well and as a result ended up with some bad implications.

One of the things with Lance’s arc is that he starts off being a character who talks himself up a lot. He plays himself off as someone really awesome and cool, is very flirtatious, etc. As he continued to progress, we started seeing some of his insecurities. Season 2 introduced the fact that he was worried about not contributing to the team in a way that was substantial, and in season 6 while Pidge and Hunk did their tech and Lotor and Allura were working on the Sincline ship, he was left with little to nothing to do. 

Even with those insecurities, though, the way he responded to them was to actively take steps to improve himself. He doesn’t feel like he has a thing? He trains himself in a specific skill: Sharpshooting. Upset that Allura has chosen to be with another guy? He talks himself through it using the mice as a way to communicate what he’s feeling.

And I want to draw attention to what I feel are some of his biggest defining character development moments. In season 3, when he accepts Keith as the leader, when he talks to him on Thayserix, and when he talks up Allura in season 4 as the heart of Voltron. Moments where he builds others up. And Allura multiple times has talked about those moments with Lance. And her talking about him drove what I believe is his actual character arc, based on those insecurities and the way he plays himself up.

He is enough as who he is. He isn’t contributing any less by not having a niche like Pidge or Hunk, he isn’t supposed to be a grand hero who gets all the glory. He’s Lance, and he’s enough as he is. It’s that simple. 

But the way they choose to show that simplicity in the epilogue is… not the best. They set it up a little with the farm scene in season 4, but overall the choice to make his simple life be living as a farmer has a lot of bad implications based on stereotypes. Which is why so many people have such negative feelings towards it, which is totally understandable and completely valid. 

The idea of him settling in a more simple lifestyle isn’t something I’m apposed to, but I believe that choosing that instead of another type of occupation or lifestyle is a very poor choice, and as a result doesn’t convey his arc well or in a positive light. Which is unfortunate, because I really think that arc is good otherwise.

As for Shiro’s, there’s a lot going on with it and a lot of factors that play into it, which makes it difficult to talk about. 

The marriage is, I believe, a small step in terms of representation, as it’s the first time in western cartoons that a mlm wedding has appeared. But I also admit that because of it being such a small scene with no build up and no relationship to build it up, that it is very flawed. Others have talked about their distaste for it and I understand why, and I also understand those who enjoy it for being there at all. There are also aspects like his retirement that people aren’t fond of, and that’s understandable too, but that’s where I have my own feelings to talk about personally. 

The events of season 7 with Shiro and Adam upset a lot of people, and I myself wasn’t that fond of it. I didn’t feel as strongly as others, but the trope of “Bury Your Gays” is something that has been in media for a long time with a long history. So being upset by it is absolutely valid. The reason I personally didn’t feel as strongly as others was because Shiro, a main character who has fought and survived through the show, was still there, and still a gay man on screen whether he was in a relationship or not. 

The on screen break up I personally didn’t have a problem with either due to the fact that I have personally seen a lot of framing of relationships with abuse and unhealthy dynamics as “straight culture” and gay relationships as inherently free of those types of scenarios. I personally identify as asexual or questioning, but know I’m at least not straight from my own self reflection. And seeing this kind of mentality is very harmful and something I wish would stop because it pushes people within the community to stay in relationships that might potentially be dangerous based on pressure that such dynamics are impossible to occur within a wlw/mlm relationship. There’s also a factor of validity of orientations being erased due to relationship status, such as many people who identify as bisexual having their identity erased by others while  being in a m/f relationship, which is also harmful. While having a healthy and thriving mlm relationship on screen would have been great and a very good thing, I don’t believe the break up itself is a terrible choice because it shows that relationship status take away from someone’s identity.

Not only that, but Adam was not the only character within the show to die on screen, so it was not as if the fact that he was gay was a deliberate target on his back in context. Ulaz, Thace, and many other characters have had on screen deaths from seasons 2-7 before Adam. But as I said, the history behind the trope of “Bury Your Gays” does make Adam’s death sting in a much more personal way for a lot of people, which again is a very valid feeling that I don’t want to brush off. 

So with all that in mind, when the epilogue came and showed Shiro marrying Curtis, that leads to some flaws. Namely the fact that the relationship with Curtis is non-existent, and Curtis himself doesn’t really have much of a character to speak of. The marriage itself is good in the sense that it showed a gay marriage on screen, thus opening the door for other shows to do the same.

But in the context of showing a relationship, there was no relationship to be shown. And if Shiro and Curtis had developed a relationship over the course of the season, it would have been much better for both the story and characters, as well as for showing representation for the LGBT community. Without that, it feels like a last minute addition, which it admittedly was, instead of a genuine show of love and wanting to include a mlm couple. Which in the end, while good intended, it leaves it heavily flawed. Which no hate to anyone who enjoyed it for what it was either. I can genuinely see reasons on both sides why someone would dislike or enjoy it. Personally, the flaws outweighed some of the good for me and keeps me from enjoying it.

As for his retirement, this is where I get far more subjective and into how I personally relate to Shiro, which I know others may disagree with because this is very personal to me specifically I admit. 

When I first started watching Voltron, Shiro was my favorite character. He’s still up there among my faves even with Lotor swooping in after season 3. I loved Shiro’s personality; strong willed leader, open and still fun with the other paladins while still stern when he needed to be. The reason the fan name of Space Dad stuck was very obvious. He was put through hell, continued fighting and came out of it still kicking. And he still had that fun and supportive nature for others as he continued to keep going. 

A lot of people focus on him as mlm representation now, but he’s also representation for those with PTSD. And that’s where I started with him. 

The reason I like Shiro so much is because he reminds me - to an uncanny degree - of my older brother. 

He’s helped raise me my whole life, he taught me how to draw, and he still does so much to support me to this day. And in order to get help paying his student loans, he went into the military and was stationed in Iraq for a short time. He’s back now, and he’s totally fine! And I know many people have opinions on such wars and military, and I agree, trust me. 

And that’s why I don’t have a problem with Shiro’s retirement. After everything he’s been through, while him being a hero is great, I also feel like him stepping back, even if it’s in like a Miyazaki back-in-a-few-years way, is a good thing to show as healthy. Him retiring doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to be a hero, because in the context of the story in hindsight, he has always been gay and has always been a hero. And retiring doesn’t mean he never was, or has stopped being a hero. 

At least to me, but again, this is a very personal opinion and I absolutely understand why people would disagree. But these are just my feelings on the matter. 

That was a very, very, VERY long explanation of my feelings on the epilogue as a whole. I’m pretty sure this is the longest post I’ve ever written. 

But hopefully this has done a good job of explaining my feelings on the epilogue. I’m not really sure how I’d compress it all into a tl;dr, just because there was so much to talk about, so apologies for those who can’t sit and read it all at once. But overall, I was very neutral to it all things considered. 

But thank you @thenorthernphoenix for asking this! I’ve been sitting with these thoughts for a while in my head being nervous about putting them out there, but this helped me really collect them all and hopefully articulate it in a good way.

And again, if you liked the epilogue, more power to you, and if you didn’t more power to you. Everybody’s different with their own feelings on the matter.