#irredeemable villainous monsters forever

[caladbolg]

trying to engage w WoW rpers about the forsaken is legit agonizing

[galah-xy]

okay but you know what really gets me about tgchk??? no one but ochako knows about toga's story. their last few moments during the war weren't captured. they have no clue that toga transformed into ochako to give her blood. people still see her as this irredeemable monster that deserved to die. no one but ochako tried to understand her, empathized with her, no one else kNOWS toga is the reason she is still alive. and from the looks of it, after 8 years, she never told anyone

ochako is a better person than me bec if i were her, this would have been my villain origin story. i would have burned society for being so unforgiving towards people like toga. all she wanted was to feel loved, to belong.

but ochako used her all her pain and grief to do something GOOD. she spent the rest of her life saving so many kids from a fate like toga's.

it still breaks my heart that she had to die. they could have been besties in UA, they could have built this quirk counseling project toGETHER. she could have been living proof that having a villain-like quirk doesn't mean you Have to be a villain forever, that people can change if they get the love and support that they need.

aaaakdjdkf when are the sapphics ever gonna catch a break 😭😭😭

[siconetribal]

Beyond the Bookshelves (9)

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: Frustration, Impatience, Time taking forever, Loki still not getting anyone's title right

Summary: You’re a Resource Management Specialist at S.H.I.E.L.D. normally referred to as “The Librarian”. You’ve been assigned the nightmarish task of digitizing all the physical resources currently owned by the agency, with a few new computers and one extra helper.

A/N:

Please comment/like/reblog. If you’d like to be tagged moving forward, please let me know! (If I missed any tags, please let me know, I’ll add you right away!) I’d also greatly appreciate it if rebloggers remember to add the tags (or some at least).

The lovely banners used in this fic are from @cafekitsune.

If you’re new to the story, please check out the master post for the rest of the chapters.

Two more days?! The plastic and metal rectangular deceive creaked from the intensity of the grip, moments away from breaking. “What does she mean, ‘just two more days’,” he sneered the words, launching the device into the leather cushion as he stood up from his couch. It bounced up and plummeted to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud that was masked by the rapid steps of the pacing god. “It is not ‘just’ two more days, she has failed to respond to me multiple times, and she dares to say it’s a mere two extra days? I’ve been going mad in this overly decorated prison tower with nothing new to read! Had she looked at my earlier texts, she could have easily changed the order while on site at those other facilities!” He curled his lips inwards and pressed down on them, coming to an abrupt halt as he clenched his fist and took a few deep breaths, running a hand through his hair. This was unacceptable. He was a prince, and she was supposed to answer to him. Regardless of professional ranking, he outranked her socially. She was a mere Midgardian, and he was one of the great Asgardians, whom her kind revered as gods once upon a time. He knew the Librarian was aware of this, she was well-informed and managed the resources of this organization. And yet, here she was able to cripple him, bend his knee and ask that she return his clearance to enter the library. “She will pay. I will make sure of it.” He hissed the words through gritted teeth.

The spoke words worked like a charm, dispelling his anger as a calm fell over him. His frigid body temperature quickly warmed, and the frost that was beginning to coat the surrounding furniture and floor quickly evaporated. He walked around the sleek coffee table and picked up the abused phone. Tapping the screen to life, he reread her message again. However, this time he focused his attention on her other words. There, in black text, were the words ‘I trust you’. How could she trust him? He was the unforgivable, irredeemable villain who terrorized the world and nearly lay waste to the entirety of the city he was currently in. The very city where she worked and most likely lived in with loved ones and kin. He was the monster that needed to be caged and monitored, never to be trusted. And yet, here she was giving it away to just anyone? He scoffed and rolled his eyes at the naïveté.

No one in their right mind would give me their trust wholeheartedly. This has to be one of those sayings these Midgardians have. What were they called? Me-mes? He relaxed back into the couch, lips scrunched to one side and eyebrows furrowed. “She has to be out of her mind, there is no other plausible option.” The hushed words seemed to echo in the silence of his suite. Painful and sharp, there was no other explanation. “Why else would she wait for an apology from a prince?” He rubbed at his chest to ease the uncomfortable ache that swirled above his heart. “At least she is fine.” The words lingered on the tip of his tongue, but were never spoken. He had too much on his mind at the moment to care about yet another oddity that linked to this queer young woman, it would be something to worry about another time.

Y/N sneezed for what had to be the tenth time within the last hour. She knew planes could be a bit chilly, but she was well bundled up and currently comfortable. Pressing the inside of one of her wrists to her forehead, she tried to assess her temperature.

“I don’t feel warm, but it must be fatigue getting the better of me. I’ve been running all over the freaking globe getting all this set up.” She gently massaged her forehead, closing her eyes to ease any potential sensory overload of her exhausted body. The only solace she had was that everything was set into place and the other locations could begin scanning all the documents they have into the database. She would start the scanning process in the main branch as well. She knew traveling to and fro from the various bases was a waste of valuable resources and, most importantly, precious time. With only two translators, who were not even always readily available; it was better to have them read through scanned files when she could nab them, instead of letting them look at the physical text in person. “This is the most efficient way to do this. They’ll read and translate it, I’ll transcribe and upload it.” Easier said than done, Y/LN, easier said than done. She rolled her wrists and flexed her fingers with grim foreboding, the ghosts of cramps future coming to haunt her like the ghost of Christmas future did Scrooge.

“I’d joke about retiring early after this, but I don’t think this task will end soon enough for it to be considered ‘early’ anymore. What did I do to deserve this punishment anyway? At least Scrooge as a miserly jerk, what karmic deity did I piss off in a past life?” Rubbing the back of her neck, she reclined the seat and shut her eyes, sneezing one more time before falling into a deep slumber.

Two hellish days sluggishly ticked by as Loki impatiently awaited the return of the little nuisance known as the Librarian. The fact that he knew she would be back seemed to make the wait all the more insufferable. Each time he looked at the clock, it was as if the hands were frozen in place. A part of him even wondered if Stark somehow caught wind of her reply and purposely adjusted every clock that he happened to look to show that no time had passed at all. The younger prince knew it was not plausible because Stark had gone on his mission with Thor and some others. They left days prior to her response. He was in this infernal hell because fate was cruel. The only thing keeping him sane were his own meetings and training sessions. Only then did time seem to move properly, instead of slower than molasses.

Great, I’m thinking in such weird terms because of all the time I’ve been forced to spend with the Lieutenant Chatterbox. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. Never mind that, today is the day. He glanced at his phone’s lock screen. There was a notification with the date that read: Return of the diabolical librarian. As soon as the clock struck eight, Loki left his quarters and made his way to the sanctuary he was unlawfully denied access to. He could have left early and been at the door just as it was to be opened, but he decided to have some leniency and give her a fair ten or so minutes to prepare. He was a magnanimous ruler, he would hear her out before deciding whether she left with malicious intent or not.

Standing before the wooden double doors, Loki hesitated for a moment. He gripped his key card that hung from a badge reel on his suit jacket. He eyed the speaker system above his head, knowing full well that the same grating computer voice will spew the same words that have been haunting him for weeks now. This time, he had a response, though. He would tell it that the Librarian has asked for him to come speak with her, and it would verify with her before allowing him entry. If not, he would use his magic to transport himself to the main desk and calmly request that she upheld her word of removing the hold. Pressing the card to the scanner, he watched the red light turn green and heard the chime of it being registered. A click from the speaker above signaled it had been activated. His jaw tightened as he took another deep breath, anticipating the rejection.

Tags: @vbecker10 @huntress-artemiss @softestqueeen @thegodofnotknowing @princess-ofthe-pages @firedrakegirl @rcailleachcola @cabingrlandrandomcrap @lotrefcp @lwtannie @jainaeatsstars @msdjsg7 @tom-hlover @kneelingformyloki @gruftiela @gigglingtiggerv2 @kats72 @mischief2sarawr @evalynanne @wolfsmom1

[wc-confessions]

I am not a Brambleclaw fan and I don't dislike Squirrelflight but I always disliked the way fandom treats the whole Hawkfrost situation. Like Squirrelflight was right in the end but why the fandom that judges the series for irredeemable pure evil villains and StarClan sending cats to hell forever condemns the character for trying to see something good in his family member (who saved his live at least once)? Like Brambleclaw is dumb for trusting Tigerstar for no reason and finding excuses for Hawkfrost, but by the end he understands that Hawkfrost is evil but still wants to reason with him and maybe pull him to the good side. I really don't want to protect Brambleclaw because how dumb he acts in the second arc, but why is the fandom consensus on him is "he should've clearly understood that his brother who is ambitious and doesn't support Onewhisker is an irredeemable pure evil monster" when that's exactly the philosophy the series is often criticized

.

[ultraericthered]

A tale of two evil Disney kings.

I put this out not to make any statement about how one villain compares to the other, but to compare how similar in the spirit and the details of their evilness these two are; the last straight up Big Bad of a Disney animated movie before the next decade and the first straight up Big Bad of a Disney animated movie we've gotten since.

And I also want to touch upon something that confounds me.

King Magnifico, despite the film teasing at him being a nuanced and even sympathetic character at first, ended up becoming a villain vile and irredeemably heinous enough to be upvoted as a Complete Monster on TV Tropes. Majority vote approved, so that's fair. ...But Turbo, the dude with a similar rap sheet, is still not only ruled a non-example, he's in the "never to be discussed again" category for all the nixing of adding him to the trope ever since 2012. Because why, exactly? I am legitimately finding no good justification for this now.

Turbo locked away his subjects' memories within Sugar Rush's code without giving them any say on the matter (whereas with Magnifico it's at least a contractual arrangement between him and the people who give their wishes to him), and while the Sugar Rush characters don't appear to be acting all that off in any way besides not remembering Vanellope, no one in Rosas really seems to be suffering, depressed, dispirited, and poor off from having given up their wishes and forgotten about them either: it's a frequent criticism that they all seem to happy and prospering, and that the bad side of Magnifico's reign is more told to us than shown. The suffering only really visibly occurs on-screen when Magnifico takes and breaks the wishes (though even then it's written off as "making people feel sad" by a lot of watchers, so it's not easy to argue it's all that heinous). And sure, Turbo's manipulation of Ralph left Ralph with more of a choice to make regarding Vanellope's cart and her ability to race compared to Magnifico with Simon, but that could be argued to make Turbo that much more insidious and reprehensible in his approach.

And then we have Cy-Bug Turbo vocally making clear his intent to overtake all games in the arcade he chooses and forcing Ralph to watch the Cybugs attack Vanellope, comparable to Magnifico vocally making clear his intent to break all wishes in Rosas in order to enslave the despirited masses forever and forcing them all to watch him torture Asha. Yes, the latter might hit harder since it's such a betrayal of all the people he was supposed to be protecting and caring for, but that doesn't make Turbo's climactic villainy any less heinous. Turbo lacks magic powers, he's just a program who overrode that of a Cy-Bug and intends to make full use of the bug's capabilities to infect the lifeblood of other games and to physically harm others, namely Ralph, who he tells straight to his face that he wants to kill. And like Magnifico with the dark magic tome, Turbo's code merging with the Cy-Bug doesn't destroy his moral agency, it only makes him into a more unhinged, unfiltered and destructive version of the same cruel, egomaniacal asshole he already was. The fact that he uses the words "virus", "arcade", and "game" in the same sentence proves he's not merely another instinctive Cy-Bug; he knows exactly what he's doing, and sets out to hurt countless others knowing that he's hurting them not caring, and even relishing it.

Well at least we have other trope wikis to look to if we wish to find Turbo under his rightful classification. He is a Complete Monster, period. With the raw deal TV Tropes has given him for over a whole decade, he's the one who should sing "This Is The Thanks I Get?"

Yes, I am aware that the Complete Monster trope is not a badge of honor or trophy for whatever villain ends up on it,

No, I could not pass up this image.

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Loser Round 5: Mary (Ib) vs. Damian Wayne (DC)

Propaganda below the cut

Mary (~9):

A painting of a girl who was brought to life and wants to become a real girl and make friends :) like pinocchio but slightly more murderous. She can only become real if one of the two real people in her world dies first so she can take their place. In certain endings of the game, she chooses to kill the adult Garry so she and the child protagonist Ib can live together forever in the real world- which of course, means she's the most evil creature in existence and should literally be burned alive, according to the fandom.

Damian Wayne (9-14):

Damian is a kid who was raised as an assassin and because of that when he first appears he has some really messed up ideas of how to prove himself to his father by being aggressive with the criminals they capture and attacking his brother. Because of this people act like he is the most evil character ever and refuse to give him any grace. They make him out to be this awful irredeemable monster who just wants to kill his brother and hurt people. If the fandom isn’t making his out to be The Worst(tm) then they are ignoring his existence all-together. He is a really interesting character who has done some not so great things but he’s grown and learned a lot through various character arcs (as much of an arc as a comic book character can have) and he deserves to be acknowledged for himself and not just as a villain so that people can woobify his brother.

——

HES JUST A LITTLE BABY GUY!!!!! Little baby man raised as an assassin and learning how to be a real person <3. But because he was kind of a dick and also a little stabby early-on, especially to the fandom's main "so sad uwu depressed baby" blorbo (and also he's not white), people treat him like he's satan incarnate

[expired-blueberries]

been seeing people mention recently how much they dislike kevin becoming a good guy after everything that happened in original series which like, i get it. i do! he tried to kill ben multiple times, and ben’s family, and also a lot of random people. like, i get it! but, like, i would’ve also been devastated if he wasn’t redeemed at some point. 

here’s the thing: he’s a kid. he was a homeless child, a runaway who survives through theft, and who has no friends or family he can rely on. and in original series future (and, arguably, omniverse future), he stays a villain this entire time. he’s never gotten the help he needed, he’s just another kid who grew up and slipped through the cracks. he beat up a child onscreen, nearly died after being stomped by waybig, and then was thrown back into the null void. fair? sure, yes, absolutely. if ben hadn’t reacted exactly that way to seeing his child be hurt, i would be questioning how good of a father he was. 

but isn’t it still sad? kevin fated to be a villain forever after he was thrown out of his house/ran away because his father/stepfather/male authority figure called or implied he was a freak? did he deserve that future? 

i think it would’ve been cool to see kevin get redeemed onscreen. it would’ve been nice to see him make amends for what happened, and for him to go to therapy, and all that good stuff. but even though we never got that, i’m still glad he GOT redeemed. 

THAT is one of the reasons that UAF is my favorite ben 10 series - because it didn’t just relegate him to a future of (arguable) child abandonment (devlin) and abuse (kenny) and manipulation, a future where he can control his powers but never got better. a future where the homeless runaway just becomes another irredeemable monster. i’m glad he got redeemed. i’m glad he became a good guy.

[linkspooky]

Do you think Batman could empathize with Terra?

Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: Oh, here we go again.

So, Terra is my favorite character of all time. I want her to live, recover from her trauma, and then become some anti-villain mercenary that just shows up to annoy the titans.

However, I will forever defend the decision to kill Terra at the end of Judas Contract. Her complexity as a bad victim and the tragedy that Terra was just too complicated a victim for anyone in her life to notice or save is what makes her character good. The whole point of the story is Terra should have been saved, but she wasn't. That gives the story it's punch. Terra is a teenage girl who joined the Teen Titans, put on a costume, and died. Her creators sort of half-realized this and half didn't when they made the decision to kill Terra.

"Hers was the power over the earth itself. She could have brought life to deserts, heat to the frozen tundra, food to starving millions, she could have damned raging rivers and funneled water to lands parched dry, and dead. Her powers were limited only by the mind that controlled them. A mind which sought not hope, not love, not life, but death."

Even the panels that narrate her death that call her a psychopath and victim blame her, also speculate on how much potential good for the world is lost by snuffing out life as young as Terra's. Hers is the story of a young girl who by the narrative is doomed to die hence why there is nothing, no hope, no love, no life just death in her mind.

That's what makes the question of "Could Batman have empathized with her" so compelling, because it makes you think and realize there was a chance for Terra, miss "Dead at the beginning of the story" to be saved. So, why wasn't she? Why couldn't anyone involved in her situation empathize with this troubled teenage girl?

Out of context of her creators intending her to be an irredeemable monster, don't these lines, the last one especially sound horribly tragic?

"A mind which sought not hope... not love... not life... but death."

Terra's life is so nihilistic and miserable. What exactly was she alive for? She was a sixteen-year-old mercenary who was cut off from her family due to being the bastard child. She thinks she's manipulating death stroke who she thinks is her equal when she's actually just getting manipulated by him. I mean the fact that Terra views relationships as transactions. That she views sex with Slade as using her body as a bargaining chip to gain leverage over them. The fact that she hates the titans, primarily because she doesn't understand them. She thinks all their goodwill for each other is fake, and that they can't possibly be as good as they pretend to be because, in Terra's mind, good people don't exist.

The best interpretation of Terra is to not make light of her crimes at all, she did not grow close to the titans, she was planning on betraying them and never wavered, she felt next to nothing about killing... but even if all that's true isn't she sympathetic regardless because her life's just miserable?

All of Terra's actions don't change the fact that a 50+ year old is not only raping her, and using her as a child soldier, but is good enough at manipulating that she thinks the relationship is consensual and she's somehow in on the partnership. These two things do not cancel out one another.

The reason I hammered this nail in so hard, is because this is what makes up the tragedy of Terra's character. Terra is a fifteen year old girl in a horrible situation and therefore deserves to be saved. Terra does not get saved. Why is that? That's the essential question of the tragedy.

Now to return to your question, would batman empathize with Terra?

Yes.

I would argue the Titans empathized with Terra too. However, empathizing with someone is different from having the emotional maturity to communicate with them. Which is the difference between Batman and the Teen Titans, he is an adult and they are children.

When I think about the Teen Titans who are unable to save a girl they've lived with for months from an adult man who's their mortal enemy and clearly exploiting her, I get frustrated until I realize the Teen Titans are just barely older than Terra. Terra's case so clearly needs adult intervention, and she doesn't have that she has a group of teenagers who all have the RESPONSIBILITIES of an adult, but don't have the requisite maturity to be able to handle those responsibilities.

There's a lot of reasons that Terra does not get saved, number one being that not a single Titan seemed to see through her act despite them all having suspicions. I know this wasn't the intent, but Terra's written as a pretty textbook CSA victim. She's aggressive, hypersexual, tries to pose as an adult, associates sexuality with violence (heck Beast Boy flirting with her during a training session makes her violently lash out, you could easy interpret that as her experiencing some kind of flashback). There was clearly something going on with Terra, everyone had an inkling, no one noticed.

It's because everyone around her just saw what they wanted to see of Terra.

Beast Boy only saw his own romantic feelings for her. He made up his own idealized version of Terra and pursued her. And let's be honest considering Beast Boy's weird relationship with women in early NTT he was probably just seeking a girlfriend to validate his low self esteem.Raven sensed something off with Terra, but projected her own situation onto her as well. Raven convinced herself that there was some kind of evil buried deep within Terra but was afraid to confront her because number one, Raven is convinced she is evil deep down inside, and number two Raven understands so little about humans she feels like she cannot judge them. Robin is frankly, too busy with the rest of the team to notice.

Terra is practically the Laura Palmer of the Teen Titans. For those who have never watched Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer is a young woman in the town of Twin Peaks who lives a double lie. By day she is a prom queen dating a kid on the football team and running a meals on wheels program. By night she is tricking her boyfriend into buying cocaine for her regularly, working at a whorehouse across the border, regularly sleeping with men twice her age. Laura has an ugly dark side that's hard to look at, but what's uglier is the source of all of this behavior. Laura's coping with being raped by her father on a semi-regular basis and keeping that secret, when every single person in town only sees what they want to see of her, they see a prom queen, or a girlfriend, or whatever.

Bobby Briggs: “You damn hypocrites. You make me sick! Everybody knew she was in trouble but we didn’t do anything. All you good people… You wanna know who killed Laura Palmer? You did! We all did.”

No one noticed because they all saw their own version of Terra. Terra herself played into that, because she was lying to everyone.

At the same time there's a difference between a child who is not fully emotionally developed or aware of their surroundings and an adult who should know better. An adult should be aware enough to pick up signs of abuse or even notice a child's distress, and if they ignore it that's a problem.

The question is should a kid reasonably be expected to do the same thing? I would say that's expecting too much emotional maturity out of a kid because that's asking them to do what should be an adult's job. At the same time, the Teen Titans are kids who put on masks and decided to make it their job to save heroes. This is what makes the Judas Contract such an effective tragedy, because it makes you ask these questions. If none of them were able to notice or save Terra, then will they be able to notice the next time someone like Terra is in danger but they're not a straightforward or easy-to-spot victim?

The complexity of Terra's victimhood is another reason why the titans failed to save her. There's a panel where Terra is telling Kory and Donna a fake version of her backstory to get sympathy and they deny it by going "Well, we all have dead parents." And Kory goes "I was a slave for five years."

Of course, Terra's lying about her backstory here but regardless it's dismissive to play tragedy olympics here. The fact Kory was a slave for five years doesn't really matter because we're talking about Terra's experiences here, and only Terra knows about her feelings.

Terra is a complicated victim, her trauma doesn't make her a hero, in fact she despises the idea she should have to use her powers to help others. Yet, she deserves saving because she's a fifteen year old girl getting raped. In fact you would think Kory if she learned that fact or even got an inkling of it would be the first to sympathize having gone through something herself. And hey, she might. I just want to point out, Starfire tends to suffer from black and white, them vs. us thinking. Especially NTT Starfire who's much more emotional and warlike. She also didn't even notice her own sister blackfire was being abused in the same household.

So why do usually extremely empathic heroes draw a line like that with more complicated victims like Terra? Why even bother to play Trauma Olympics in the first place?'

It's because once again they're teenagers. Teenagers have black and white thinking. Who would have thought? Teenagers don't realy have the emotional maturity to see outside of themselves and their own situation. Which is why we get one of two responses. The first being "Well, I went through this and I'm fine...." (Arguably, none of the Teen Titans are fine they're all drama queens). The second being "Well, just because that happened to her that doesn't justify her behavior."

Returning to the example of Laura Palmer, once again does Laura Palmer's dark side even matter? Does it matter she illegally buys cocaine, or helped kill a man? An Adult (Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks) would be able to see that literally none of that matters because Laura needs someone to notice what her father is doing to her and save her from it.

This is mostly a post about comic books Terra, because she's my baby darling but to bring one moment from the cartoon in. When faced with the weight of her guilt in the episode "Betrayal" Terra breaks down sobbing and starts apologizing to Beast Boy.

Terra: (from o.c.) Beast Boy...it's the truth.

Beast Boy: Terra...why?

Slade: Because you could never give her what she needs.

Terra: No! I won't let you hurt my friend! (Close-up of Slade.)

Slade: Dear child, you don't have any friends.

Terra: (sobbing) Beast Boy, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. (He moves partially into view near the camera.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Then why did you let it? (She stands up.)

Terra: I don't know, okay? I don't know.

Terra: Slade...he helped me, saved me from myself. (Pan to frame an upset Beast Boy in the other spot; she continues o.c.) He said I owed him, but--

Beast Boy: So it was all a game? You were just pretending? (Cut to frame both.)

Terra: (steps to him) No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

(She reaches out to touch his shoulder, but he gives her the hardest glare he can and turns away.)

Beast Boy: Slade was right. You don't have any friends.

Terra confesses everything, shows obvious signs of guilt, and basically begs and Beast Boy turns his back on her. There's no more obvious opportunity to save her or change her heart, and Beast Boy just doesn't. He jumps straight to the victim blaming, "Why did you let it happen?" Again and again, they empasize Terra's choices and of course those are important but it doesn't change the fact she's being abused. "Why did you let it happen?" I don't know why did she let an adult man groom her. Why do children get groomed? Shouldn't they know better?

However, in doing that Beast Boy basically repeats the same words as her abuser "You don't have any friends" and drives her right back to Slade.

Now, Beast Boy was hurt because he thought his friends were possibly dead or injured somewhere else and Terra lied to him the whole night about it. Beast Boy's also a teenager so it's ahrd for him to see past his own hurt feelings and show empathy for the person who hurt him no matter what her reasons would be.

At the same time Beast Boy decided to put on a mask and call himself a hero. Heroes save people. This begs the question, if he's too immature to handle a victim as complicated as Terra which he will come across in the job because the abuse that happens to Terra is more common than you think then is he really mature enough to be a hero?

Now, having gone through all of that Batman would be able to empathize with Terra, for the simple reason that he's an adult so he should be able to step out of the situation and realize this a child who desperately need adult help that he's dealing with.

One important detail is that Terra's death, and Jason's death happened pretty closely to one another in comic book time. Dick Grayson in fact had a pretty bad reaction to both of those where he felt responsible because he was the one who gave Jason his Robin costume and allowed Terra on his team, therefore in both cases it was like he was approving of them being superheroes when they were too young for it... the very thing that got them killed.

Batman regularly refers to Jason's death as his greatest failure, because Jason was just a child and Bruce wasn't the caretaker that Jason needed him to be. Jason Todd is also a character that once reviving from the dead becomes a morally grey victim, with behavior that's comparable to Terra. Some people believe that Talia dipping him in the Lazarus pit like a crouton in soup has rendered him insane, or incapable of feeling remorse.

He is a vigilante killer. Tutored by several years by a woman from the League of Assassins and taught several forms of murder. He's involved in the drug trade and selling his services out for protection money. He is more or less a teenage mercenary like Terra, just with a slight vigilante bent to his actions.

Heck, his trauma is similiar to Terra's, they were both basically separated from their families at a young age, lived apart from them for years, and then became mercenaries and used their powers / vigilante training for both survival and profit. However, Bruce unconditionally views what happened to Jason as a failure because he let it happen. As an adult it was his job to be there for Jason and he wasn't.

Bruce's dying will and testament in Battle for the Cowl is an admission for this, and an offer to help him get the treatment he needs. Of course, it's Bruce so he still says it in a victim blamey way. He probably should have said "I failed you" rather than "You have been my biggest failure" but he still took responsibility.

Which is the underyling point and also something Batman as an adult can realize, that Jason was a child dealing with all of that pain alone and he couldn't possibly have coped with it the way an adult would because he's not one. He needs adult and outside intervention to show him the proper way.

Batman has taken in former murderers as sidekicks before (though arguably Terra needs to learn how to just be herself, making her be a hero was part of the problem in the first place). There's Cassandra Cain who was trained from birth to kill, his own son was also raised by the League of Assassins. In the new 52 Batman and Robin Damian and Bruce have a complicated relationship, but there is one scene I think demonstrates how Bruce has great potential to be empathic and communicate with Damian. Damian murders a man in front of Bruce, and breaks the bat family rule of no killing. He murders Henri Ducard's son, because the man was threatening to come back and kill Bruce at a later date.

Bruce does not throw him out or fire him for being Robin. THis time, Batman takes a long time to explain the truth to Damian about what his relationship with Henri Ducard and his son was. How in the past he also felt a desire to kill both of them for what they did and what the danger represented.

Bruce doesn't hit Damian over the head with "murder is bad" or "cool motive still murder" he doesn't see the crimes first he sees the victim.

He takes the time to let Damian understand him better as a person so they can have a connection there, and then he explains to Damian why he does not kill, and that he also doesn't want Damian to kill so he won't have to bear the guilt of it. He does that for Damian's sake, because he's a child and won't understand these things unless told.

Bruce needs to communicate this with Damian because they won't magically understand and empathize with each other, which is why I'm emphasizing over and over again the necessity of adult

intervention in Terra's case. An older and more mature Dick Grayson in Batman and Robin 2009 also emphasizes that Dick is the grown up in the relationship and Damian is the child.

And as the adult it is his responsibility to take care of Damian, hence the "Who's gonna save him if we don't?"

Batman has encountered children turned murders in one way or another and he always emphasizes the fact that they are children. If you want a more recent example, in the James Tynion Iv run for Batman, issue #105 where Bruce is facing off with Ghostmaker / Minhkhoa. Ghostmaker sets up a situation where Clown Hunter a murderous vigilante who started killing crimminals after his parents were murdered by the joker at twelve has a chance to kill Harley Quinn in revenge while Bruce watches. Bruce intervenes for two reasons, which he tells Minhkhoa.

Which features one of my favorite Bruce lines "caring about people hasn't killed me yet..."

Which really demonstrates Batman's empathy for others. His goal is to not put villains away, but stop the cycle of violence in the streets of gotham.

"How easy it would have been to just eliminate the joker's closest associates? But then nobody learns, nobody changes, nothing is better in the end."

It's easy to dismiss Terra for her crimes and let her face the consequences alone. But then, nobody learns, nobody changes, and nothing is better in the end. Batman doesn't judge who deserves to be saved and who does not. He doesn't let "not everyone can be saved" work as an excuse to not try to save someone.

Hell, Minhkhoa himself is diagnosed as a psychopath in universe with extremely low or nonexistent empathy, which is what Wolfram and Perez's original vision for Terra was. A person who did not feel empathy, remorse, or love for others. Yet, Bruce still gives someone like Minhkhoa a chance to do good, and still tries to communicate with him and get him to understand why Bruce does things the way he does even if Minhkhoa can't empathize with him.

To tie this all up. The tragedy of the Judas Contract arc is Terra was a child who did not get saved. There are reasons for this. She was surrounded by other children who didn't have the maturity to save her. She was being taken advantage of by an adult man who has been manipulating people for years. She was a liar and manipulator herself.

If Batman, an adult, had been there to help the Titans would he have been able to reach out to her and save her? We don't know, but I can say this he definitely would have tried.

[tainbocuailnge]

So a friend of mine who I talk with about FGO says Ashiya Douman is one of the most irredeemable assholes in all of FGO b/c his acts of evil were way more personal than most antagonists and he was ALWAYS like this (it isn't just servant BS), the entire reason the Heian-Kyo story exists is b/c Chaldea is going after him so even Ritsuka should hate him. I just want to know how much of a monster he truly is or if my friend is just SUPER fixating on the bad parts (it helps to get other opinions).

obligatory disclaimer that i read heian kyo in the form of fallacies' fantranslations and I'm still in atlantis on NA

at the end of heian kyo we get a scene of the living ashiya douman trying to kill himself because he knows all the crimes caster of limbo committed were rooted in feelings that he indeed harbours and it horrifies him. he's horrified that all it took to break him was hearing "at this rate you'll never surpass seimei even once" in his own voice. he's horrified that he's capable of doing the things caster of limbo did and his sense of morality says he should kill himself for knowing the conditions under which he will break. it's seimei who talks him out of it, even though seimei knows douman in panhuman history was nearing his breaking point at this time and would soon indeed start committing numerous great evils.

is ashiya douman an irredeemable person? caster of limbo, who is ashiya douman's inferiority complex over forever being seimei's ridiculed rival combined with two gods who are both ill-defined but likewise designated as targets for hatred, wants you to believe this, because the purpose given to him by the alien god is to be an insufferable irredeemable clown bastard. ashiya douman also believes this, because the feelings at the root of caster of limbo are real. is it true though?

although the historical abe no seimei is widely known and beloved, and ashiya douman is consequently almost as much of a household name, not much is known about douman at all beyond the few stories where he gets clowned on to make seimei look better. is douman a villain just because we mostly know him from stories where the hero defeats him? caster of limbo was unable to become a beast of humanity because he lacked the love for humanity necessary to become a stepping stone for humanity's growth. he also failed to become a plague upon humanity because ashiya douman does not hate humanity and does not want to destroy it. ultimately, all he ever wanted was simply to surpass his friend and rival seimei even just once.

limbo is the afterlife for people not evil enough for hell and not good enough for heaven. when he tries to do good he fails to become a hero. when he tries being evil he fails to become the final boss. there is much evil in ashiya douman, certainly, and you need far more than two hands to count his crimes. there is much evil in many people, and there are many circumstances in which it will reveal itself. he's good at psychologically torturing people because he's intimately familiar with how insecurities can ruin a person and his job as alter ego was to bring out the worst in people. his acts of evil are way more personal than most others because he has no greater goal he wants to achieve, he has no other purpose than to be an insufferable irredeemable clown until he's backed into a corner and realizes that he does have something he wants to achieve, namely proving that he can achieve anything at all.

if you ask me, ashiya douman's character is meant to make you ask how useful "redeemability" even is in assessing a person's worth. when playing house with nursery rhyme he requests the role of mother in law because the nature of his legend is to be the hated person that makes everyone else look better by comparison, regardless of anything he actually did. he's obsessed with people who lost something important to them that they want to get back at all cost, and he gets his claws in them by offering them a way to get revenge, to show those who wronged them what they can really do. he wants to help just as much as he wants to hurt, and in many of the cases in the game those two end up being the same thing and mostly causing a lot of problems for everyone and especially chaldea, but that doesn't exclude that there are circumstances in which he would have helped more than hurt. if things were different maybe he wouldn't have ended up like this, and who's to say things can't still be different?

is ashiya douman irredeemable? this is not the right question to ask in this game. nobody in fate is ever truly irredeemable as long as they're willing to learn and grow, and alter ego ashiya douman shows up in chaldea so that he might learn to understand love.

[sincerely-sofie]

The """"villain""""Twig!AU is making me go insane over what would happen. I haven't hyperfixated on something so much, so quickly in years. I need to give my 2 cents or I just might implode

(Tw: self hatred, suicide implications, Death, Caps lock)

Twig would think of herself as an irredeemable monster for indirectly hurting her friends. she would probably think that, because Darkrai made people have nightmares because of malice, (while not knowing its just a thing he can accidentally do without realizing it.) she would think that on some level that she WANTED to hurt the people closest to her. Her self loathing would get SO much worse. BUT she CAN'T be self destructive because she wouldn't want anyone else to be cursed with this power. She would spiral even further. She wants to die, but she knows she can't from age because of Celebi. She would hate herself even more for even thinking of finding someone to put her out of her misery. She loves her friends to a fault. She wants to be with them, but she thinks that she's inherently evil. It wouldn't help that she would not be able to practice controlling her powers in isolation, give that nightmare aura invariably needs someone else to practice with.

Everyone in her friend group, the Guild, heck, maybe even team skull, would desperately search for her. Combing every place they can think of. Searching every mystery dungeon, forest, mountain, cave, even going under the sea to search. But it's no use. One by one all of them would give up and accept that she is missing. Maybe forever. Except Kip. He would never stop searching for her. He's madly in love with her and knows her better than anyone else. All he wants to do is tell her that he still loves her, and that he would endure any nightmare, no matter how awful, just so he could wake up next to her. And that they would figure out how to control her powers together. But he can't. Maybe he evolves from the constant stress and work put in searching for her. He can't accept that she's gone. He CANNOT live without seeing her one last time. But no matter how much he tries, he can't find her. All of his effort, YEARS of searching with no results. He would either fall into an intense depression, rarely eating or getting out of bed, or die in an accident during an expedition. His thoughts for the last who-knows-how-many-decades have almost entirely been about Twig. And that doesn't change during his last breath.

Grovyle would possibly take it the worst out of all her friend. She was the ONE person he SWORE to protect, and he SCREWED IT UP! HE COULDN'T HAVE DONE ANY WORSE! He would consider himself an utter failure on every conceivable level. It doesn't help that his old savior complex habits resurface worse than ever. He doesn't want anyone to worry about him. He needs to be strong. He always puts on a mask whenever he's around others. He denies everything when someone confronts him about obviously not doing well. Whenever he's alone, he wishes he could just, dissappear. But that would mean someone else would wonder what happened to him. So he can't do that. As a result, he becomes more distant from everyone. His friendships fade because he's never genuine. He runs away whenever he begins to get too emotional. And denies that he is doing such a thing.

Dusknoir would be incredibly distraught by this. He hurt Twig before, who's to say he hadn't done hurt her again? She didn't even say goodbye to anyone, least of all him, why would she even care about him? And now all he wants is to beg her for forgiveness. Completely unaware of the fact that she had already forgiven him for his betrayal a long time ago. He has no idea that she would be appalled that he would want her to forgive him when she would be the one begging for his forgiveness for hurting him and "being evil". Both of them recieve no closure for this. And both of them live without knowing that the other wishes they would ask for forgiveness.

Celebi would become more reserved than ever. She learned that; not only could a legend be killed, but also what happens to the person that kills them. She would consider her powers to see the future and the past a curse. One that only she can bear. She becomes so much less adventurous and adverse to risk. Whenever the other Celebi's ask her why she looks so glum, she quickly changes the subject. She can't have them know. It would destroy them. She would consider all of this her fault as well. If only she knew what would happen, she could have stopped it. If she had been more responsible, she could have had Twig live her life, and all of this would have been avoided. But she can't change it now, because if she were to try and go back in time, another Celebi might come to this timeline and learn what happened. Then they would tell the others, and then they would talk, and she would be solely responsible for ruining the lives of infinite Celebi's. It would all have been her fault. She shoos any celebi that arrives in her timeline out of there. Her relationship with Dialga crumbles as a result of how often she threatens other Celebis to tell him that they are interfering with other timeliness. Eventually, the other Celebi's start avoiding her altogether. "If she's gonna be so mean, then we just wont talk to her" they reason. She's alone, her friendships are ruined, the only people that can relate to her hate her. But they are all safe. That's the only thing that matters now.

Cressalia would take some time, but eventually she finds out what would happen. She would feel responsible for being the one that got Twig cursed with this power, but also she would try to police Twig the same way she tried to control Darkrai. "She must be doing this on purpose". Perhaps Cressalia is the catalyst that made Twig leave in the first place. By trying to help her in Cressalia's own special way, by guilt tripping them while assuming they know what they're doing. It's only after her experience with the Snivy that she realizes what she has done. And now she did EXACTLY what she did to darkrai. To someone who never wanted or asked for this power. She would want to seek forgiveness, but Twig doesn't sleep. She doesn't know where she is. This guilt would eat away at her, leaving her a shell of her former self.

I love a good (fictional) tragedy, because all of this is no-ones fault in particular. Celebi thought legends couldn't be killed and didn't take any precautions in the possibility of that happening, Cresselia thought she was doing the right thing, both before and after Darkrai's death. Twig, Kip, Grovyle and Dusknoir couldn't have known that any of this would happen. It was the perfect storm and set of circumstances that caused this. The most tragic part of all of this, is that by trying to protect everyone, Twig hurts them more than she would have if she had simply stayed. If she didn't have a tendency to put the well-being of others over her own, she could have lead a much happier life, with some pain at the start. Rather than being in pain forever, while unknowingly causing so much more suffering. Ignorance is often bliss, but it is a curse in this.

I dunno how in character all of this is, (Personally, I think my interpretation of Celebi is a bit iffy, she probably would have known that legends can be killed, seen this future, and taken steps to prevent all this from happening) But my brain latched on to the implications of this AU like a steel trap and would not let go until I wrote this down

Thank you for continuing to make art Sophie! I love this suffering more than you probably realize. (Genuine)

Okay so like. When you said you were gathering your thoughts I was so excited. But I would have never DREAMED of this amazing ask.

This is such an interesting continuation of the AU’s premise! It really drives home the irony of Twig’s belief that she makes things worse for those around her, and that her friends would be happier if they never saw her again— Twig is the heart of the main cast. She’s keeping everyone from going off the deep end with just her presence.

I don’t know what to say other than GOOD GLORY do we ever need a tag for this AU because I’m getting attached to it 😭

[skaruresonic]

https://www.tumblr.com/skaruresonic/758536567626383360/the-dangers-of-free-will-what-dangers-being

"even if we're speaking simply from the POV of "Eggman almost destroyed the world when he regained his free will," does one bad apple really outweigh the fact that most people aren't environment-destroying madmen? does that give Eggman the right to deprive everyone else of their free will?"

Eggman is inarguably an irredeemably horrid monster with a long track record of gleefully subjecting innocent people to nightmarish fates. there should have never been any question on whether or not he deserves death.

This is what gets me. The people defending idw sonic's morality don't comprehend that different individuals with different histories will require different approaches.

Comic stans: If Sonic thinks it's fine to kill Eggman then that means he's fine with killing everybody

Uh no???

It's like asking why Sonic sentenced Erazor Djinn to eternal damnation but let Merlina go with a quick pep talk. It's because both cases were utterly incomparable and would naturally require different approaches.

Comic stans: Well if Sonic is fine with punishing irredeemable villains then why doesn't he kill Eggman?

Same reason why Sonic always survives impossible situations or gets outright resurrected after dying. SEGA is not gonna kill off their mascot or the mascot's main enemy. We have to remember there's a bit of a corporate aspect in all of this

Why is this so hard for some people?

This part of your post also stuck out to me "does that give Eggman the right to deprive everyone else of their free will?""

Eggman wants to turn everyone into unthinking machines specifically so he make them worship him forever. That's not exactly a desire or choice based on morality. All Eggman wants is the satisfaction of having power over all living beings.

The only way anyone can defend the idw sonic comic is by making up deranged nonsense and forcing themselves to believe in it.

Comic stans: If Sonic thinks it's fine to kill Eggman then that means he's fine with killing everybody

Uh no???

It's like asking why Sonic sentenced Erazor Djinn to eternal damnation but let Merlina go with a quick pep talk. It's because both cases were utterly incomparable and would naturally require different approaches.

I think the thing that really gets me is half the time I'm not even particularly arguing for or against Sonic killing Eggman as a solution to anything because what would that solve?

The point is moot. As long as there's a Sonic the Hedgehog(tm) franchise, Sonic and Eggman are going to continue fighting each other. The unstoppable force vs. the immovable object. As it should be.

Instead, I'm trying to point out how little Sonic regards Eggman's welfare in the games. That Eggman lives despite Sonic's attempts and extreme negligence should logically attest to Eggman's hardiness and resourcefulness. He's one slippery motherfucker. That's pretty much the size of it in the games.

Yet people interpret

"Sonic, personally, does not care whether Eggman lives or dies. He frequently leaves Eggman behind in explosions or other similar scenarios of the doctor's own making. In other cases, he ignores Eggman's pleas for help or puts Eggman in dangerous situations while neither knowing nor caring if Eggman survives, such as blowing up his Eggmobile with a rock or stealing his jetpack nozzle and sending him plummeting to Earth. "In fact, Sonic has acted so negligently towards Eggman that if he were charged in a court of law, he'd be looking at second degree homicidal negligence, the failure to protect a person which resulted in preventable death. All this should tell you the extent to which Sonic regards Eggman's welfare."

as

"I think Sonic should slaughter all of his enemies. No mercy. Mercy is for wimps."

Granted, not everyone strawmans the point this hard, but it's frequent enough to warrant the occasional facepalm. We're talking about how Sonic treats Eggman in the games, right? So why are we dragging how he treats every other villain into the conversation as if that's germane to the topic at hand?

Of course Sonic is going to treat his enemies on a case-by-case basis. However, I'd argue that the most common examples - "sparing" Metal in Heroes and Merlina in SatBK - aren't precisely the moments of mercy that people portray them as.

Putting aside the fact that Sonic was not the one to "rehabilitate" Knuckles, Shadow, or Silver, folks seem to forget that he charged the Dark Queen with seeming intent to kill twice. He didn't know she'd put up a shield when he lunged for her the first time. And the fact that he repeated the blow just raises questions.

Once, maybe it's an "in the heat of the moment" thing. But twice? Twice, you want somebody dead. Conveniently, I've never seen anyone mention that part of the pre-boss cutscene when they talk about Sonic giving Merlina the flower.

Sparing Metal... Yeah, no. He didn't. Metal passed out, and he ran off. Leagues different than taking Metal home and patching him up.

And idk, it seems weird how folks are unable to accept that sometimes, despite everything, Sonic does square up and kill. Yes. That is something he does on occasion.

It doesn't need all of these caveats and asterisks about how it doesn't count as "real killing," like it needs to be clarified that Sonic the Hedgehog isn't a serial killer. It's not like "he did it out of necessity" will suddenly cause Emerl to un-die at the end of Battle. It's not as though "he helped Shahra" renders "he sealed the Erazor Djinn in the lamp for all eternity and tossed it into the furnace so that the Djinn, if he didn't die just then, suffers eternally in a place no one can find him" moot.

---

Comic stans: Well if Sonic is fine with punishing irredeemable villains then why doesn't he kill Eggman?

Same reason why Sonic always survives impossible situations or gets outright resurrected after dying. SEGA is not gonna kill off their mascot or the mascot's main enemy. We have to remember there's a bit of a corporate aspect in all of this

Exactly.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Rose Quartz

It’s all “more morally grey women in media!” but when the mom from the space rocks singing and crying show turns out to not be the saint she was made out to be in the early seasons, suddenly she’s The Real Villain Of the Show and a Bitch and all the good she did in liberating the gems and saving the earth is completely erased. Yes! She was a diamond! She did some evil shit without understanding the consequences! She was once entitled and bratty and unempathetic. She got a lot of people hurt! But she also gave all our gems their freedom! She gave up her status and family and slowly tried to fix all the damage the diamonds had caused. She didn’t have Steven as a means to escape her past, she had Steven because she saw in humans everything she always wanted to be- something free and forever changing. You are allowed to not forgive her but claiming her to be inherently evil even after all she went through is flat out wrong. Imo you all just cant handle a bbw.

So many people absolutely DESPISE Rose Quartz. The show showed her character arc in reverse order, and when the show started, she was seen as this perfect being who was wise and kind and a rebel hero and utterly flawless. But then we find out that she wasn't perfect, and she was one of the tyrannical Diamonds the show has as the main antagonists. She used to be a spoiled brat who threw tantrums, hurt one of her servants, and left her friend/plaything Spinel to stand in a garden for thousands of years. She discovered the beauty of earth and rebelled to save it from being destroyed, even faking the death of her Pink Diamond identity so the rebellion could win. She works her entire life to change and become a better person from who she was. Ultimately she gives up her gem and life so Steven could live before the show begins, and the show has Steven gradually learning about her. She is often hated and seen as a villain and worse than the other Diamonds, who are genocidal tyrants until the very end of the show.

Steven Universe shows Pink Diamond’s arc in reverse. At the beginning of the show, all the characters see Rose as this great hero, this perfect unimpeachable goddess, and over the course of the show we learn that this is a lie — Rose was just as flawed as anyone else, in many was immature, lied to all of her closest friends, was at times very cruel to her loved ones, and spent most of her life unlearning the privilege and entitlement and cruelty which her youth taught her. The last things we learn about Pink Diamond (her abandonment of spinel, her treatment of volleyball) are perhaps the worst things she ever does. But these are also some of the *earliest* things she ever does — this is where she STARTS, and we see in the show that Pink spends a lot of time trying not to be the person who did those things, even if she never undoes them, so that by the end of her life she’s far from perfect but is also in many many important ways not that person. Her decision to become Rose Quartz is in part an attempt to remake herself, to *not be* the childish, callously cruel pink diamond she is meant to be. And rose quartz *is* kind, and works to be good, but she cannot truly stop being that person. In the end, I think we are meant to understand that Rose Quartz decided to become Steven because she wanted to grow and improve in a way she felt that she couldn’t — she KNOWS that she isn’t a good person and can never truly be a good person, so she destroys herself so that Steven can be the good person she can’t be. And her decision to bring steven into the world caused a lot of pain, and maybe it was selfish, but it’s also a fascinating expression of Rose’s self-awareness about her own flaws!!!! I love Rose/Pink for how flawed she is and how much she tries not to be flawed. Anyway a large portion of the SU fandom thinks Pink Diamond is an irredeemable monster. So that’s cool.

Chara Dreemur

There's a lot of bias against Chara for appearing at the end of the Genocide Route, but there's so much more to them than "I want to murder everyone". They're a kid!! They made mistakes and they felt bad for them, and now they're stuck following the player and watching their every move... The fandom misrepresents them very badly imo

Somehow people forgive Asriel for everything he's done as a soulless being after his death, but when it comes to Chara, it's like they're the devil incarnate.

Chara is a character commonly seen as guilty for the genocide run or harmless disregarding them only appearing at the end and posioning Asgore

Poor kid called themselves a demon ONE TIME and then got misrepresented so badly as immoral killer with no sympathy

People constantly blame them for the worst ending of the game, even though the entire point of the game is that the player has a the opportunity to choose senseless violence and that it is the player's fault for killing the characters. They are a troubled child, and while they do some bad things, like taking the player's violent example at the end, most of what the fandom pins on them is in the hands of the player.

[twothpaste]

Thoughts about Porky?

my thoughts on porky are such a vast tangled web of forever spaghetti that i'm not even sure where to begin or what to pin down. the premise of a tormented child ascending to near-godhood out of sheer misanthropic spite towards the whole wide world makes my brain do backflips like a sea world dolphin. i'll ramble a bit about him.

he's ness' foil. just two chubby kids who probably grew up with their (un)fair share of bullying. the only thing distinguishing them was the familial abuse porky suffered, which he inevitably regurgitated. then destiny comes along, choosing ness over porky, and the jealousy just eats porky alive. watching his bestie accumulate friends and accolades, unable to accept it's his own rotten behavior that's driven a wedge between them. gotta imagine the burden of cutting porky off was almost unbearable for ness. somethin' that keeps him up at night, wondering if he'd just been a little kinder, or sterner, or more understanding - maybe he could've saved his old friend? not quite yet realizing it was Not At All his responsibility to "fix" someone who'd dug his grave and laid in it. porky's the kinda bad guy you love to hate, but considering his upbringing, you hesitate to blame the poor schmuck. all he knows is authority and manipulation. if you gave any ornery ostracized thirteen year old unlimited power - instead of empathy and guidance - they'd probably go down the path of vengeance, too.

he's lucas' foil. both of 'em were given plenty of reasons to hate the world. when faced with an unhappy childhood, do you choose love anyways, and move forward? or do you let it become your villain origin story? porky refuses to grow up, to such an extreme degree, that he's gotta drag everybody down into neverland with him. thinks he's got human nature all figured out, when really - kid dropped out in eighth grade - his expertise starts at the middle school lunch table and ends at Lord of the Flies. where lucas seeks to bring about a brighter future, porky's terminally obsessed with the past. barfs up the same old hierarchical capitalist bullshit he grew up with. hoards memorabilia. makes monuments to his warped nostalgia, as if anyone on the nowhere islands knows or cares. even tries to mold lucas into a makeshift ness - one last final battle, one last chance for destiny to stop me, here, take this baseball bat, come get me, let's play. but it doesn't worrrrk, because the gilded past he aches for is long buried, and these people aren't actors in his self-aggrandizing biopic. where lucas wakes up and says, "i don't have to be the same coward i was yesterday," porky says, "me? change? not a chance in hell." even if it costs him everything. porky's real worst nightmare is a world that moves on without him. once he's trapped in his time capsule, that's exactly what he's got in store.

i think he's the sunk cost fallacy incarnate. the sheer momentum of a thousand horrible decisions he can never turn back on. earthbound porky might get a little bit of slack, sure. but given a bazillion years worth of opportunities to change, mother 3 porky actively chose to get worse. what fucks me up most is how real he is. can't call a villain like this "insane", or even terribly exaggerated, when i'm lookin' out the window these days at billionaires, covid deniers, fuckin' terfs and maga hats. some people really would sooner die, or become all-consuming monsters, than admit they were wrong. it's all or nothing. in his eyes, either he's a visionary hero, or everything he's ever done was irredeemably reprehensible - and all the torment and criticism and loneliness he endured was therefore deserved. he can't bear the weight of it, so he simply doesn't. that's what underpins his character, to me. like. the moment he'd admit fault, or apologize, or express an ounce of regret? he'd cease to be porky. denying himself the human capacity to grow, forever, just to spare his fragile ego. could almost pity him. almost.

a perfect villain for both of the stories he terrorizes, and my favorite villain in anything ever. when itoi said "porky is truly a poem in himself" he wasn't kidding.

[luckybatcreations]

Does anyone else heavily identify with Pink Diamond and her backstory and feel sick to their stomach when people openly hate her, and then spiral into self loathing because the majority of the fandom hates her and views her as an irredeemable villain, and by extension that makes you think YOU are an irredeemable monster, and feel like the Crewniverse just made the entire show to point at people like Pink Diamond and say “Go fuck yourself and die” and the entire show nearly ruined your only real human connection with someone because of how poorly it was handled and written, and you feel like now that the show is over nothing will ever be the same again and you constantly have thoughts in your head that you deserved to die and probably should have a long time ago and you are a terrible person no matter what you try to do or say and you will forever be tainted by evil or is it just me?

[zeroducks-2]

has anyone asked abt batjokes for the ship game

you're the first anon! And DAMN YES

I ship it!

What made you ship it? Reading The Killing Joke at the ripe old age of eight. My mother thought comics were for kids and bought me a big ass "essential Batman stories" book, which started out with The Killing Joke and it rewired my brain I guess (my Batman experience up to that point had been random episodes of Batman Beyond).

What are your favorite things about the ship? I reckon I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here. Sorry Anon I don't suppose this was the answer you were hoping for, but I am unable to contain myself :> So being that this is my first DC ship (and it might even be my first ship PERIOD), I'm more of a "I nostalgically ship it from afar" than an active, fanfiction-reader/writer kind of fan, but surely my enjoyment has always been rooted in the fact that it's a villain/hero situation where they're two sides of the same coin, at the point where they can't exist without one another. I ship Batman with 50% of his rogue gallery tbh, and unless it's just 'cause it looks hot, it tends to be about how Bruce tries to see the human side of these people (sometimes because he's known them since before they were rogues), how he extends a helping hand when he can, how he refuses to kill them because there has to be a way to rehabilitate them (and sometimes there is, and it's just the tragic nature of these stories which prevents the "rogues" from getting their own form of happy ending). This happens with the Joker too, and the most memorable occasion in which this happens is after Joker tortured and crippled Barbara (someone Bruce is supposed to love and care for), beside what he also does to Jim Gordon (also someone Bruce is supposed to be friends with). Joker himself tells Batman more or less "I hurt a defenseless girl, I terrorized an old man, what are you waiting for just beat the shit out of me" to which BRUCE SAYS NO. He says no because "you're just like me except you had one bad day too many, and I know you can get better, and I want to help you". We all know how The Killing Joke ends, with the proverbial joke and them laughing like maniacs about it (I have the panels always around so yall can experience them with me)

And the image of them laughing together is forever seared into my brain, especially because even if this guy did whatever the hell he did (and will keep doing it), Bruce replied with empathy and compassion. A monster, the irredeemable one who's never going to stop before anything because he's not even human, at this point he's the embodiment of everything wrong there can be in a person - he just got smothered with compassion and it almost worked. The "joke" (two madmen escape the loony bin, etc) is Joker's way to say "I'm sorry I really want to take your hand but I can't, I just can't do it", and Bruce understands this and for a brief moment of six panels it's just two friends laughing together. And that part of me which will always see itself in the ugly, irredeemable, rejected monster was and will always be so profoundly fulfilled by this.

Of course I am also not immune to the whole "you need me, you love me and you can't live without me" thing to which Batman reacts by kicking and screaming that it's not true, but which is indeed true and in every story in which Joker actually dies, Bruce cannot for the love of him cope one single day without him. This post puts it briefly but beautifully, go give it a look if you're rabid a fan of the dynamic such as I am.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? Liking this ship (and Joker in general) is unpopular in and of itself lol, but I guess I can say that my unpopular preference is that as much as I ship them, I don't see sex involved in any part of their relationship which is more based off of beating the shit out of each other (or laughing about a dumbass joke in a stormy night in an abandoned amusement park), and being unable to let the other go when the chance presents itself. I see sex as essentially unnecessary in their dynamic, but it's also true that I don't really peruse Batjokes content beside the occasional fanart, so the sex part might have just not clicked with me yet.

[thelesbianluthor]

Okay so I really enjoyed miraculous awakening it was first of all such a pretty movie and it really fixed A LOT of the issues the show has imo.

My main issue is that they didn't have time to show more of certain things bc they started with them getting their miraculous and ended with them defeating Gabriel. Like everything was a bit too quick or at least quicker than i wished for but with how the show dragged things forever I take the movie no doubt over it.

Now talking about the good. This movie was so PRETTY to me like my babies looked so cute. I was giggling and smiling at the ladynoir scenes they were so cute together. I really loved the animation.

The songs were pretty nice too and the sequences were so prettyyy. I watched the english dub because I mostly watched the show in english, even tho it's not my first language, and I get that the difference between the speaking and singing voice for Mari is big but I don't mind it really. I am pretty sure that the singing voice was the french dub actress and she has a wonderful voice.

Gabriel song was a fun little scene and he was so goofy dhdh

Now the main thing I am really happy about (apart the obvious not dragging for years the identity reveal) is that they fixed the main issues with the characters. Like Marinette was handled so much better. I usually adhere by my fanon version of her that doesn't lean so heavily on the insanity the show loves to pull far too often, so movie Marinette? That's my baby fr!

I wish we had a little more of Adrien but I guess it makes sense we saw more of Cat Noir with how he is technically who Adrien is at his core.

Gabriel is not actually an irredeemable monster who doesn't care at all about his child so that's good. It was nice that Adrien actually got to confront and see that his father was the villain.

If they had gone for at least two movies to explore the storyline they used for this one I feel like it would have worked better and gave them time for things that didn't get to be explored.

But the sequel will happen and we'll see what they do from here.

Also the final battle was so intense like.. they went full death and destruction I was so surprised.

The action scenes were so well done and so cool. Seeing Cat noir go up the Eiffel tower and then the fall was so cool. And all the other fight scenes too.

And the final scene ? It was so cute and satisfying to see them reveal their identity like that. Can't believe they cut before the actual kiss tho dhdh that was such a tease

Anyway great movie for me honestly I enjoyed it a lot and I will wait for the sequel because it really scratched the spots the show always left open.