#it goes to show how realistic the characterizations are

[jils-things]

i won't lie. cu.rly's character writing is actually helping me not do the flaws hes made in the game - and im currently having a little dilemma similar to it. the "be too nice to others you excuse too much of their flaws" dilemma

[whetstonefires]

Thinking about the parallels set up between Wei Wuxian and Mo Xuanyu, and how actually most of them are oddly specious.

The sketch of the backstory lines up, but on close examination they're mirror images.

Wei Wuxian wasn't kicked out of his sect, he left it. Wei Wuxian didn't hate the house he grew up in, he loved it, and getting the people there killed was the absolute last purpose for which his dark powers were ever intended.

Jiang Cheng was no Mo Ziyuan--his jealousy was a complicated thing all twisted up with love, and while he would lash out at Wei Wuxian both as a casual means of shit communication and more damagingly in moments of high tension, he had neither the desire nor the ability to bully him, and in general respected his boundaries almost too well.

When Wei Wuxian destroyed himself about Jiang Cheng, it was to give him cultivation, and protect his life and happiness. He would never have killed him.

Madam Yu was a domineering aunt-like figure, who hated Wei Wuxian for reasons of reputation, and because she had resented his dead mother, but she crucially did not have the power to actually disrupt his lifestyle to any significant extent.

Mo Xuanyu was shut up in a small room to rot; Wei Wuxian didn't even attend classes unless he wanted to. Mo Xuanyu was weak and disliked; Wei Wuxian was brilliant and popular.

Mo Xuanyu's uncle is a cipher of a figure, without character or agency, a nonentity who is resented to death apparently mostly for what he didn't do; in theory he is the master of the house, but he certainly never protected his wife and son's punching bag from them.

And this is what got me thinking along this track: because people keep interpreting Jiang Fengmian as this, as exactly like Mo Xuanyu's nameless uncle, a nonentity who lets his wife make all the decisions, and is contemptible therefore.

He shows up in fic characterized this way all the time, handled narratively as a gap rather than a person, an absence where there should have been a parent, and it's...totally inaccurate? The man only has a few scenes but the things that are most firmly established about him are:

he regularly goes out of his way to protect Wei Wuxian

he's extremely fond of Wei Wuxian

he cares a lot about ethical behavior

he's conflict-avoidant and gentle

he can and will overrule Yu Ziyuan when he's made up his mind, and there's nothing she can do about it

his communication skills are mediocre at best

he doesn't understand jiang cheng

he has a dumb sense of humor

Now almost none of this made it into cql besides point 4 and maybe 6, 5 is technically there but buried by the cinematic framing, so I totally get why the fandom on the whole struggles to characterize him well, and it's easier to write him off.

But it keeps bugging me to see him and Yu Ziyuan squashed into the mold of the Mo, because not only is that boring and reductive and kind-of-missing-the-point, it's like. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's characterization suffers a lot when you alter the environment and take away the influence exerted by their shared father figure.

Jiang Fengmian was Wei Wuxian's primary adult role model and it shows.

Jiang Cheng's relationship to his own sense of ethics is fraught because 'teaching him good ethics' was his dad's number one parenting goal, but they misunderstood each other so badly (partly because Yu Ziyuan kept loudly misinterpreting them to each other, which is so realistic I can't get over it, that's exactly how it works good lord) that Jiang Cheng has a direct association between the concept of 'doing the right thing even when it's hard' and a feeling of personal inadequacy.

The fact that Wei Wuxian got their dad-person's approval for being exactly himself and Jiang Cheng not only couldn't do that, he couldn't even get that same level of approval when he really pushed himself to rise to expectations, because Jiang Fengmian did not intend that warmth as a 'reward,' and so never realized he was withholding it, and therefore misunderstood Jiang Cheng's visible jealousy as a dangerous sense of personal entitlement that had to be carefully restrained, which reinforced his distrust of Jiang-Cheng-the-person and fed into a shitty loop where they were less and less able to relate to one another--that's fantastic. That's so human! I love it so much.

Both their failures are their own but at the same time it would never have gotten so bad if Yu Ziyuan hadn't been interjecting herself in there, in the middle of their relationship, fucking it up. That's family, baby.

I would ofc like if there was more fic engaging with the subtleties of all this because it's so good, mxtx did such elegant work here and it is not sufficiently appreciated. But it's the kind of thing that's hard to write good fic about; I am struggling with it myself.

So mostly I wish there was just more fic that didn't impose Mo Xuanyu's cliche angst backstory on Wei Wuxian, who has a whole different thing going on.

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Vivzepops fetishization of queer men and the lack of Sapphic content in HH and HB

I found it a bit dissapointing that Charlie and Vaggie had very little interactions that could be read as romantic or sexual, especially since they are the supposedly the main couple of Hazbin Hotel and have been together the longest out of most of the couples in HH and HB.

Of course having more casual representation is also fine but the most memorable thing about their relationship was the quickly resolved argument they had when Charlie found out about Vaggies past. I've seen different opinions about how they were handled as a pair.

I understand when someone says that they enjoyed a more relaxed couple with subtle, realistic interactions, interactions that are often overlooked just because both characters are female.

But I can also agree, that they were really not a stand-out couple (wich is weird since Charlie is the main Character) and that it was a bit dissapointing to not see a lot of content for them.

Now the main issue I found with this is that in Vivzepops stories there is a definitive lack of sapphic content. It sometimes seems like women are sexless unless they are with a man. But two men can be sexual and openly affectionate (romantically too). At first I didn't really understand why I felt weird about Chaggie as a couple, so I looked at all the implied/canon ships in Helluva and Hazbin (including past relationships).

Implied/canon couples between a man and a woman:

-Millie and Moxxie

-Blitzø and Verosika

-Stolas and Stella

-Millie and Chaz

-Beelzebub and Vortex

-Sir Pentious and Cherry Bomb

-Adam and Lute

-Lucifer and Lilith

Implied/canon couples between two men:

-Stolas and Blitzø

-Asmodeus and Fizzarolli

-Moxxie and Chaz

-Angel Dust and Husk

-Vox and Valentino

Implied/canon couples between two women:

-Charlie and Vaggie

Now please tell me if I missed any, but these were the ones I could think of.

Honorable mentions include Loona & Vortex, Blitzø & Striker, Blitzø & Chaz and Blitzø & Fizzarolli. But I didn't put these on there because they're either one-sided or don't have enough romantic content.

Now it's very easy to see the difference between representation for queer men in comparison to queer women in these shows. The only relevant (im not counting Background characters) Sapphic relationship there is, is Chaggie. And it's completely underrepresented when compared to the content the man x woman or man x man ships get (not to mention the total absence of gender-queer characters).

One of Millie's and Moxxie's jokes is that they're so in love, that they're almost always cuddling, holding hands, talking sweet or just straight up making out with eachother (I'll talk about Millie a bit later). Sir Pentious had multiple scenes dedicated to him trying to confess to Cherry Bomb or just crushing on her in general.

Stolas' and Blitzø's relationship has become one of the main topics of Helluva Boss and they get a Backstory and explicit aswell as dramatic scenes for them as a couple. The same goes for Asmodeus and Fizzarolli (except that their love isn't as important). Angel Dust and Husk get a song and part of an episode for their relationship to develop.

Here i'd also have to mention that by the list I made Vivzepop's fetish for queer men is very prevalent. Most of the couples between men and women are either past relationships or they get very little attention to them. The only ships that often get special focus, development or explicitly romantic/sexual focus are ships with two men (no matter if their dynamics are even good, healthy etc.).

Now for Millie there are different ways you could talk about her situation with relationships. In general I think that everyone can agree that Millie lacks Character and is a good representation for the neglect of the female characters. Most of her moments revolve around Moxxie in a way and she hasn't had precise characterization so far.

Millie's relationship with Moxxie is sweet and simple and is generally one of the better things about Helluva Boss (if you ignore Millies lack of personality wich really pulls the couple down for me). Now the Episode "Exes and Oohs" shows the mutual Ex of Millie and Moxxie. Chaz dated both of them and as we see in the episode affected both of them very negatively. At the start we literally see Millie freak out and destroy a bunch of stuff, just because she saw Chaz on the street.

Yet Millie's relationship with him is never explored further. All we know is that she dislikes him and that he's a giant asshole. Whereas Moxxie get's a whole Backstory and episode plot about him and Chaz. No focus is given to Millie at all even though Chaz is the ex of BOTH of them.

Another thing that I wanna point out is Millie's possible Bisexuality. Now im not so sure for this point because I couldn't find genuine confirmation on wether Millie is actually confirmed to be Bisexual or if it's just a headcannon. So take this with a grain of salt BUT if Millie is Bisexual then she perfectly shows how little Vivzepop cares about Sapphic representation. What does Moxxie get to confirm him as Bisexual? An ex of the same gender (also multiple explicit flashbacks with him), a whole discussion about his queer identity and a scene where he literally says that he's Bisexual. Moxxie is pretty good Bisexual representation in that regard.

What does Millie get? Nothing. Again I don't know if she's genuinely also Bisexual or if it's ever been confirmed but it'd also be pretty weird if Vivzepop apparently cares so much about queer representation and then doesn't confirm any female characters as actually queer.

I think a lot of people have talked about her blatant fetishization of queer men and I think that that's also mainly why I feel weird by the lack of attention on Vaggie and Charlie as a couple.

I sorta wish I could enjoy a more toned-down and realistic couple in these shows, but when I see that a ship like Vox and Alastor (wich isn't canon nor would it even happen since Alastor is Aroace) is talked about more than the actual main character's relationship I just don't like it.

There's so much more you could say about poor queer representation by Vivzepop (like the fact that she's fine with people ignoring Alastors Aroace identity, and the stereotypes etc) I mainly wanted to talk about the neglect of her female cast in terms of sexuality.

[iamnmbr3]

Put this in a chat originally, but I'm still thinking about it so it's going here too. I really think Ginny got done so dirty by how Hinny ended up turning out in the books. She really truly does deserve better imho. It's so tragic because Ginny gets kind of overlooked a lot and diary!Tom seems to be the only person to really listen to her...ever. And he doesn't even actually care about her. And once he's gone she never gets that again. He gloats in the end of book 2 that she once told him "no one's ever understood me like you, Tom" and that's still true.

Harry never tells her anything nor does he seem to bother to learn anything about her. Never mind the Horcrux stuff that he only shares with Ron & Hermione and never even considers telling her about. He doesn't even tell her about the prophecy after book 5. And in book 7 he goes into her room briefly and mentions that he's never been there before. All that time he lived with her and he never looked in.

And he shows no sign of recognition when he sees what posters she has up there. He doesn't think "oh of course she'd have that" because he never even found out basic things like what teams or music groups she likes. The one person who ever bothered to care to actually find out these sorts of things and show interest in her was Tom...who turned out to be using her. It's really sad.

I do actually like hinny happening in the books and find it realistic given both their characterizations - given the way Ginny idolizes Harry and probably feels pressured to change to become his "perfect girl" and to not "bother" him with her problems and the way Harry thinks he might be dead soon and Ginny symbolizes to him all the normalcy he thinks he might never get to have, more an idea that a person, and also seems to be physically attractive to him. I just don't like it as an endgame relationship. I think it's realistic they would get together under the circumstances they did. And I think they would break up after the war when Harry realizes he's not comfortable talking to Ginny and Ginny realizes Harry doesn't respect her and they both realize they don't really know or understand one another.

[twistmusings]

florid and (arguably) azujade are feasting this chapter update. congrats us

Honestly Anon, you're so right.

Chapter 7 is so interesting for Octavinelle - largely because we do get to see so much of how they think of each other and themselves, and we get to see so much of their relationship with each other. Honestly the shippers are thriving, but so are so many Jade and Floyd fans.

CW: Spoilers, Twisted Wonderland Character Shipping and mentions of Neurodivergence under the cut in case that isn't your cup of tea. It's very long and examines Floyd and Riddle's and Jade and Azul's dynamics throughout TWST and is sort of Character Analysis as well. Special note that there are Visual spoilers under the cut that will spoil some of the jokes from this chapter, so proceed with caution.

First, Floyd, who we see is outright distraught when everything goes right. Honestly at this point it makes me, as an ADHD person, struggle to not view Floyd as also having ADHD. I tend to not actually assign the characters neurodivergence or diagnose them, but honestly his characteristics really point to him being understimulated and just generally miserable because he's not doing anything and that's boring him. I have heard this from so many other folks with ADHD and have experienced it myself. I think, truth be told, that Floyd is a really good picture of a young person with ADHD. Especially as someone who was just properly diagnosed later in life - I would get these random, massive intense moods and would never be able to explain them until I began to suspect I had ADHD. If we consider Floyd's general characterization - he hates to be 'bored', he hates to force himself to do things that he doesn't want to do, he had random, intense moods, randomly struggling with some academics while really excelling in the things that interest him, comparing himself to other people and not understanding why he's different ... like, yeah, as a person with ADHD I relate to him so much. It's so interesting to me because Japan in general has a lot of medical bias against diagnosing and managing neurodiversity, so I think generally speaking, he's honestly a really well written example of someone who is struggling. I think his portrayal is probably so important for young people who play the game because it makes them feel normal and accepted, and I can't deny that.

And then Floyd and Riddle... these two are so funny. Like, if you had to ask me any character that shows having a crush on someone else canonically, I would probably point to Floyd and how he acts with Riddle. Considering that they're teenagers and we know neither he nor Riddle have any experience dating (none of the characters except Ace really do), I think it's really charming because like... are they annoying the fuck out of each other? Yeah, and I think that's pretty realistic for people who are 17 who have crushes on each other. Of course, I don't want to say I support people annoying or antagonizing their partners, but they are young people who are still learning how life works. I realize that teasing =/= having a crush on someone, but like...

In the recent stitch event they had this dialogue

Riddle gets so genuinely happy when Floyd praises him. Even Jack takes note of it. And then in Floyd's Labwear...

This interaction is so telling of the sort of relationship that they have with one another - first Floyd interprets their interactions as playing. Second, Riddle takes note that Floyd is in a bad mood which means that Riddle pays enough attention to him to notice when he's having a bad day. And then you have Jade over there just like 👀. It's so goofy but it's kind of wholesome also because it shows that in spite of everything, Riddle still shows concern for Floyd and Jade is a nosy sibling.

I don't know how many people have actually read the comic anthology, but there's a side story with Floyd and Riddle where Riddle is trying to study how to control himself better following his OB and Floyd, of course, comes to bother him and notices him reading advanced books and that ends in this interaction.

Like, is Floyd being a shit? Yes, of course, but he also doesn't take it back when he says that he thinks that it's admirable that Riddle works hard.

They really are the duality. Please enjoy this too-high effort shitpost I made.

And then add the fact that in the most recent story chapters the thing that gets Floyd to wake up is Silver and Jamil reminding him of the entrance ceremony where Riddle threw him through the air, and Floyd essentially being like "Yeah goldfishie is fun that was fun" and that being what snaps him out of it? Like these two are fated to irritate the hell out of each other by the story itself.

Also I think it's such a funny cute touch that the reason Floyd even started irritating Riddle is because Riddle couldn't control his temper and flung him. Floyd was just being curious, and while, yeah he probably should have asked before he touched Riddle's hair because he was curious if it would feel hot, Riddle immediately rose to meet his energy, and generally speaking we know that Floyd is a physically motivated person. He likes to fight, and he likes to test his strength. No one else caused a scene at the Sophomore orientation except Riddle. You know, the character that is almost entirely focused on not breaking rules? Riddle painted a massive target on his own back with his temper. And honestly, what I think does make it work is that even though Floyd teases Riddle literally all the time, he does respect Riddle. Riddle is interesting to him because he's strong and reacts when Floyd irritates him. As I said before, on Floyd's end at least, the antagonism is playful, and considering Floyd's relationship with Jade and Azul it's easy to see why. It's how he was raised to view affection from friends and peers.

Now, how about Riddle's side of things? Well, while we don't get a ton of canon crumbs from Riddle, there's at least a few things that we do get. We know that Riddle sort of resents that Floyd teases him, but he has been told multiple times by other people that Floyd is just trying to get a rise out of him. And yet, every time Floyd compliments Riddle and then immediately starts teasing him, Riddle falls for it. On some level, I'm sure it's because Riddle likes the attention just as much as Floyd, even if for a different reason. Riddle gets put down a lot - from his dorm and from his own mother. But even if Floyd teases him, Floyd also gasses him up because, like I said, Floyd genuinely thinks highly of Riddle. Riddle gets complimented and he gets smug about it because he thinks highly of himself, and it probably feels good to have that recognized.

Compare Riddle's interactions with Floyd to the ones he has with Jade, for example.

From the Spectral Soiree event.

There are a couple reasons why I feel like this is important to note. First, Riddle recognizes that Jade is making fun of him immediately. Riddle also misses Jade's sarcasm. Riddle isn't good at reading Jade - he finds Jade unpredictable and malicious, and interprets this as Jade making fun of him. In contrast, you don't see Riddle outright refuse a compliment from Floyd - he knows that Floyd is being upfront about how he feels when he says the things he does, but he doesn't know that about Jade. Riddle is also the butt of the joke here, whereas if we compare it to the similar situation that he went through with Floyd during the Tropical Turbulence event.

Floyd is teasing Riddle, yes, but in this situation he isn't making Riddle the butt of the joke, he's just causing a little bit of chaos. Floyd already has a plan in place, but Riddle the two aren't arguing with each other. It's also important to note that Floyd is one of the few characters outside of his dorm that Riddle really banters with comfortably.

The other thing is that though they compete with and annoy each other, Floyd and Riddle are actually genuinely pretty nice to each other otherwise. They both compliment each other pretty frequently even if they usually pepper in barbs as they do.

Floyd and Riddle are also pretty similar people, too:

At any rate, that's a lot of screenshots to basically say, yes they do make fun of each other and tease each other, but when they do get onto the same page, they work very well together and seem to have a mutual respect for each other even if they criticize each other. They can identify the aspects in each other that they can't identify in themselves and it makes their chemistry interesting because every time they share screentime it seems like they learn from each other.

Anyway, Florid fans eat well literally any time these two share screen time.

And then Jade and Azul... honestly those two cracked me up the entire time.

First you have Jade's dream with his god awful imagination. Jade literally gets the knockoff versions of Azul and Floyd as I said in the first post about it, but I think it's interesting to see how he perceives both of them. I'll be including images this time.

I'll start with Floyd because HOO buddy if I was Floyd and had to endure this shit.

This is an actual crime.

That being said, Floyd is noticeably more childish in Jade's dream than the actual Floyd is in reality, both in his rather immature visage as well as a more child-like way of speaking.

It's worth noting, in Floyd's dream, Floyd doesn't really pay much attention to where Jade is, and he doesn't really pay any attention to where Azul is either. He says "Eh, Jade's probably with Azul on land because the Mostro Lounge was succeeding." Floyd also makes a point of saying that it's a rule between the three of them - they don't have to stick together - if they don't want to do something, then they won't stick together and whoever wants to do it can do it on their own, or if they don't want to involve someone in something, they don't involve them in it. (Ironically, I would argue that this is one of the healthier dynamics for friendship in TWST that we see. All three of them have discussed and come to understand that if they need to separate ways, they will, they don't want to hold each other back from the things they enjoy.)

Jade on the other hand, and whether Floyd likes it or not, seems to view Floyd as a younger brother. We don't get confirmation as to whether or not Jade hatched first or if Floyd hatched first, but regardless of whichever it is, it seems like Jade views Floyd as his younger brother, and seems to have an instinct to coddle him, even if this portrayal of Floyd is deeply unflattering to Floyd and starts a whole fight.

It's also of note: Floyd didn't expect to be in Jade's dream at all. Floyd talks about how he figures that Jade has just dreamed about him in a similar way that Floyd had dreamed of Jade - off doing whatever he wanted to do. That's not true - Floyd is there, with Jade, and engaging in Jade's interests.

In Jade's official EN school uniform home tap he says:

Though some translations tend to interpret this line differently, and essentially instead say that Floyd is clingier than he seems.

The reason I'm pointing this out is because Jade is the only one of the three who's primary dream features all three of them together. This would seem to point toward Jade actually being the one who's clingier, and to being the one who's most attached to both of them. I can't really say for certain, but I almost wonder if Jade has a bit of a fear of abandonment with regard to Azul and Floyd and that's why his ideal dream world is one where they're both so reliant on him.

And then Azul...

Is Giorno Giovanna in the room with us?

Seriously though, I think it's kind of interesting to see how Azul is portrayed in Jade's imagination.

For reference, here's what Azul actually looks like in his mer form in the same pose.

The thing I immediately noticed is Azul's eyes. Sure, the image Jade has of Azul is a JJBA joke, but there's something else I want to point out about them in particular.

Azul's eyes are an entirely different, brighter color. In fact, it's also a different color from Azul's overblot eye color as well.

We know that Jade's limited imagination means he's working on his own impressions of Floyd and Azul and you're telling me that Jade's impression of Azul is that he looks like a character from a manga known for being about handsome, fabulous men and that he has ginormous, bright, shiny blue eyes that look like sapphires? Hello?????? Jade???

I think this is fascinating because had they just drawn Azul as like a normal old JJBA reference but kept his color palette the same, I could see it just being explained as "oh, neat, Jade thinks Azul is handsome when Azul doesn't" but follow me with this: Jade's imagination is painting them in broad strokes the way that Epel's imagination was doing in his dream. These are Jade's impressions of Floyd and Azul.

Floyd tracks - he sees Floyd as a younger brother and someone he inherently wants to take care of, even if it's not realistic. Floyd is a childish younger brother in a cartoonish way. Azul is motivated by money in a cartoonish way. These are the traits that stick out the most about the both of them to Jade.

So when Jade imagines Azul physically what he sees is Azul being handsome AND that he has these shiny bright blue eyes even if his memory gets the shade of blue wrong. Jade....... honey................ I need you to sit down when I tell you this..........

And then after he and Floyd fight, because Jade is too stubborn to wake up because he can't grasp that what he's seeing is wrong, the thing that finally triggers him to realize something is off is this version of dream Azul checking on him after the fight and being relieved he's okay and then saying that he's afraid he would have lost his "かわいい部下".

The thing that triggers Jade to start waking up is Azul calling Jade his cute subordinate (essentially his cute assistant). I am not exaggerating this. That is literally the phrase that triggers Jade. Jade even repeats it.

AND HE FUCKING PANICS

JADE. I AM BEGGING THE SECONDHAND CRINGE THIS MADE ME FEEL.

From there the dream Floyd of course says he's going to cry if Jade left him and like that just seals the deal. And everyone is super impressed because Jade realized it was wrong by himself and woke himself up.

I don't tend to insert my opinions much in my post but there is not a single person on this planet that is not going to make me believe that Jade did not just gay panic himself awake. I feel like most queer people have experienced something just like this. Jade literally wakes himself up because he's like "no, wait, hold on, Azul wouldn't say that, right?" and then Floyd saying he's going to cry sells it. Dream Azul essentially just fucking "baby girl"ed him and Jade was like "no, actually, that's too cringe for me to even dream about".

Then you have Azul's dream. Honestly there aren't a lot of crumbs there for Jade, but I think it's sort of sweet how even if they're sort of forced to, Jade and Floyd don't want to force Azul to do anything. They have a lot of respect for each other's personal boundaries, and they were fully prepared to let Azul stay asleep and allow him to work it out himself if he wanted to wake up. It doesn't end up working out that way, but it's not hard to tell that both the twins and Azul had respect for each other as individuals.

Another neat thing is that Azul is one of the few people who's dreams aren't inherently things he really wants. They're more of "what-if" scenarios. What if Azul was good at sports and ended up being a high school athlete? What if Azul actually got to follow through on burning that picture of his younger self and then opened a Mostro Lounge branch? I think it's interesting that Azul seems to be kept in these dreams because his imagination is vivid, and not because they're an ideal world perse. In a sense they are - but Azul himself admits that he doesn't really want either of them.

Azul gets so much growth shown in this chapter. He ends up wanting to wake up because he wants to live for himself, and not live for what other people think of him or having to rely on them. Azul still wants to succeed, but he wants to succeed for himself and not because he feels a need to one up the people that bullied him, and he wants to be fulfilled in himself. He's actually working on his mental health, I love that for him.

And, one more thing of note, I think it's so fucking cool that at the end of the book, Azul doesn't freak out about other people seeing him in his true form. In fact, he doesn't freak out about seeing himself in his true form when Idia makes a proxy version of him - he's just thinking about how cool it would be to have a second version of himself. I feel like most people have gotten the sense that Azul has a sense of self-loathing regarding his mer-form, but it seems like if he did at some point, he's made peace with it.

Anyway that's an unnecessarily long infodump about my feelings about the character relationships that we've got in the new update. Like obnoxiously long. So, uh... I'll just end the post with Azul's smiling sprite because I just think it's fucking adorable.

[shadowgast-recs-weekly]

Hidden Gems 9: A Shadowgast Rec list

This week we have the ninth (nein!) hidden gem rec list. Check under the cut for nine (nein again!) fics with less than 150 kudos- and don't forget to kudos and comment if you enjoy them!

On bad decisions, friendship and falling in love by Ivelostmyspectacles (1778, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

An introspection from Essek after he confesses to the Mighty Nien.

Reccer says: This a really well written one shot about how Essek is doing and feeling after he confesses. This is honestly my head canon for post ep. 97

PART I: the force required for movement by LivThael (9449, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek Thelyss is know for his exceptional research, cold demeanor and indifference. Being the most intelligent man in the room he‘s seldom intrigued by other researchers. But Bren's presence alone angers something in Essek. It’s like the man is actively trying to aggravate him.

Reccer says: An amazing fic, nerds being nerds.

hopeless enough by 06151126 (4697, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes, Choose Not to Warn

Essek, a racer, his crew fails him during the season and he goes looking for a new mechanic. Caleb can't help but show off.

Reccer says: It is such an interesting AU, but the vibes are all their. And I love me a little haughty but can't help be impressed and curious Essek and a can't help but show off Caleb. And of course protective and will always talk up her boy Veth. Also, it's part of a series!

The Sheep and the Shadowhand by Dragonslaeyr (7897, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

On the walk from the citadel to the firmaments, Caleb reflects on his husband, the shadowhand, and tries to fend of questions from the Mighty Nein.

Reccer says: It has the best of everything, Shadowgast, secret relationship, pestering of the Nein and sexual tension.

psychopomp by hydraxx (3357, General) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

Essek returns to Blumenthal through the centuries after Caleb's death: a story of grief as told through the eyes of the local innkeepers.

Reccer says: I loved tracking the changes in both Essek and the worldbuilding over time! The outsider POV is a really interesting approach.

Chasing After Phantoms Of Your Former Self by Luuuna03 (9848, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Around 150 years after the end of the campaign, Essek starts hearing Jester's voice in his head But that's impossible. After all, Jester died almost half a century ago...

Reccer says: A great tearjerker, bittersweet in the best of ways.

Our Season of Fire by LivThael (21530, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Both Caleb and Essek are hoping to get lost in the sunny city of Nicodranas. They find each other, as well as a new family made of friends that care for them.

Reccer says: I keep thinking about this fic, even months after I first read it. I love the characterization and the realistic depiction of mental health issues. It's written in such a gentle and loving way and the ending always warms my heart. It's one of my favorite fics ever.

The night shift by Ghost Particles (Ghostparticles) (27273, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

The Mighty Nein are agents working for the Dynasty, and Essek is their handler and very much not in love with the agent who keeps bringing him unasked for gifts from every mission. The agent is Caleb of course.

Reccer says: I was shocked to find out it had less than 150 kudos. It is such a good fic, modern times with magic but following Essek's POV and his love for the mighty nein and his worries when they are in danger and he can't help. And the shadowgast is great, very much like the show the awkward flirting with lots of nothing happening until the climax.

Before the Dawn Breaks by Ofthedirewolves (1746, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Post 111 , Caleb and Essek talk before the big battle.

Reccer says: It’s very sweet and definitely deserves more love! It’s canon for me now since we didn’t really get one.

This is one of our weekly communally-generated shadowgast rec lists. Every week we announce a new theme and allow anyone to submit a fic recommendation. 

And hey, anyone includes you!

Next week, we'll be featuring fics that feature soup! Any fics coming to mind? Well, then use this form to submit!

[multifandumbmeg]

JJ, guy who has panic attacks calming Kie down in the hyberbaric chamber. Thinking about how this is both a cute relationship moment and another astoundingly consistent characterization moment. JJ is shown having what can pretty comfortably be called panic/anxiety attacks after John B's supposed death (although considering his childhood, I think it's safe to assume he's had more of them outside that timeframe). Of those times, though, he is never in actual danger. When he is in danger, like the hyberbaric chamber, he is always clear-headed and ready to go, just like real people with anxiety disorders (especially caused by things like abuse and other real dangers). When the moment hits and the threats are real, he can finally act on that adrenaline for once. And this is also likely why he is so recklessly drawn to dangerous situations. When you have a panic attack your body goes into the fight flight etc mode and when the "aggressor"/threat is something that doesn't actually threaten bodily harm, like a fear or an emotional (but not threatening) conflict - which is definitionally what a panic attack is - you can't do anything about it. You feel out of control. You're terrified in the grocery aisle and there's nothing to hit, nothing to run from, no one to appease or diffuse. But when the danger is real, you get that same rush of adrenaline only this time you can do something. And you've run these life-threatening scenarios over in your head so many times you have a plan, you can think clearly.

I love how they write JJ in this show. He's so consistent and realistic with his backstory while still being dynamic and having character growth. And I love that his romantic relationship with Kiara has been a part of that development, as the unique intimacy of romantic relationships often challenges people who've experienced abuse, but can offer opportunities to grow as well. I love that they have written Kiara in such a way that she actively encourages that (keyword active, not just magically by existing sexily beside him or dying) instead of rejecting him, giving up, and making it worse (especially for unecessary relationship conflict reasons). Props OBX writers.

[theotherpacman]

offsetting all my hateposting with another positivity post

things I didn't get to in my first positivity post but have since remembered

the part where katara uses her waterbending to put out the flaming arrow and stop the bombing???? cool as shit. A+ use of waterbending

having jet sneak them into omashu was pretty damn good. it's not like the live action show could've realistically pulled off the goofy fake beard thing, and it introduced jet as this kind stranger doing something significant for them at great personal risk to himself, setting him up to be a Good Guy, at once making him more complex (he isn't just angry and power-hungry - he really wants to help people) and making it hit harder when katara learns that he's,,,, a terrorist

"that wasn't you. that was me" honestly iconic

that moment where sokka goes "oh us southern water tribe warriors are more known for our hand-to-hand fighting" and suki is like "!!!! flirt opportunity!!!! I shall impress him with my fighting prowess and thus woo him!!!!!" and then she kicks his ass like ":D :D :D and now we shall kiss" omg babygirl ur too good for him

I added this to my first positivity post in an update but azula as a prodigy archer!!! adds to her characterization directly as highly talented and multi-skilled in various combat techniques, and symbolically as very precise, efficient, perfectionistic. love it

zuko's diary. oh my god zuko's diary

seriously first of all zuko as a calligrapher and artist deepens his characterization as skilled in areas his father deems worthless and weak, and secondly aang getting his hands on the thing helps him see into zuko's head more which is cool, but more importantly zuko losing his own personal diary to his fucking nemesis is a hilarious choice can you imagine how that would've driven him insane

that lady in omashu who smacked zuko with a brush bc he was beating up a child. queen

[itsclydebitches]

I need more time to put my thoughts in order about tonight's episode, but my initial reaction is that I'm surprised by others' disappointment? I mean, I'm actually not that surprised because coming out stories are intensely personal with viewers all looking for/needing vastly different things from their media, but it just feels like a lot of what (I thought) Ted Lasso was trying to do has gotten lost under specific expectations.

Ted goes off on a long, ridiculous, borderline disgusting story at the worst possible moment? Yes, that's the point. For all my fun TedTrent theories, Ted is (currently) serving the role of the well-meaning, but often ignorant straight man. His function is to both provide the insight and warmth that he's known for - "Actually it does matter to us" - while simultaneously showing how this intensely heteronormative culture would react to a player coming out. AKA messily. If we got a perfect scenario where everyone was accepting and said exactly the right thing, that would undermine the problems the show is trying to acknowledge in the first place. The focus on Isaac's complicated anger and Ted's foot-in-mouth syndrome is just as important to this whole scenario as the club's overall acceptance and the fact that Ted immediately realizes that he fucked up: "I regret that." Ted Lasso is a feel-good comedy, so it's all couched in over-the-top humor, but I thought that was an important acknowledgement: your allies - straight or not, out or not - are likely going to react in cringe-worthy, imperfect ways and the important takeaway there is not that they're irredeemable people who don't love you, but that they're trying and you should gently correct them (as Colin does) and allow them to grow (as Ted does). Despite being an absurd fiction, Ted Lasso is working to write about this in a semi-realistic sense. Instead of a Perfect Coming Out Moment that makes all the queer fans (myself included!) squeal at how ~wonderful~ our beloved cast is for being oh so perfect, we get that realistic awkwardness, misplaced anger, and regret.

We cut away from Colin coming out? Yes, because he's already come out to us. I understand why fans would be disappointed in that, but I don't think it's fair to characterize the show as not allowing Colin to come out at all. That was the entirety of "Sunflowers." Rather than trying to fit Colin's big moment into a locker room halftime, the writers crafted a whole episode where he could grapple with that fear of being outed, be reassured, have a heart-to-heart with Trent, sit together on the monument, go out later in celebration... Ted Lasso made space for all that and, understandably to my mind, didn't want to rehash many of those same beats three episodes later, especially not when we need time to work through the intersection of Colin's story with everyone else. (Because despite this being a queer story-line about a queer man, the show is about the team. Colin's conflict was always going to expand into the rest of the cast.) No, we don't get to see Colin come out specifically to the others, but we did see him come out - both narratively by kissing a man and to Trent - and we see the team's reaction immediately after the fact. Making space for Issac didn't feel like it was cheating Colin to me, or focusing too much on the straight characters, because Colin's story has been a season in the making (plus some details earlier on). To say nothing of the fact that his hesitance about coming out is specifically because he fears the team's reaction... so why wouldn't we grapple with Isaac's negative reaction? We already know Colin's worries, we know what he wants, we see him seeking advice from Trent, we see him reaching out to Issac, we see that failing, and after all that his queer story-line is functionally at a stand-still until something else gives. Issac's explosion is what finally tips the scales.

Idk I don't think I'm explaining this very well because it's late and I only just watched, but I'm of the opinion that Ted Lasso did a lot of work in previous episodes so that they'd have space in this episode to do different work, which is smart. From a narrative perspective, Ted doesn't need to be the perfect ally because Colin already has a supportive queer mentor. "La Locker Room Aux Folles" doesn't need to try to balance Colin's emotional coming out with Isaac's internalized homophobia because "Sunflowers" already gave the audience so, so much, allowing the writers to both keep things on screen for our benefit and then later cut away for the sake of time. As said, stories like these are always going to be a hit-or-miss depending on what each individual fan wants and needs, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that Colin's story is not this single episode; it's all of them combined. Has Ted Lasso really not treated his journey respectfully... or did it just not try to check every queer story-line box in a single episode?

[alicethenobody]

OMG SAME 100% FACTS TRUE i fucking hate how the dmc fans online keep making the same repetitive unfunny dante in debt jokes while being more empathetic towards both nero and vergil. like dante tends to have isolation habits or isolate himself from others to protect others, that's a common trope in fiction in general (especially japanese fictional stories but some western stories like The Boys or Spiderman has this trope too). These people are actually fucking stupid sometimes. Not to mention without Dante - Vergil and Nero wouldn't exist in the series. I'm also glad I'm not the only one who thinks Dante is one of the more realistic responses to trauma I've seen.

The way the DMC fanbase treats my boy Dante sometimes also reminds me of how the Tekken community treats my man Jin Kazama (especially on websites like reddit, twitter, and the YouTube comments section). They always show more empathy towards his father Kazuya (who is very similar to Vergil and Sasuke, man loses his family and goes down a dark path obsessed with power. also is the father of another character but is absent in their child's life) and Heihachi (who is literally just evil...like dude fucking killed his own wife, his own father, Michelle's father, Lidia's father, Leroy's entire family. dude unleashed shrek and killed innocent people.). Yet they mock Jin's mental health issues of survivor's guilt and low self esteem and make shitty jokes at his expense a lot. Jin lived a peaceful humble life with his mother Jun until Ogre attacked and Jin wanted to defeat Ogre to avenge his mother and also avenge the other fighters who were hurt by Ogre (ex. Hwoarang's master, King's adopted father). Then Heihachi who Jin trusted for years just betrays him by almost killing him via being shot multiple times. Then Jin finds out he was born with the Devil Gene thanks to his dad and has a hard time controlling it. His father Kazuya only cares about power and wants to kill Jin to get the rest of the Devil Gene for himself and Kazuya mostly cares about revenge against Heihachi. Most of the terrible shit in his life is out of his control. Like Dante, Jin also isolates himself from others out of fear his devil gene might hurt them or they might get dragged into the problems of the dysfunctional Mishima bloodline he's trying to end.

It also doesn't help that the creators of Tekken also lowkey hate Jin Kazama too, Harada blatantly stated in multiple interviews that he prefers villainous characters (ex. Heihachi aka Harada's favorite character), and Harada always wanted Jin to be a villain like his precious Heihachi Mishima but the team disagreed at first for obvious reasons (there are already too many bad guys/morally grey characters in Tekken, Jin is supposed to be the good mishima bloodline member he is supposed to be the good guy who doesn't let his trauma or family history make him bad, and it'd just be a repeat of Kazuya's story). Then Harada also assassinated Jin's character and made him OOC in Tekken 6's shitty scenario campaign story. Jin's potrayal in Tekken 6 completely contradicts his characterization in the older games (especially his Tekken 4 ending) and Jin is just out of character in that game, but the fanbase are usually idiots who don't realize that. So the fans bash Jin even more, and oh don't get me started on all the horrible fanfiction on ao3 where Jin gets r*ped by multiple characters because he hasn't suffered enough.

Both Dante and Jin deserve better, i hate it here it's always my favs are cursed lmao. (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

YEAAAH like I’m sorry but I think people are so overly critical of his actions in DMC5. I’m always gonna be of the belief he did nothing wrong in that game except for not telling Nero Vergil was his dad but he had reasons for not telling him like… the fact that he was afraid of cursing Nero with the same life he was living if he got too closely associated with either twin. And the fact that Nero most likely wouldn’t believe him (which Dante himself said) unless he had definitive proof for him. Dante is a man weighed down by the responsibility of protecting all of humanity, something any other person would completely crack under. So he thinks he can only let people in a certain amount or else they could get hurt. It happened many times, after all. Like I’d understand the criticisms of his behavior if he acted like a toxic asshole the whole time but… he really doesn’t. At worst he’s said something insensitive a couple times which… who hasn’t done that in their life and he felt bad about it both times it happened lmao (when he upset Nero in 5 and when he accidentally made Patty cry in the anime. Like he was actively miserable the entire episode because of it.) I’ve read such a weird amount of posts bashing Dante or fanfics that do the same.

Btw I’ve never played Tekken but that sounds shitty :(

[sillykitty9000]

Ready To Pay In Full by Teethies on AO3 is a masterpiece and I need to talk about it right now

Mild-moderate spoilers ahead + Cw: mention of sexual harassment and abusive power dynamics

First of all, how the fuck was THAT written in only 4 days? 10k words of beautifully thought out in-character plot? In 4 DAYS??? Good lord, that is incredible! Also, Teethies mentioned that this was their first time writing fanfiction? Unfair if you ask me. (/lht) It was wonderfully written, and I can not believe how much I enjoyed it.

Chapter 1: It opens beautifully. The descriptions are rich, and the characters are so real. Not only is Teethies's voice portrayed well throughout the story, but the characters' voices are seen wonderfully, too. It briefly, but not inconsistently, fills in the end of OUAW and sets the scene in a realistic way. It is admirable how Teethies can make both Kremy and Gideon in character even without having them speak; their body language shows expression without any semblance of "He did this, he moved there." I really enjoy how Teethies handles small details, like how Gideon’s hair leaves ashes on his new shirt; it's not necessary to the plot, but it gives the story so much more life. Gideon and Kremy feel real in the way they interact, and they are sweet in the way that only they can be. Vague flirty remarks just before moderate insults. Reading this feels like I'm listening to their campaign with how accurate these characters are. This whole chapter explores character history, especially Kremy’s, and it really goes in-depth as to why they each do the things they do. Again, they're all so in character that it feels like I'm really there. Even the subtle nonverbal reactions feel like the characters, and it's really sweet seeing Kremy and Gideon interact in the way they're so used to. Outside help brings them a bit closer, and it's a really nice way of showing how close they are, even if they aren't explicitly romantic. Again, I really appreciate how in-depth this story goes with Kremy’s history. I never really considered what his past before the Carnival but after his childhood would be like, but Teethies perfectly explains why Kremy is so powerful and how he knows so much about Garou. It really paints how Kremy behaves, and I loved every second of the first chapter.

Chapter 2: How this fic somehow IMPROVED upon their first chapter was something out of a dream. As someone who hasn't caught up on the campaign entirely, I don't know much about Mr. Garou, other than they owe him money, but Teethies does a wonderful job characterizing him in a way that feels canon and makes me understand the motivations of the characters through the story. Also, Teethies makes him a completely horrible person in a truly aggravating way. He is unredeemable, he is unlikable, and he is perfect for that. Not once was I thinking that he may change his ways, and it makes the morally questionable Kremy and Gideon seem like good people. It made me feel bad for them, and it made me enjoy their character just that much more. This chapter definitely favors the view of Gideon as opposed to the Kremy central story of the first chapter, and it really shows their differences. Kremy’s chapter was anxious. It was so obviously fearful, but it had the comforting figure of Gideon beside him. In this chapter, however, there is no comfort. Gideon is angry, he is concerned, and he has no one to turn to. He is supposed to be the protector, but he quickly learns how powerless he is in the face of Mr. Garou. Around here is where Mr. Garou gets really gross. Again, he is an unforgivable evil man, and Teethies portrays him as such. The way he talks to Gideon, but especially Kremy, makes me a bit sick. He is so cruel, and it makes you feel bad for all that Kremy has had to put up with. Gideon naturally responds with anger, but he then has suggestion cast over him. This part is actually fascinating to me because I've never considered how suggestion would work. I love how Teethies describes it as comforting magic because that really ties in to the wisdom mechanics of the game. Gideon could choose to disobey, but Kremy is mentally praising him and is so happy to see how well-behaved he is. He must be a bit scared to disobey because he feels that Kremy could leave at any point and never take him back, and that's where his wisdom fails him. He does not know that Kremy cares about him as much as he does, and that's why he submits so easily to suggestion. He does not want to lose Kremy over something like disobeying orders. We see again how badly Gideon does not want to lose Kremy at the end, where they find themselves in an argument over the entire scene with Remy Garou. It wonderfully breaks down their feelings into a soft scene, and it concludes a fantastic story.

This fanfiction was incredible from beginning to end, and it made me go through so many emotions at any given point. While there is romance, it is not the main focus which is fantastic. It really dives into the depths of each character and how they exist in their world, but also shows the inner workings of their minds without being too invasive. It was a fantastic read, and I highly recommend it.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Fixing Gabriel's Writing via a Corruption Arc

Like it or not, Miraculous considers Gabriel Agreste to be a loving father. If he wasn't, then you wouldn't get things like the season five ending or this bit from Queen Wasp:

Gabriel: (guilt-ridden) I don't want to break our promise, but… I can't keep putting our son in danger. Style Queen was supposed to be my masterpiece… but even she failed. I feel like I've done all I possibly could, you know? I'll never be able to fulfill my wish without Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous. (Scene shows Emilie in her coffin) Forgive me, Emilie. I'm giving you up, Nooroo.

But this side of him only shows up in big dramatic moments. When it comes to his more general writing, he's a full out cartoon villain and terrible parent, which is why I've said there's a lot of valid ways to write him. His character is wildly inconsistent. This is a problem that is easily fixed via an actual corruption arc where he goes from somewhat decent parent to monster. There's a couple ways to do this, but here's how I'd do it in the context of keeping canon mostly intact:

Early seasons needed to make Gabriel come across as more openly grief stricken. Really highlight the fact that Emilie's death changed something major about him and his relationship with his son. This is one of the reasons I like a more nuanced Chloe. If you let her and Adrien be actual friends, then you can have her make statements to indicate that Adrien used to be quite close with both of his parents and that Gabriel used to be a good father. You can also have Adrien make statements like this to Plagg, I just like the Chloe angle more as she's more blunt while Adrien is more likely to hide his pain/focus on the positives.

Have Gabriel be unwilling to send akumas to areas where Adrien is. Episodes like Riposte should be impossible as Gabriel will be wholly unwilling to let akumas go after his son. This also lets you justify Adrien being locked up. As is, Gabriel just comes across like a jerk. If he's only banning Adrien from going out in order to keep his son safe? Well, he's still a jerk, but at the very least, he's a jerk who worries about his son's physical well being. Origins saw Adrien sneaking out of the house, so keep that element and make this be the reason he gets caught up in akuma attacks.

As time goes on, Gabriel gets more desperate and more willing to take risks. Lots of things could trigger this such as Ladybug always resetting everything, making him feel less concerned about hurting others. After all, he'll fix everything with his wish and, if he fails, then Ladybug will do it for him. There's really no way to lose here. Style Queen could become a turning point where Gabriel finally willingly put Adrien at risk and he feels awful, but make that also be the closest he's ever come. Have Gabriel decided that risking Adrien is worth the cost if it brings them back Emilie.

After that, things start to go downhill. Gabriel draws away from his son more and more due to guilt, but he's convinced he's in the right because he wants Emilie back so bad. The ends justify the means and all that. This can lead into several different types of endings, but the general feeling of Gabriel's final ending should have an element of pity. He's a villain, but he's a villain many could easily become.

This is the kind of path canon needed to walk if they wanted the season five ending to feel realistic. As is, it's going to read as total nonsense to most fans because they're going to go off of the way Gabriel was played in your standard, monster-of-the-week episode. They're not going to think about those core characterization episodes that were supposed to define Gabriel because those episodes are just too uncommon and too antithetical to the way Gabriel tended to be written.

[coimbrabertone]

Offtopic Offseason #1 - I Don't Believe in Superhero Fatigue.

Hello guys.

So with motorsports coming to an end for the year, I've been thinking of what I'm going to talk about during the offseason. There will be some news, and obviously I can talk about some racing history stuff, but what I've decided to do instead is begin this series: Offtopic Offseason.

What is Offtopic Offseason? it's pretty self-explanatory really - I'm going off topic for the offseason.

First up is...I don't believe superhero fatigue is a real thing.

Instead, I believe that the fatigue is for a certain type of cookie cutter, quippy flavor of superhero slop. A flavor of superhero movie that many recent MCU movies have fallen victim to.

What characterizes this slop?

A certain kind of shame, I think. These movies - and TV shows for that matter - feel almost ashamed to be doing superhero stories, so they undercut the drama with jokes and quips. That's not to say that superhero jokes can't be funny or quippy - in fact, I'd argue that some of the best superhero shows recently have focused on humor and absurdity - but it's about how those jokes interact with the story. I think one of the best examples of this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe's treatment of Thor.

Thor walking around like a dumb jock, getting made fun or, and getting sassed and backtalked by the people around him sabotages what is supposed to be his character arc.

Thor is supposed to be the goofy, spoiled Prince of Asgard who is sent down to Earth to be humbled, a lesson he learns in the first movie, and he should be played as a smarter, more responsible character from that point onwards.

To some extent, he is played that way in movies like Thor: the Dark World and Avengers: Infinity War, but that is in contrast with his portrayals in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame.

I see the claim, semi-often, that it's Taika Waititi's fault that Thor went in this direction, and maybe it is to an extent, but that doesn't explain Avengers: Endgame.

The character who was a headshot away from stopping Thanos in Infinity War turns into a fat drunk the very next movie made by the exact same team.

Now, I get it, it's a despair arc, but he never truly recovers from it. Thor appears in the climactic final fight, sure, but the key moments ultimately go to Captain America and Iron Man.

Thor, meanwhile, goes on to star in Love and Thunder, in a performance that Chris Hemsworth himself calls too silly, labeling him a "parody of himself."

We are constantly told that Thor is supposed to be one of the strongest and most heroic characters in these movies, but time after time, he reverts to the strong, but dumb character that he was at the beginning of his own movie.

His character development constantly resets to zero.

Thor effectively has no more consistent character progression than Peter Griffin.

So...how to fix this?

The short answer is better writing.

I know that's obtuse, but hear me out: there is a piece of recent superhero media, with absurd humor, regular jokes, and complex character arcs that show both progress and regression in realistic and emotionally heavy ways.

DC's Doom Patrol.

Let's talk about Cliff Steele. In the 80s, he's a successful NASCAR driver at the height of his career, owning a mansion, starting a family, and famous enough to cameo in bad soap operas. He's also cheating on his wife with the maid while being suspicious of his wife. This culminates in Cliff causing a crash after he sees his wife feeling up his crew chief to deliberately make him jealous.

Cliff narrowly avoids this wreck.

He's then implied to go on a drunken bender and cheat on his wife again before realizing that it all makes him feel hollow and empty inside. He tries to make amends, picks up his wife and daughter, and they're all driving home together.

Only for Cliff to get caught up in a crash that kills his wife and leaves Cliff as little more than a functional brain. Yadda, yadda, yadda, a quack scientist named Niles Caulder uses a combination of technology and magic to build an immortal robot body and puts Cliff's brain in it. Thus, Cliff becomes the Robotman.

Here, Cliff is given chances to do better. Jane, a young woman living in Caulder's mansion, appears as a surrogate daughter for him, and not long after that, Cliff finds out that his real daughter, Clara, is alive to, and he's given the chance to make amends with both.

He tries.

Often, he fails.

During one sequence, he backslides deep into self-destructive behavior as he gets high on Parkinson's meds and gets addicted to a camgirl and online gambling, to the point of selling his friends' (including Jane's) stuff, and using his daughter's credit card on it, so...yeah, he's being a pretty shitty person at this point.

The thing is, he does better.

He cares about the Doom Patrol, Jane in particular. He wants to be there for Clara and her son Rory, and despite being the robotic bruiser of the team, time after time demonstrates that he's ultimately one of the most gentle and merciful characters in the show.

His character development is hardly a simple case of A-B, but it's written in a serious and sensible way, in contrast to Thor's yo-yoing between characterizations.

For another example, let's look at something that's not a superhero show, but contains a similarly complex character arc: Blitzø from Helluva Boss.

Yeah, I'm critiquing the MCU and bringing up Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss as a positive example. I'm well aware that if this blogpost breeches containment, I'll be dealing with the worst people on the internet.

Anyway, Blitzø is a prickly little shit that makes bad decisions and pushes away anyone that tries to make a real connection with him. This is where a lot of the crude humor and absurd plot elements of Helluva Boss come from, so it draws a lot of criticism, but the thing is...that's the point, Blitzø is a problem.

The show, particularly in the second season, is about Blitzø opening up and becoming a better person.

We see him saving his old friend Fizzarolli and ultimately reconcile with him. We see him show moments of genuine care for his employees Moxxie and Millie, as well as his daughter Loona, but we also see his unwillingness to truly be vulnerable around the people closest to him.

We see in Full Moon that he rejects and lashes out at Stolas' attempts to turn their transactional relationship into something more serious and equal. Now, granted, Stolas' own self-worth issues mean that he isn't communicating well, but Blitzø still assumes the worst and screams at him.

This trend continues in the next episode, Apology Tour, where they argue again and Stolas asks Blitzø if he's ever really apologized in his life. Blitzø's answer isn't to reflect on his actions, but to "Apologize the fuck outta everyone!" to prove a point. Naturally, this doesn't particularly work, and it ends with Blitzø following Stolas to an "Anti-Blitzø Party."

Here, Blitzø finally sees the impact of his actions, and begins by making two legitimate apologies: the first attempting to apologize to Stolas, and then making an apology to Verosika, an ex-girlfriend who is hosting the party to begin with. Talking with Verosika makes Blitzø decide to leave the party and give Stolas space, even if it means watching as Stolas dance and kiss another guy.

In the most recent episode, Mastermind, we see the culmination of Blitzø's progress as he is willing to sacrifice himself to protect his friends. This ends with Stolas coming in to take the fall himself, and with Stolas disgraced and brought down from his status as a Goetic Prince, Blitzø lets Stolas stay with him.

The episode ends on a comfortable note between the two of them, with the implication that Stolas has become a lot more aware of their previous power imbalance, while Blitzø has become a lot more awae of how much Stolas means to him.

So, to summarize this long rant about a movie I didn't like and two shows I love: there are ways to write flawed characters, character development is not always linear, and characters can backslide. The problem is that Thor does none of these things in a natural or believable way.

Now, some of this is inevitably down to the fact that a show gives more time to develop a character than a movie.

However...Thor has been in how many MCU movies by now? He's had more than enough screen time to have had a deeper character arc, Marvel just didn't care to deliver one.

That's the kind of superhero content people are sick of.

People are sick of Marvel trying to replicate its earlier success, people are sick of DC constantly rebooting in its own attempts to build a cinematic universe, and people are sick of cinematic universes developing around other movies and franchises.

That's because cinematic universes aren't about writing the best stories possible in the same world, they're about chasing the runaway pop culture success that the early Marvel movies had.

For more proof of that, look at what DC's most successful projects have been lately: the Batman, a standalone movie focused on a single character and the surrounding setting. Penguin, a spinoff from that that is a serious, gritty mob show in the same world as the Batman. Or the aforementioned Doom Patrol which was its own little show on HBO Max.

Doom Patrol started in 2019, ended 2023.

The Batman released in 2022.

The Penguin released in 2024.

All successful and critically acclaimed work in the so-called era of superhero fatigue.

People aren't sick of superhero movies, they're sick of bad superhero movies.

So yeah...this has been my first Offtopic Offseason blogpost, I hope y'all enjoyed it and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Oh, and for the motorsport people...yeah, I'm aware that the Qatar Grand Prix happened last weekend, I just would rather forget about it.

[biblicallyaccuratecrow]

it’s 3am I woke up from a nightmare time to post abt my isat fanfic

really this is just notes abt chapter 1 of ouroboros (a not-quite postmortem if you will)

[spoilers for isat and twohats below the cut]

So if you couldn’t tell/didn’t know this fic actually takes place in the version of twohats where you lose the battle against loop! I’ve always kind of liked this version better? I think the emotional impact of loop deciding, even after having siffrin’s life literally within their grasp, that they don’t want to kill them hits so much harder for me. Also, feels a bit more realistic in the context of this fic as a sick/recovery fic. Siffrin definitely did NOT have enough energy to take on a fully-charged and pissed off Loop in their condition.

I’ll probably make a larger post about siffrins physical condition in this fic later, but in the case of chapter 1 there’s a few fun things to note. One is that siffrin’s handle on pain is kinda fucked! “Not as bad as it could have been” is pretty literal in this case. I think they’re simultaneously very desensitized to recognizing and acknowledging their pain but also prone to being acutely aware of it when it’s in tandem with their shitty mental state. When they’re Being Normal it kind of fades into the background buzz, but when they’re spiraling and can feel how close they are to falling apart I imagine it’s a lot more overwhelming and obvious.

the stars and ocean connection to the forgotten island has been pointed out before but I’m being a little more heavy handed with this fic bc. In my mind the reverence for the stars goes hand in hand with the idea of an island where the ocean has a major impact on the daily life??? The idea of stars being used to guide sailors comes to mind, but also the idea of vastness, reflections, and a “void” feeling also feel right. A lot of naval navigation tools have a lot to do with physics, astronomy, and atmospheric stuff, and given the island’s technological and scientific method of displaying the universe I don’t think it’s too far fetched to extend that to the ocean as well!

CARRYING SIFFRIN. BRIDAL STYLE. Isabeau is so fun to write????? I don’t think I expected to enjoy his chapter as much as I did. Reaaaaly leaning into Freaksabeau energy but also. I think a lot about how Isa feels has such a strong protective and comforting personality? Throughout the game it’s expressed a lot, but the fact that it comes out of his deep childhood insecurities makes it feel all the more painful… not to mention that siffrin targeted these insecurities pretty harshly! Even if Isa forgives him, I imagine that it’s very hard for him not to internalize it. He’s a coward, and he knows it, but having someone acknowledge that and show how it can hurt others and himself is an entirely different beast. Hence why Isa ruminates a lot over it during his section.

Odile is THE #1 isafrin shipper. She’s also homophobic/j

Bonnie. Boniface. Bon Bon. My heart and soul. Writing them is so fun. I know a lot of people (me included) have trouble with them, bc writing kids can be hard. Still, I have such a deep respect for their characterization that I really spent a lot of time making sure they felt right. In this case, it was acknowledging that they are!!! NOSY!!! Like many kids are!!! But not maliciously, just out of worry and curiosity! They’re not dumb either! They know that siffrin’s whole situation is fucked- maybe not the fullest extent of understanding, yes, but they seem to grasp the seriousness, even if it is through the forever school metaphor. It was also kinda important for me to show that they take their role in the party as Tonic Carryer and Chef Cooker VERY SERIOUSLY. Odile complimenting them on their foresight is feels all the more genuine that way.

I think by now we all kinda realize that. The idea of camping out in the clock tower. Where siffrin spent countless sleepless nights mulling over their sins. While maybe marginally better than being forced to stay in the house, is…. An oversight, to say the least. See chapter 5 for more context on that. It’s better, yeah but only by proxy of not having hundreds of deaths associated with it.

I’m also gonna be focusing a lot on the inter-party dynamics outside of siffrin in this fic! Because!!! The friendships of the others mean a lot to me!!! Odile and Isabeau’s friendship comes up the most in this chapter; I think Odile has a bit of an inkling about Isabeau being a bit smarter than he lets on, and even if she spends a larger portion of their interactions in game teasing him for his crush, I also think that they have a pretty close bond for Odile to feel comfortable being the one that isabeau goes to about his feelings. So I thinks he has a better read on him as a whole, and does her best to keep him from spiraling.

Bonnie and Isa also come to mind- they aren’t talked about nearly as much as I think they should be???? Like, Bonnie sees Isa as a younger sibling (which. Stares in Middle-Child Isa Enjoyer), and Isa is the other person who uses Bon Bon, which is a pretty important nickname in the context of Bonnie’s character??? They have less interactions than the rest of the party but I like to think that Isa humors Bonnie a lot and also sees them like a younger sibling which makes their whole teasing and nagging dynamic all the more realistic to me!

ah, the Favor Tree Void Space. My sweet beloved. My magnum opus of imagery in this fic. In my mind, this represents Siffrin’s subconscious connection to The Universe and wishcraft, even after the loops. Favor Trees are obviously something culturally important for The Universe (given that the wishes it grants are so powerful and that the book detailing all wishcraft rituals has a favor tree on the cover), so I thought that it would be fitting to place it here. It’s simultaneously part of siffrin’s trauma from the loops, but also a safe space, a haven offered by Loop where they can simply just. Be. At least for a little while, anyways. Also drew back to the ocean/sky imagery with the ground having some kind of water qualities.

writing about the stars, I emphasize the idea of their??? Aliveness very often. As facets of the universe, thousands of granted and ungranted wishes, an audience and plot device in one. I can’t say much on them in this chapter, mainly bc I go a little more into it chapter 3 and onwards, but keep in mind the idea of music and the chorus of a theatre production, as well as a captive audience. That’s kinda the vibes.

anyhoo- I’m tired again. Gonna try and sleep a bit more before work! toodles!

[cripplingoptimism]

Distractions [3/3]

Gonna wrap this up in 3 parts. Previous here.

Yo, WHAT was happening on Twitter this week?? Every time I opened the app there was a new analysis of the Goddamn couch scene. I didn't think Trigun could hurt me any more and yet here I am in a new spiral over an internet stranger's hot take.

Anywaaaaay, I've had this brainworm way before whatever angst got a hold of Twitter. I've always interpreted Vash and Wolfwood’s relationship as 'right people, wrong time'. But honestly, I love every interpretation of them - platonic, soulmates, lovers, etc. So, through these comics I wanted to show moments during their journey that conveyed the gradual evolution of their relationship (as I head cannon it lmao). Canonically, Vash never gets to tell Wolfwood how he feels and my poor little heart has been in denial about that ever since. So this is my *slight* rewriting of the series of events leading up to Wolfwood's solo journey.

At this point in the manga (ch. 50) I wanted to show that, despite the 7 month time skip, it's like no time has passed between them. They're still comfortable and casual with each other, still seeking the comfort of distractions - Neither of them wanting to shatter the illusion of normalcy in this moment. And I feel Vash would be the first to ask for more when reality comes knocking (through Wolfwood's fist lol).

He knows, even in a best-case scenario, his time with Wolfwood is limited. And while Vash is just as shackled by duty and guilt as Wolfwood, he carries an optimism about him that Wolfwood lacks. He needs Woolfwood to know how he feels so he can live without regret, regardless of the outcome. As such, he takes the leap. Wolfwood, unfortunately, cannot bring himself to share in that optimism. He’s too absorbed in worry about the orphanage, the children and especially Livio. His heart is screaming at him, but he knows he can’t afford to be distracted by his “selfish” desires. So, he rejects Vash by being realistic and hopes he can see that he wants this too, but just can't bear the impending heartbreak due to their circumstances. Vash does see this. He swallows his disappointment and heartbreak, earnestly grateful for the relationship he still has with Wolfwood.

I know my characterization feels like it conflicts with the moment on the couch; Vash can't even look at Wolfwood for that entire scene despite Wolfwood being the one to try and connect with him ("You look better...when you smile."). However, I never saw that moment as Vash rejecting Wolfwood. Not in the traditional sense at least (maybe an inadvertent rejection). Vash wanted more between them (to share his tomorrows), but not like this - not as a deathbed confession. He's heartbroken and grieving and (somewhat selfishly) can't see that Wolfwood just wants to enjoy his last moments with the one person on this planet he can call an equal and a friend.

Speaking of the dreaded couch scene, I don't think I can add anything new to the discourse, but I will say the tragedy for me really lies in all the emotions Wolfwood goes through:

Being at peace with his death ("This is the way you want it?" "Yeah."). It's what he believed he deserved, with all the blood on his hands, and the mutation of his body, he assumed he could never return to his previous life with everyone at the orphanage.

Grieving for his future (confetti). Wolfwood never believed he could be forgiven. The children celebrating his return showed their acceptance of him, welcoming him back regardless of his sins. He was worthy of forgiveness. His guilt prevented him from even entertaining the thought of forgiving himself. There must have been regret in those tears.

Seeking comfort from the one person he grew to truly trust and Vash not being strong enough to give it. I already mentioned this above, but Vash not even being able to look at Wolfwood throughout the entire couch scene tears me up.

From the narrative's perspective, Wolfwood needed to die. And even knowing that, it still absolutely destroyed me (and still does). Not just because he died, but because right before his death, he was given a glimmer of hope - that had he survived the fight with Livio, he would have had a chance at happiness.

Last side note here: I've seen discourse online explaining the entire scene is a metaphor for a wedding and I just wanna say, you'll be hearing from my therapist.

[sokkastyles]

Hi, I’m finding it difficult to wrap my head around your (and some other meta writers) take on Sokka’s sexism and how writing a nonsexist society would be braver?

Why is it more brave to write a story without bigotry than one overcoming it?

Defensive Writing Section Where I Respond to What I Imagine You Could Respond With: 1) I know the original series did not succeed in, or even really try, empowering its women. 2) I know sexism is baked into the show and its romances. 3) I know Katara deserves better (but, this might be where we diverge, I don’t feel served by a reality/story where we pretend women’s domestic, unappreciated labor isn’t a pillar holding society up. Tbh it feels kinda disrespectful to keep that offscreen and media tends to downplay it as is). 4) I know the show isn’t out yet and we’re all guessing. I am picking your brain on your guess cause it confused me. 5.) Sokka’s arc is about maturing manhood and leadership, I’m afraid removing his sexism dodges an opportunity to explicitly deconstruct its toxic expressions. Again, I know the show was unsatisfactory with this the first go around.

Fan Mail Section Where I Attempt To Convey I Meant No Harm: Love your blog! Again, just confused.

First of all, I did not say that writing a nonsexist society would be braver or that the story should not have bigotry in it. What I said is that the story should have more adult women in it.

For example, I do enjoy Katara's story of struggling against feeling like she needs to take on a motherly role because of her gender. I think it's realistic because it's a conflict many girls face, and watching her fight against that can be cathartic. But what's harder to reconcile is the way the narrative goes out of its way to justify forcing this role on Katara. Not all of this can be chalked up to a sexist world. Kya being dead before the story begins was a decision the writers made, for example. I'm not necessarily saying that should be changed, but it is a common trope in media and it's a problem that women are disproportionately killed off to serve fictional narratives this way. Compare, for example, the way the story explains Hakoda's absence without killing him off entirely, and the fact that we know a heck of a lot more about him as a character than we do Kya. His absence is still used to characterize the heroes, to explain the struggle they face in a war-torn world, but he gets to be an active agent in the story, too.

Another example is that although a lot of Sokka's sexism stems from a lack of understanding of Katara's waterbending, which can be explained in the narrative by the fact that the FN has nearly eradicated southern waterbending, this does not explain why Katara wasn't taught more about her bending by her grandmother, who is both from the northern tribe and present when Hama and the other benders were taken. In the flashbacks in "The Puppet Master," we see that there were many women who used combat waterbending, and apparently waterbending healing was not even known in the south so there was no gendered division like in the north. There's no real reason why that should change so quickly in such a short amount of time to the point where the southern water tribe all of the sudden becomes this hugely sexist society where only men are known to fight.

Katara and Sokka are presented with opposite ideas about gender, but we don't have any real sense of where they got these ideas. I like to headcanon that Katara got her feminism from gran-gran, who fled the southern water tribe because of sexism, but it's strange then that Katara doesn't even know this story. Why is Kanna such a complete nonentity in the narrative, when her story is so important to the story the show wants to tell about Katara?

We get more backstory on Sozin than we do a lot of the adult women in the story, when they even show up. Zuko's mom is fridged just like Katara's, and although I love how this serves as a bonding point between them, it would be less glaring if Iroh's and Azulon's and Sozin's wives were also not nonentities in the narrative.

Someone commented on this post that the live action might be giving us Suki's mom. So let's look at how even this small change might effect the story. Even keeping in Sokka's sexism. Let's say that it does play out like in the original, and when they get to Kyoshi Island, Sokka is shocked - shocked! - to be beaten by a bunch of women. We're supposed to think Sokka is wrong. And he does get proven wrong. But the Kyoshi Warriors are still the exception to the rule. Sokka doesn't so much learn that women deserve respect as much as he learns to respect some women because they can kick his ass.

But, if we bring in Suki's mom, then suddenly Suki doesn't have to be the sole named character responsible for teaching Sokka not to be sexist. The story becomes less about how Sokka should respect women because some of them are cool and he'll get a girlfriend out of it, and more about how all women deserve the same respect, because we see more women just present and living in the world of the story.

I'd also like to ask everyone to take a step back here, because to my knowledge, the show never said it was taking out certain arcs or presenting the characters without narrative flaws. This all seems to stem from the young actors themselves saying merely that the show took out some "iffy" moments.

So what did they take out that Ian and Kiiawntio might be referring to? Maybe some of the anachronistic and, frankly, racist moments such as, for example, Sokka and Katara calling Zuko and Sokka's cultural hairstyles "ponytails." Which would make sense, considering that the show probably feels like they can trust their audience to accept hairstyles that might appear different to Americans moreso than the writers of the original show did, considering that this is not a show airing on American kids' cable in the early 2000s, but a modern show with a global and much more globally aware audience. These are the kinds of updates that I would expect from a modern live action series. And that is a very good thing.

I also trust the young actors of color playing these kids to say "hey, these kids would not actually talk like that!" More than I trust white writers and execs.