#it has a theme of happiness being inherent to every living being

[rexscanonwife]

You ever think about how trolls world tour has an underlying theme of music coming from people's personal experiences and an EMPHASIS on it coming from culture, a subplot about it being stolen and bastardized from people of color by white pop artists, and in the end the ones who save the day are the most obviously black coded characters in the series?

[can-of-w0rmz]

My thoughts on Frankenstein can basically be summed up in, “Victor is a dickhead but at least he’s not an incel,” and “The Creature is a dickhead but at least he’s not a rich prick”.

To this day “ermmm Victor/Creature is the innocent guy and (X other character) is the bad guy achtually 🤓☝️” takes make me so fucking mad. THEY BOTH SUCK, AND THEYRE BOTH STILL SYMPATHETIC PROTAGONISTS. THATS THE POINT OF THE FUCKING BOOK😭

Also people who think Victor was the bad guy for refusing to make the Bride and going “huh, maybe making a creature for the sole purpose of suffering and fucking you is really fucked up and not my place at all actually?” legitimately need their fucking heads checked because do you genuinely have zero reading comprehension or life experience??? Can you read a book? Can you understand basic themes and concepts? Are you actually stupid?

Victor is a terrible guy for being self absorbed enough to cheat God and nature itself, creating a being that was never meant to be born and inflicting immense suffering on it by the nature of it existing in a way that fundamentally can not be balanced out — following the Christian influences and background in which the novel was written at the time, Victor is not God, he can’t offer the creature salvation or in any way metaphysically balance out his suffering, so he just introduces him to a life of a living hell by his own design and by the nature of the fact that Victor is just a man, and the Creature himself is terrible because the nihilism inherent to his condition as Victor’s creation turns him into a murderous incel who wants to just further the suffering Victor caused, because if he can’t be happy, nobody should, so he kills every innocent bystander who Victor loved and demands that he makes him a woman like Eve who’s equal to him in suffering, who exists for the sole purpose of being his, who was created to be his.

And Victor says no, because he has actual character development and realises it isn’t his place (also, very likely mirroring his engagement to Elizabeth if you kinda follow the same reading as me that Victor never really loved her romantically and felt forced into the marriage because of his mother), which, shock horror, makes Victor a more likeable protagonist, because again, shockingly, he’s actually a pretty good guy in this one situation making a really good moral decision for once by saying “yeah I’m not going to create a woman whose sole purpose in life is to fuck you and suffer as much as you, also what if she doesn’t want to fuck you???”

Are people allergic to the concept of character development or something?? Are people allergic to multifaceted complex characters?? You feel terrible for the creature because of what Victor has done to him by bringing him into existence, and you feel terrible for Victor because of how doomed he is (in the worst way, it’s not just him suffering, he has to watch everyone he loves being forced to suffer because of him) by his one mistake and how he doesn’t have any way to fix it. A creation with no God, and a Man with the weight of God upon him because of his own mistake. They’re both doomed. That’s why it’s so good, THE BOOK IS A FUCKING TRAGEDY WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR SOME PEOPLE TO GRASP???😭

[hellspawnmotel]

i LOVE ur analyses (ur noelle + ralsei ones completely changed the way i view those characters) and if u ever started a yt channel for video essays i would BE THERE. ur art has a comforting quality that can be twisted into something disturbing/raw that i rlly like and admire. i wanna know more of ur thoughts on chara. i think they killed themselves bc of their dread of humanity + they thought what they were feeling (anger/vengence) was inherent to being a human and not a monster. thoughts?

thank you, that's very kind of you!! I don't think what I have to say would be very well suited for video essays though haha, it's just my personal readings of the text and I really don't want people to look at it and assume that I'm completely right, or even that I think I'm completely right. there are tropes and themes that I get particularly caught up in and I have my very obvious biases, plus when it comes to deltarune the story isn't even done yet..... I would hate for somebody to get totally invested in my interpretation and then get mad or disappointed if something that happens further in negates it. (that and my video making/editing skills begin and end with cutting together amvs)

as for chara..... (warning this is about to get heavy, maybe don't read if you're dealing with suicidal thoughts of your own)

.....always a complex question, especially when it comes to their death. I never really want to say anything definitive about them, because well, we don't actually know, do we? but this in particular...... with suicidal thoughts and ideation, you're always looking for a way to justify it. I don't think there was one specific reason chara went down that path, because there never really is. it starts with one thought, and then all the reasons you could possibly come up with start to clump together and form an unbearable weight. I think it's significant that chara came up with "the plan" after (accidentally or not) poisoning asgore. maybe it started with the guilt of hurting somebody they loved, which grew into the guilt of 'I'm such a burden to these wonderful people, they would be better off without me' which grew into the guilt of being human at all. but they still wanted to be useful to their family, leave them with a gift.... if their death can both free monsterkind AND destroy humanity, then really it would be worse of them to NOT die. that idea would stick in their brain and become a comfort to them- it's okay, because before too long, everyone I love with be safe and happy and I'll be dead, and I won't have to feel so awful every day. this is the only way to make up for all the time they wasted on caring for me. but then, of course, everything goes so extremely wrong..... I can't imagine the anguish chara would've felt in death, for not only failing but dooming asriel alongside them. they weren't thinking about the pain it would inflict on their family even if the plan had worked, or ever stop to consider that one day they might be able to feel better, and now they'll never get a chance to see it.

I think that also nicely leads in the main routes in undertale's storyline. in one, chara is a passenger on frisk and the player's journey, and they watch frisk inconvenience everyone they meet over and over but ultimately make their lives better just by being a friend and believing in love, which mirrors chara's own life and what they failed to see in it. in the other, chara is guided into dealing with their pain in a different way, by destroying it. the world is cruel, and unfair, and it hurts the good people while the bad flourish- better to do away with it entirely. if there's no life, then there's no suffering. if chara is all that exists, they become the nexus of pain. if they have to become a demon anyway, they can learn to love it. it's all humans are good for anyway. maybe this is easier than trying to fight it ever was.

but like, it's not, obviously. being a good person is hard sometimes, and it's even harder to be good to yourself. in the end though, if you give into hate and destruction, you'll be left with nothing but emptiness. whether through harming others or harming yourself..... either way you've closed yourself off from the world and your ability to experience the beauty of life, in all its faults.

okay I think I should stop there before I get too preachy or existential LMAO I hope that answered your question though! talking about chara is a dang rabbit hole. like, you're a creepypasta-ass character from a video game, why you making me think this deep. maybe if you werent so tragic and interesting I'd get less distracted, jerk.

🌻

[theoldoor]

oh god their hugs… THEIR HUGGSSS AAARRRGGHHH (beats and punch the wllas and dies) (more rambles down below pls read imsick)

theyre so tender and gentle with one another im actually sick and i want to die and i want them to die and i want them to i want them t

FUCKKK THEYRE NOT EVEN CANON i didnt write for aventurine and fenrir to be canonically together romantically and everything i post about them is literally just me acting like a fellow shipper and as if fenrir was canon “theyre so canon” but i literally wrote them to not be canon this post is just going to be indulgences, headcanons abt them bc i know they wont act like this but please let me have some crumbs im literally yearnmaxxing rn

i know i posted this yesterday but i want to expand more on it because yesterday i was in a rush while making that post RUGHGHUG

you know boothill visits talia every now and then, he’s a galaxy ranger and talia from what i’ve seen is going to be western themed or at least like steampunk/western/rdr2 type shit so he’s going to crash by. Fenrir, is there of course, with Hermia. Fenrir has been taking care of Hermia alone for all the years he had been in Talia - Boothill met Hermia once, and she reminded him a lot of how he was when he was younger but she was left alone unlike him being in the care of Graey and Nick. Boothill knows he shouldn’t get attached to the girl, but she was just a little child, so for the short time he had been there he would come visit Avidity often to check up on her - he does miss his daughter.

Though, he when he returned another time, he saw Fenrir. He hated Fenrir at first, considering his cold-blooded and indifference to the situation Avidity was in at the time. However, he would also see how gentle and caring Fenrir was when it comes to Hermia, and then he sees - Fenrir was a survivor, doing everything to live in Talia - especially in such a rugged clan and yet he didn’t let that overshadow his humanity. It’s a hard thing to accept about Fenrir, how he could be so cruel and yet so caring. He was still inherently bad, even if his reasons explains it - it doesn’t justifies.

I want for boothill and Fenrir to have that father-son relationship and Fenrir is Hermia’s brother. You know a little happy family. (IM FUCKIN SICK I HATE FOUDN FAMILY I HATE FOUND FAMILY I FAHATE TAKHTAHHAHTHE). Fenrir is the ‘cool older brother’ who gets you in silly troubles and is awfully attentive and Aventurine would come in later and keep him in line so that he wouldn’t cause too much silly shits.

I never knew Nick and Graey dynamic, but I guess it’s something of the same. Nick being the one who taught Boothill how to ride horses and yk the outdoorsy stuff while Graey took care of the gentler and more domestic skills for Boothill. (theyre so bestfriends am i right) - I could see Nick being the Fenrir and Graey being the Aventurine lol and Boothill seeing them together- it’s kinda like. Even in the worst, there will be humanity. Aventurine and Fenrir are both inherently bad and had blood on their hand, but that doesn’t mean those same hands can care and heals.

i NEED THEM DEAD and theyre literally just comforting each other and taking care the others sh wounds im going to jumpp and die

fenrir would be the type to do some stupid shit or say something so outrageously idiotic that makes u forget u were supposed to have a panic attack i love them i will expand more on this… tmr’s post….

[stellar-solar-flare]

Warmth | S. R. | oneshot

Mature | Steve Rogers x Chronically Ill Reader

I’ll take care of you, he had said then. I love you. I always will. On the bad days and the good ones.

AUTHOR MASTERLIST | AUTHOR AO3

Established relationship, married couple, romance, fluff & hurt/comfort, angst with a happy/hopeful ending. Reader is good friends with Bucky and Nat.

Word Count: 1,771 words.

Reader Specifics: She/her. Mid-to-late twenties. Has a chronical illness that causes pain and fatigue, no specific diagnosis mentioned. Married to Steve. No description of appearance (other than clothes and such), no use of Y/N.

Warnings: Themes of chronic pain & illness, and the feelings that such conditions may cause, including self-worth and self-esteem issues.

I do not own anything Marvel related. This is an unofficial fan work. No copyright infringement intended. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

You get close.

The base of the batter is done, butter and chocolate melted, instant coffee and sugars mixed into it, milk and eggs and vanilla extract poured into the bowl. The kitchen of the Tower floor you and Steve share is downright indulgent, spacious enough that you can spread everything out and you try to work fast enough before being up becomes too much to bear. You manage to ignore the nagging tingling of your body, the slow burning that goes in waves from knees all the way to your chest.

You grind your teeth, focus on the task at hand.

Just as you’re about to start sifting in the flour-cocoa mixture, the first red-hot knife sinks into your stomach. You yelp, even as you knew it was coming, and with the second strike of the blade, you drop down to crouch next to the kitchen counter, squeezing the edge of the counter with both hands, fingers cramping from the grip.

Eyes closed, you wait as the pain drums through your body with every heartbeat, nerves aflame with lightning, muscles contracting and releasing. You try to breathe through it, squeeze your eyelids together to keep the tears at bay.

That’s where Steve finds you.

It doesn’t alarm him like it used to; he no longer drops a bag of groceries down when he sees you like this. Instead, he sets it gently down next to the fridge and steps closer, kneeling down on the floor next to you. His warm palm slides over the back of your dress.

“You were supposed to rest, darling,” he scolds gently.

You glare at him with tear-filled eyes, but the anger melts away when you see the worry on his face. That has stayed, even as he has learned that anything like this is not inherently dangerous.  

“I wanted to bake. I was craving mud cake and the store-bought just never hits the right spot.”

“I would’ve baked for you,” he sighs.

“I don’t want you to bake for me! I want to be able to do things myself. I want this stupid goddamn body to fucking function like it should be,” you snap, regretting the bite in your voice the second the words have left your mouth.

“I know,” he says. “I know how it is. I know how much it sucks.”

And he does. It is almost impossible to remember that sometimes, after watching footage of him yanking helicopters out of the sky, but once, this was his life  too.

“Yeah, the difference being that you’re no longer pathetic,” you mumble.

“You are not pathetic. It’s just a rough patch,” he says.

He knows where it’s coming from.

You still remember the time you got your diagnosis, how you told Steve that you should break off the engagement, that you didn’t expect him to hitch his wagon to this. You went as far as sleeping on Nat’s sofa for a week, and then Bucky forced himself through the door and sat you down and looked at you with eyes full of Winter Soldier steel.

You really think he can’t take this, huh? If there’s one person who understands how it feels to be in pain and helpless, one person that will know why you’re full of frustration and anger at times, it’s Steve Rogers, he had said.

It’s not about what he can take. It’s about what he deserves, and what I don’t, you had grumbled in response, desperately not trying to show how much you missed sleeping in Steve’s warm arms at night.

So he wasn’t worthy of being loved and taken care of when he was sick and incapacitated and chronically ill? Would you love him any less if the serum fell out of him and he went back to that state?

Of course not. But that’s different.

How’s that different?

Because you are a fucking asshole, Bucky Barnes, you had spat, knowing that to resort to ad hominem was to admit defeat.

Oh, I am, he had grinned. But right now, I am the fucking asshole who is right.

And he had been precisely that. Steve had welcomed you back with open arms, and you had cried against his chest until you had felt like you could breathe again, until the words ‘chronic’ and ‘illness’ didn’t feel like they were sucking all the air out of your lungs.

I’ll take care of you, he had said then. I love you. I always will. On the bad days and the good ones.

You know that. You know Steve Rogers makes no such promises if he doesn’t mean them, but sometimes it isn’t the same to know something on a rational level and accept it emotionally. On some days, you are full of pain-sharpened thorns and god, you just want to prick something that is beautiful, want to wallow in the self-pity and despise any light that tries to reach your darkness.

“Help you to bed?” he asks, and you don’t want to, but you nod nevertheless.

He lifts you up. It’s spring; he’s been out in simply a button-down and slacks, and you can feel his warmth through the cotton as he holds you against his chest. At least this part was easy. At least you knew that taking care of you wasn’t straining his body.

You’ve done what you can to make the apartment into an oasis of peace, and the bedroom is no exception. The bed is huge, filled with soft sheets and a pile of pillows that can be moved to allow you to rest as comfortably as possible. Steve sets you down on your side and sheds the clothes he’s been outside in before getting into bed next to you. You groan at the feeling of his body, covered only by the boxer briefs, pressing against your back, warm and relaxing like a furnace.

“You’re the best heating pad in the world,” you manage to smile, snuggling deeper into his embrace as your muscles start to relax.

He chuckles against your neck and presses a kiss to the back of your neck. Lying down, as much as you hate to admit, always seems to make a wave of relief flow through your body, muscles relaxing. Steve’s palm smooths over your side, stroking again and again, and the relaxation deepens, seeps into every muscle.

“The oven’s on,” you mumble, as he makes no attempt to move. “The groceries you brought are still in the kitchen.”

In response, he rucks up your dress and places his palm over your stomach, and you can’t help but groan at the relief of the warmth.

“I’m on heating pad duty,” he says. “Those can wait.”

You sigh, despite the smile on your face.

“I really thought I had enough spoons. It was better today, until it wasn’t.”

“It’s okay. It’s not always predictable.”

It’s not. And he knows that’s the worst part of it.

“I wanted you to come home to something nice.”

“I come home to you every day.”

“Flatterer,” you say, but despite the words, you entwine your fingers into his on top of your stomach.

Your wedding rings make a small clink when they touch his. It had been a longer engagement than you had initially planned; you had wanted to make sure he wasn’t marrying you just because of duty, just because he felt like he should, now that he knew you were going to battle with this for the rest of your life. He had countered that with the argument that he had proposed to you even before he had known anything about this, when your illness had still masked itself into bouts of tiredness.

He had convinced you. Your wedding portrait, Steve lifting you up and spinning you around, hangs above your bed, and even on the worst of days, looking at it brings a smile to your face.

Bucky had cried through the entire ceremony.

“Do you want me to get your meds?” Steve asks.

“I already took them; can’t take more right now. Lot of good that did.”

“Hey,” comes the whisper against your neck.

The tears that have barely dried escape your eyes again. Steve feels you tense and kisses the back of your neck again, the hand on you pulling you closer against him.

“I feel so useless,” you say. “Everyone’s so nice to me; I’m everyone’s stupid charity project.”

He has heard all of this before; this conversation comes every time you are going through a rough patch, and every time, his answers are full of patience and love.

God, what have you done to deserve him?

“Or they’re your friends – our friends. They like you. You are more than this, even though it doesn’t feel like that right now. You are plenty of things outside this illness. And I love you, for reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not you’re useful.”

“And you’re the stubborn dumbass who married himself into this mess.”

“I’m definitely both,” he says. “But neither of those have anything to do with the fact that I married you. And the doctor told you to rest, so who’s the stubborn one here?”

“Hypocrite,” you say. “Bucky has certainly told me how good you were at resting up, huh?”

You hear the chagrinned laugh and know the expression on his face. He mumbles something about how he really needs to get Bucky to stop telling stories about his youth to you, if they are just going to be used against him.

“Too late,” you say.

The tiredness is creeping over you again; being up in the middle of a bad flare-up has taken more out of you than you care to admit, and Steve’s closeness has taken all the bitter fight that had remained after the energy had drained out.

“I know it’s hard to rest when it doesn’t feel like rest is making any difference,” he says. “But you still should.”

You want to fight him, but your eyelids are falling closed as his warmth has filled your every crampy muscle and tight tendon.

“I love you,” he whispers into your ear. “Sleep well, beautiful.”

“Loveyatoo,” you mumble in response, the safety of his presence nudging you over the edge of consciousness and into sleep.

An hour later, you wake up to the scent of freshly-baked mud cake floating through the apartment and smile into the room, feeling like you could go for a big slice and a nice cup of coffee, sitting across from Steve and listening to him talk about his day.

Even in a rough patch, it’s not all bad.

[that-ari-blogger]

"Do you want to know a secret?" (The Portal)

I think that the rules of writing are overblown.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things you should and shouldn’t do when telling a story, but those are more guidelines than actual rules.

Case and point, She-Ra is a story predicated on repetition, which shouldn’t be as entertaining as it is. The “bad ending” is effectively another season, which is a unique premise, and a threat that the story absolutely delivers on multiple times.

But, to me at least, the story is enthralling, and keeps me coming back to it. It works, not despite its repetition, but because of it.

Although, that isn’t exactly true. I’ve described the story as cyclical before, but it isn’t entirely. It’s a spiral, because the cycle of abuse is an innately unstable dynamic, and will only end in tragedy if it isn’t broken.

If you don’t want to take my word for this, I give you the season 3 finale, The Portal, which spells out the series’ thesis in about as blunt of a way as is possible.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke, Superman: For The Man Who Has Everything, Justice League Unlimited)

I grew up reading Alan Moore comics, and if you don’t know who that is, I both pity you and envy you. Alan Moore is one of the most misrepresented writers of the modern age, and its entirely his own fault.

Moore is known for writing V For Vendetta, The Killing Joke, and Watchmen, all of which have a distinctly grim tone. He is one of those writers who seems to care more about the story he is telling than how much people enjoy it, and so he usually has a point to make.

Unfortunately, we end up with the Cyber Punk dilemma, in which Alan Moore’s genuinely unrivalled literary talent leads to people really enjoying his stories, which means they unintentionally miss the actual themes of those stories. In the case of Watchmen, this led to people seeing the gore and the violence and the depression and trying to replicate that.

This is where we get The Boys from, shallow sadness and spectacle. If that’s your thing, go for it, but it isn’t mine.

But I bring up Moore in a discussion of She-Ra for a reason, and that is the relentless hope inherent in his writing. In Moore’s stories, hope prevails every single time, with the only exception being extremely subjective. The Killing Joke focuses on the idea that everyone is one bad day away from becoming evil, and that gets proven wrong. Watchmen is about how small humans are and how annihilation changes people, yet the characters are able to find joy and an escape from their trauma, and show kindness to each other even when the sky almost literally falls on their heads.

The Boys isn’t very good as an adaptation of Moore’s themes (In my opinion). If you want one that actually understands the source material, watch The Incredibles, or Justice League Unlimited, or She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

I have praised She-Ra for its animation and pacing, as well as its overarching story, but I think its greatest strength is its humanity. Characters in She-Ra are incredibly fragile, psychologically, and yet they are incredibly resilient.

Catra and Adora’s development gets methodically and efficiently destroyed by Shadow Weaver, and yet Adora becomes a hero and Catra… well, we’ll see how that works out in later seasons.

One of my favourite Moore stories is a superman story from 1985 called For The Man Who Has Everything. This was adapted into an episode of Justice League Unlimited, but I prefer the comic.

The story follows Superman being forced to live out his greatest desire. It doesn’t sound that bad, but the point is that he is kept happy and therefore out of the picture while villains can do villain things. It’s very much a story from its time, and I love it.

Interestingly, however, Superman’s dream takes him back to Krypton, where he isn’t Superman, and he is happy. He has a wife, and a son, and he never lost anything. He can spend time with his parents.

Even with the shenanigans that ensue (because this is a comic), his time in this dream is fun, and relaxing. Until he works out he’s dreaming, and has to let it go. Superman gets the choice of happiness, or duty, and he takes duty.

The scene in which he says goodbye to his “son”, who does not exist and therefore does not matter, is heartbreaking, and if I ever do comic reviews, I’m talking about this one first.

I now turn your gaze to queen Angella, from whose perspective this story is being told.

The episode actually does a bit of a bait and switch with the point of view, convincing its audience that it is about either Glimmer or Bow, and it kind of is, but not entirely.

Angella has everything she could possibly want, her daughter, her husband, her city. There is no war, there is nothing. Everything is perfect.

“This is perfect, my love, but it’s not real. I remember now. I miss you so much, but Glimmer needs my help, and I can’t stay with nothing but memories. Goodbye Micah”

Does this ring any bells?

I want to point out that this is still Catra’s hallucination, the thing that she wants. So why does she want Angella and Glimmer to be happy?

Catra wants Adora, and arguably loves her, but in an extremely dysfunctional way that says "if I can't have her, nobody can". She is petty, and fully the villain in this episode.

So, the way that she gets Adora to be hers is by ensuring that the people who accepted her would have no space for her in their lives. Why would Glimmer want to spend time with Adora? She has her father. Why would Angella accept Adora? She has her family.

What Catra doesn’t understand is that love isn’t transactional, and that these people are genuinely kind and accepting.

There's the idea of "what you are in the dark." The concept of what a person does when there are no consequences. Characters in this episode keep getting moments like this, when they know that they are fading from existence, and are given moments to show their true colours. Entrapta chooses to be grateful, Bow chooses to be reassuring, and Glimmer chooses to be emotional.

The thing that breaks people out of Catra’s reality is the unexpected. Its Catra’s lack of understanding of people that leads to those people being themselves and instinctively breaking free.

Case and point, Angella and Glimmer help Adora, and because this world was completely unprepared for that minour act of kindness, it can’t keep them contained.

Now, I know what scene you are expecting me to talk about, so I’m going to make you wait, and talk about Catra instead.

Catra is the villain of this episode. If it wasn’t for this being set in her mind, she would have zero nuance. By which I mean, everything about her as a character here is done externally, the way she acts makes her seem like a generic, abusive partner.

Because let me be clear about Catra’s actions here. This is abuse, and it is treated as such by the story. The show doesn’t make apologies for her in this episode, or try to justify it here. Subtlety be damned here, Catra is abusive.

And so, I will read her this way, for this episode. We have seen the nuance leading up to this moment, and we will see a redemption arc. But this is Catra at her lowest, and so I will put aside the past and future to examine the present and the present only. Catra is abusive.

There are two ways you could read this drop in subtlety. One, there are parts of this character that you aren’t seeing, left blank. This episode is presenting you with a character and not showing you the whole thing. Or two, this is a character who has been broken by the story, almost as if parts of her have been removed or lost. Catra is now a fragment of her former self.

I wonder if any of this is reflected in her character design.

“If you hadn’t gotten captured, your sword wouldn’t have opened the portal. If you hadn’t gotten the sword and been the world’s worst She-Ra, none of this would have happened. Admit it Adora, the world would still be standing if you had never come through that portal in the first place.”

This hurts Adora because it’s true. Ok that’s unfair, and inaccurate, but it’s not entirely wrong, and that’s the kicker.

Catra isn’t making this up, she’s just leaving out important details. Because of course, if Adora hadn’t been captured, things would have worked out better, but who was it that captured her? Who was it that made the choice to pull the switch? Who was it that destroyed the world out of spite?

Catra blames Adora for her own actions, and that is, once again, abuse. Which is why it’s so satisfying when Adora stands up for herself.

“I didn’t make you pull the switch. I didn’t make you do anything. I didn’t break the world. But I am gonna fix it.”

Hope is relentless.

But I also want to point out the claiming of agency here. Catra was weirdly insightful at the start of her monologue.

“It's always the same with you, Adora. ‘I have to do this. Oh, we have to do that.’”

Adora’s word choice is a flaw. I looked back at the past few seasons and did a word search through the scripts. I don’t think Adora uses the word “want” more than once at all up to this point.

Essentially, Catra sees things, but extrapolates exactly the wrong message from it. It’s almost as if she’s only seeing half of the world, like her vision is impaired or incomplete somehow.

I wonder if that is reflected in her character design.

In any case, Adora frequently says that she “has to” do things. “Need” is also something she says a lot, and this has the effect of making her an extremely passive character in her own story.

Like I said, this is a moment of agency, but the entire story is a story about that agency. The characters are making choices to either get out of or go along with the downward spiral that the tragic form has set out for them. Catra made the choice to follow, but Adora didn’t. Adora’s word choice makes her look like she has made no choice, but a lack of action is still a decision.

So here, when Adora declares she is “gonna fix it", she takes her agency and decides to walk in a different direction.

This reminds me of an earlier episode, that being Promise.

Hey, look at that action. Looks familiar, right?

This is the only episode I found where Adora says she wants something, although her actual wording is “I never wanted to leave you” when talking to Catra. Go figure.

The moment in question was the episode’s namesake.

“It doesn't matter what they do to us, you know? You look out for me, and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.” “You promise?” “I promise.”

Agency. Adora is making a decision to stay with Catra and protect her. She is knowingly choosing to do something.

It’s telling that the two most prominent times Adora has done this have been to protect people. It’s almost as if she wants to be useful, or helpful, or protective. Almost as if she wants to be wanted. It would seem Adora is just as addicted to the highs of Shadow Weaver’s programming as Catra, she just has a better support group.

Although this isn’t a full victory, she doesn’t want to save the world, she is just going to, – we still don’t know what Adora wants – this is a partial success. Hold onto that idea, it will come back later.

“Do you want to know a secret? I am a coward. I've always been the queen who stays behind. Micah was the brave one. And then Glimmer, oh, Glimmer. So much like her father. And once again I stayed behind, letting her make the hard choices, letting her be brave for me. I told myself I was being responsible, but, Adora, I was just scared. And then I met you. You inspired us. You inspired me. Not because it was your destiny, but because you never let fear stop you. And now I choose to be brave.”

Queen Angella is voiced by Reshma Shetty. She doesn’t get much praise, but for this monologue, I think she deserves so much more than she got.

In my fourth post about She-Ra, I discussed Adora’s ability to inspire and linked her to Batman, something I stand by to this day.

In universe, She-Ra isn’t important because she’s a warrior. She exists as a leader, to protect people and pull them into a greater tomorrow. She shines a light for others to follow.

That is what happens in The Portal, Adora succeeds not by fighting the enemy, but by being herself. She only becomes She-Ra to destroy the portal at the end. To save Etheria, the giant sword lady isn’t important.

I mentioned earlier that humans are fragile and resilient at the same time, and I give you Angella as evidence for that claim. Here is someone who has lost her husband, and makes decisions based on that fear and trauma. But when push comes to shove, the fear is secondary.

Reality falling apart lets directors get away with true nonsense. Micah's staff has no reason to be here, other than the fact that it makes a phenomenal metaphor for Angella's trauma. But that's all you need.

Jon Pertwee was the third doctor, and while he isn’t nearly as iconic or influential as some of his predecessors and successors, he did deliver the line that defined the whole series.

“Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.”

I started my discussion of this season by claiming that this is the season in which the characters put a dent the tragic cycle, and I have mentioned several times that the cycle of abuse is unstable. So, here is my thesis.

Catra’s arc fails, not in a story sense, but in a personal one. The idea that every character has a single story arc is something is a specific bugbear of mine, and Catra is kind of my case and point for that. She has a redemption arc up to this point, and she ends up as a villain. Then the story continues and she has to start again and decide where to go next. She has no choice but to move in a different direction from here.

But she tasted redemption already. The crimson wastes gave her a taste of what she is missing, and it offered her an out. It gave her a choice, she made one, and consequences were served. I can’t help but imagine that for the entirety of the next season, she is considering running off to the wastes again.

That idea of consequences comes back with Adora, who makes a good decision, and is rewarded for it. Or rather, she makes a decision to actually do something. Adora becomes an active character, and that is what starts to break the cycle. Because now the motion is halted, and the puppets are pulling the strings.

But, this isn’t a complete victory. Angella is lost, Entrapta and Micah are still gone, none of the villains actually get defeated. For an episode with lasting consequences, not much actually happened.

This episode is big on the fact that this is all a dream, which should destroy the engagement. But it doesn’t. In reality, it preserves the status quo physically, but lets all the characters spontaneously experience character development. The victory of this season is that growth, but it came at a cost.

I want to briefly talk about that final shot, before I go, because this is how you introduce a villain. Sure, the voice acting is impeccable, and the cinematography gives an air of mystery and menace to this threat, but the showstopper is the reveal that this villain can destroy a moon with ease.

You see a fleet of ships, there was no battle here, just a villain showing off for nobody but himself. He gets interrupted by the plot, and he’s busy DESTROYING A MOON.

Horde Prime is f***ing terrifying.

This scene is in this episode too. It's meant to show how reality is falling apart, but I actually have a reading of why it's here. I think Catra wanted to preserve who Adora was, hence why she is the source of all the paradoxes. But Catra doesn't understand that Mara's legacy and Razz's teaching are a big part of Adora.

Final Thoughts

I’m going to talk about the implications for later seasons for a moment here, so if you’re avoiding spoilers, now you know.

I think Catra being the villain here makes her redemption so much more compelling, because she actually needs it. There is a difference between this and, for example, Hunter from The Owl House, who doesn’t really need redemption because he hasn’t done anything wrong.

Catra here has very much done wrong and is evil as defined by the show. But the show’s message is that anyone can change, and that the cycle of abuse isn’t set in stone.

So, Catra will redeem herself, and she will struggle, and fall back, and try again. Forgive her or not, the redemption is the effort to be better.

Next week (or whenever the next post is released, I have a terrible work schedule), I will be discussing The Coronation, so stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[jays-therapist]

I don't know if this a hot take or not but I really disagree with the idea that Yukio is jealous of Rin's power and physical strength? Rather, I think it's Rin's emotional strength that Yukio envies.

I have a lot to say about this lmao, so I'm just gonna put it all under the cut that way people who don't want to read this long ass analysis don't have to. Also, manga spoilers.

Blue Exorcist is a fun shonen manga because it measures strength outside of just "how hard can i punch this dude." Often, when characters talk about getting strong, they're talking about wanting to be mentally resilient; they want the ability to persevere, to be independent and face their fears/emotional turmoil on their own. Shiemi is a good example of this, I think. She constantly talks about being strong, but usually in the context of naviagting the world after living so long in isolation, and struggling to support her friends. Yes, she wants to get physically stronger, but at the core, she just genuinely wants to have a strong spirit (like a weed), and to be emotionally strong enough to help carry her friends' burdens.

Now, back to Yukio.

The biggest reoccuring theme in Yukio's jealousy is how he puts his brother on a pedestal, while constantly downplaying every good thing about himself (they both do this lol). You'll see this a lot in the examples I bring up.

There are four scenes I really want to focus on when discussing just how Yukio defines strength: his flashback in Chapter 29, his inner monologue in Chapter 37, his suicide attempt in Chapter 93, and That Time He Shot Rin in the Head in Chapter 96.

In Chapter 29, Yukio has this five-page montage of flashbacks, depicting specific moments where he felt both admiration and envy for Rin. And each of these moments highlight Rin's empathy, his care-free behavior, his kindness, his ability to inspire others, his desire to protect his little brother. Not his habit of setting things on fire.

This is important because Yukio fundamentally believes that he is not a good person. He believes he is not kind, selfless, or brave. When he, as a child, cries because he can't adopt a puppy he wanted, he's envious that Rin is just happy to see the puppy in a nice home. When his brother rushes to save him from bullies, Yukio's upset that he couldn't do it on his own, that his brother feels he is so weak he can't even take care of himself.

From Yukio's perspective, these are examples of Rin either outshining him inherently or looking down on him. No matter how strong Yukio gets, he will never not be able to feel bad for himself when the puppy is given to a different family. He will never be able to prove to his brother that he can do things on his own. He was born with this weakness and he can't seem to kill it. He can't win, and he hates it.

In Chapter 37, after defeating the Kraken, Yukio and Rin have a little heart-to-heart. Here, we see Yukio's true feelings towards Rin's claims of "surpassing him", which is that Rin already does. Yukio feels that if anyone needs to surpass anyone, it's him. He will always come up short where it counts, whenever he needs to let things go or be more empathetic. Yukio is strong of body, but weak of spirit.

So, with this in mind, when Yukio falls to his knees in Chapter 93 and says, "I was weak, and I couldn't get any stronger," he doesn't mean, "damn. wish i could've harnessed the demon power in my eyes to blow shit up." No, he's admitting defeat. He tried so hard to be strong, both physically and mentally but especially mentally, and he failed. He couldn't carry burdens like his father and brother could, like his friends could. He was cruel and cowardly. He hurt people he loved, and as long as he continues to live, he will keep hurting the people he loves.

What is strength to Yukio? It's resilience. It's taking risks. It's independence. It's Rin.

(Or at least, how Yukio sees Rin. As I've said before, he likes to put Rin on a pedestal.)

In contrast, weakness is cowering. It's waiting for someone else to solve the problem. It's hurting good people who haven't faulted you. It's Yukio.

That leads us to Chapter 96, and this---

This is kind of the crux of it all. Yukio is suffocating on his own perceived weakness and seeking to escape it. Here, Yukio is burning every bridge (the fact that this is literally taking place on a bridge is pretty ironic) that could possibly allow him to return to the Order to ensure he does what he needs to do. To be strong, he needs to be independent. To be independent, he needs to be alone. He can't let his brother solve all of his problems anymore.

So, like. Yeah. In conclusion, I think Yukio is heavily inspired by his brother's strength of character, just as much as he feels abased by it, and that's why his ideas of strength steer closer to broader concepts like bravery and self-determination rather than "let's hit the gym and summon Satan." He uses physical strength as a mask to conceal his perceived emotional weakness.

[emblazons]

Thinking about how people who only (or primarily) understand Mike’s arc through a “hes queer and coming to accept it / struggling with heteronormativity/will get his happy ending when he gets with Will” lens are missing at least half of what defines his arc in the wider context / themes of the show.

Forewarning: long post (& also maybe an unpopular opinion)

Even as a queer person myself, I know that his arc isn’t solely about embracing his queerness (though it’s inherently interlinked). In Mike, you have a character who is being radically challenged by both external circumstances and his own decisions through a journey away from all kinds of forced conformity (social, familial, romantic & heteronormative) and into someone self actualized enough to live how they want…while also being strong enough to accept that they made mistakes along the way. Someone who is learning to be brave enough to say “this is who I am, what I enjoy, and what/who I love…and while it took me a lot of time to figure it out, now I can exist in the world embracing that even though it will take consistently resisting the tendency to accommodate people who think it’s unacceptable.”

Like. Even from a time before puberty (see: S3) Mike wants a life that stands apart from what’s expected of him in every area, not just in choosing a romantic relationship with another guy. He wants to continue to be a nerd and “child at heart” even though something else is repeatedly demanded of him by everyone from his parents to El in his romantic relationship. He wants to be a writer and someone who takes those nerdy interests into his adult life (cue aggressive gesturing toward the duffers themselves) and grates against all that’s been constructed for him even when he’s not (yet) brave enough to challenge it directly. Mike liking boys/loving Will is just “the final nail in the coffin” of his social and societal nonconformity—not the first (or the last) aspect of what makes him different from Hawkins or the life he was made to believe would suit him best.

Even the fact that Mike has a desire to be “normal” comes from an insecurity and fear that choosing what he truly wants will lead to him being outcasted and losing the people he cares for entirely—which is partially motivated by his queerness yes, but that also has a basis in his general interests and personality…which becomes especially obvious when you realize we are repeatedly shown that he is punished/has his wishes ignored in all areas he doesn’t conform, even long before we get into a plot where it’s clearer he likes boys.

We see it in how his parents have already started to demand he put boundaries on the time he spends playing his “childhood games” the very first scene of season one, how they demand social acceptable emotions from him when Will is missing, and how Karen & Ted want him to give up toys in S2 when he’s showing signs of depression (because they think the issue is him growing up, not that he’s struggling with loss or guilt for what happened to El).

We see it in how his own father comments about taking his CA trip away from him after calling Hellfire being a group for “dropouts” in S4 (implying that he is failing on an academic and social level that matters to wheelers—and that Nancy is good at).

We even see it in the way everyone from his bullies to his own girlfriend threaten and take things away from him when he doesn’t conform to social expectations...from Troy telling him to jump off the cliff to save Dustin in S1 (as punishment for the one time Mike stands up for himself in the gymnasium) to El jumping straight into breaking up with him and spying on him when he doesn’t do exactly what she wants him to in Season 3.

All of these moments are critical to understanding Mike as a person because they show us that, even without addressing his queerness, Mike’s desire to conform to socialized expectations involves but is not solely about him moving out of heteronormativity—it’s about him moving against everything that WASP, patriarchal, heteronormative and capitalistic and performative “wholesome American” values…and how he is learning to move past the fear of what will happen if he steps outside the lines in general, even though he already knows he hates those standards.

Mike’s “coming of age” arc is about finding the strength to choose the “path less traveled” in all areas of his life—even when it means (potentially) losing the support of the people he cares about. It’s about starting from a place of privilege and becoming okay with being outcasted from it in a way your insecurities never let you be before (which is inherently different than Will, who has always been shown to have some kind of support not just for his queerness but his artistic endeavors as well). Mike’s lack of support is why he starts from a place of deep insecurity, yes—but it’s also why him learning power of choosing to be himself, even if it means “losing” people when he’s honest about who (& what) he is will be universally powerful.

You don’t need to be queer to understand the power of what it means to know you will be okay even if people leave you. You don’t need to be queer to understand the power of stepping outside social expectations or your family’s way of raising you. You don’t even need to be queer to understand the weight of breaking up with someone you were only with to satisfy what you thought you should do, rather than be with who you want to.

The power of being strong enough to overcome your insecurities in order to “step out of line” and live and love as you want to is universal, and a stunningly brave choice no matter what or why you chose to do so. The fact that Will will be there waiting to love him in that honesty with himself is beautiful, yes—but it’s not the only lesson to be learned for Mike’s character.

Mike starting out with everything the world (or, at least America) tells would make you happy, realizing he is not happy with those things and rejecting them knowing it might have consequences is what makes his arc powerful, because he is learning (exactly like his sister Nancy) to be brave enough to accept those consequences (which for him are getting dumped, and feeling like he’s being left behind by some of his friends) to follow his own heart.

Even though The Duffers aren’t writing this into a tragic ending (aka: he’s not going to die or be left alone, because the duffers writing is inherently designed ro champion the outcast), these are the things that have (and will) make him relatable even to an audience that doesn’t know queerness. Erasing the fact that his lesson is the bravery it takes to follow your heart solely to talk about him liking guys (even Will) is to undermine his humanity, and the lessons to be learned from him by even the most general an audience.

TL:DR - the heteronormative aspect of Mike’s character is not the sole or even inherent issue within Mike, though heteronormativity is inherently built into his struggle.

There are deep dives on how his arc is also about a war against toxic patriarchy, toxic masculinity, emphasis on capitalistic and academic accomplishments over artistic ones, and even conformist relationships (whether they’re queer or not) that should be explored for his character—and I for one like him too much not to move out of just “this boy is queer because xyz” and into “let’s talk about Mike in terms of the wider scope of his cultural context and upbringing.” 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

[jeonqkooks]

isn't it romantic? | myg (prologue)

⟶ SERIES MASTERPOST

Many things in life have a polar opposite: left and right, night and day, yin and yang, you and Min Yoongi... Hopeless romantic meets gloomy cynic. The only thing you seem to share is a magazine column but even then, you still can’t seem to understand how Yoongi can be called ‘The Love Doctor’ when he is the antithesis of everything love represents. 

pairing: yoongi x f!reader; past taehyung x f!reader

rating: 18+ (minors dni)

genre/warnings: coworkers to lovers, fluff, angst, eventual smut; crying, central themes of cheating, that's pretty much it for the prologue

word count: 777

note: the yoongi brainrot is real y'all. he's really wreaking havoc on my life and forcing me to drop everything to focus on him when i have no much other shit to write 😩 but anyhow, this is exciting !! my first yoongi fic aaaa !! please show her some love y'all cuz this may or may not be a deeply personal story to me 💕 i wanted to say more but i forgot just as i sat down to write this a/n lmao. ANYWAY, massive thanks to @daechwitatamic and @luaspersona for beta'ing this for me on such short notice (and jo for telling that there's stuff in here that i should go to jail for bc that's always the best thing to hear 😌) y'all are awesome and i love you <3 and @jeonwiixard for being hurt by this 😚

— as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

You are 7, and life is good, as life should be for all children.

You have two parents who adore you, and a sister with whom you constantly bicker but that’s okay, because it’s how siblings love each other. You have constellations hanging from your bedroom ceiling, someone to read your bedtime stories every night, hot meals on the table every day. Every summer, your family takes a trip somewhere beautiful and a week feels like forever when it's just the four of you together, surrounded with only warmth and laughter. You don’t know any other way to live life.

Love is abundant, because that’s what love is supposed to be.

You are 7, and you don’t know how to accept that everything can be different in just a blink of an eye.

When your father comes back from a business trip, the first thing you do is dig through his bag in search of his phone, to look for that video game that you don’t understand but love playing so much. What you find instead, is a picture he took with a strange woman, on a beach somewhere, wearing straw hats and tacky shirts and bright smiles. You show it to your mother, and life forever changes.

Children can be nosy sometimes. It’s inherent to being kids.

You don't know what it means. It's just a picture. You just want your game.

You are 7, and how is a child supposed to react when their world is turned upside down?

No one reads you bedtime stories anymore. Your mother rarely goes out of her room. Your sister has to grow into an adult when she herself is still a teenager, to take care of you, to make sure that you’re fed and clothed and have all of your books when you go to school.

You don’t know that people can be sad even as they’re smiling and laughing. People can be sad even as they’re telling you that they aren’t, and that everything is just fine. People can be sad even when they’re happy.

Your mother doesn’t have that same light in her anymore. You can’t tell if she’s just tired, or if there’s something else bothering her, a secret gnawing at the back of her mind that she doesn’t let you in on.

Answers to simple questions like “When is dad coming home?” used to be “In an hour,” or “He’ll be back to read to you before bed.” Now, she answers you with tears in her eyes before she turns away, and you have yet to discover that words have the power to hurt, and hearts are things that can break even when they're healthy and beating.

Your sister learns to be more careful with her words because she knows things that you don’t, things that you’re too young to understand. She knows of burdens that you have yet to bear but will inevitably have to.

You are 7, and your parents aren’t holding up the sky anymore. Occasional late nights at the office turned into a constant absence at the dinner table. Laughter has since dulled into taut silence that never relents, only stretches on and on and on, until it forces you to adapt to the absence of joy in your home.

If someone were to ask you what envy was, you wouldn’t be able to tell them the definition, but you can describe to them what it’s like. It’s a foreign concept, yet so familiar at the same time. Before, you used to feel envious when you see another kid holding a cooler toy or wearing a prettier dress. Now, you’re envious when the other children at school have parents waiting to take them home after a long day. You don’t want your sister to be the only one who shows up. You want love to be abundant again.

You are 7, and you haven’t yet learned how to hold back tears. You miss your father because he rarely comes home anymore. When he does, your parents would argue. Yell at each other. Sob until screams turn into hiccups. Slam doors. You cry because the house feels like it’s going to collapse. 

You still remember the picture on your dad’s phone, or at least, you remember the color of the water. It was blue, like the color of the sky on a beautiful sunny day. Blue, like the cover of your favorite fairy tale, splattered with golden sparkles. Blue, like the walls of your parents’ bedroom. Blue, like the feeling that no child should experience. Blue, because that’s all you have to remember your stolen childhood by.

You are 7.

— all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 24.04.2023]

[lesbiannova]

In Defence of the Ending of Cassette Beasts

I may write a proper essay to elaborate my thoughts on this subject better, but for now, I want to state for the record that I actually like the ending of Cassette Beasts and I think it fits the story and theme of the game.

Yes, it is bittersweet, but it is not a bad thing. A story being happy, sad or bittersweet does not inherently make the ending good or bad; what matters is how well the ending is set up, and how thematically fitting the ending is to the story. In my opinion, the Cassette Beasts ending achieves both.

Cassette Beasts' story has set up from the very beginning that the player character's goal is to find a way to leave New Wirral, and that the people who are living in New Wirral, including all the player character's partners, came from different worlds, with no one knows how to go back to their world until the player character and their party do in the ending. It makes sense that the player character's party expect they may never see each other again, because the game never says if there is a way to contact with someone else from a different world.

Even if you choose to romance a partner, every single romance option points out that you may have to split up when you return to your own worlds during their conversation where you choose to commit a romance with them, but they all also state that despite that, the time you spent together still matters (see my video compilation of the partner romance scenes). Not to mention, every partner has their own life before arriving at New Wirral, and it is neither realistic nor healthy to expect them to give up everything they knew in their world just for one person, even if you are the protagonist. So it makes sense that you and your romance option do not stay together in the ending, but that does not mean there is no point in romancing them.

Morgante says outright during your final battle against Aleph Null that humans have the ability to manifest their will to alter reality, to change the world and themselves, to the extent even cassette tapes are merely talismans to channel that will, which is proven immediately after when the player fuse with all their partners even though their cassette player was broken. Kayleigh echoes Morgante's words in the ending when saying goodbye to the player character that they do not need cassette tapes to manifest their will to change the world. Combined with the partner characters' growth during their time with the player character, the game opens up the hope the party can take what they learn from their time in New Wirral to make their lives better. This is the game's another way to reaffirm that even though you and your partners' stay in New Wirral may not be permanent, it does not mean your time in new Wirral does not matter, and returning to your world does not necessarily mean returning to the status quo either.

Cassette Beasts' story is not a choice-driven narrative (which is not a bad thing since not every game needs to have one); even choosing to pursue a romance with a partner does not change the story and just add some additional dialogue when you rest and a few extra lines in the ending (which is a good thing because I dislike it when the story or a character's "best" ending is locked behind a romance), so I am fine with the lack of option for the player to not returning to their world. That said, there is also an argument to be made that you, the player, choosing to continue to play the game, including the post-game is deciding that you still want to stay in New Wirral. Even Ms. Amber says after you defeat Aleph Null and discover the gateway to leave New Wirral that you do not have to leave right away. In that sense, the game's ending also serves as your farewell to New Wirral as the player.

I do not know if liking the Cassette Beasts ending is an unpopular opinion, because there is a possibility that not liking the ending is a case of vocal minority, but they are still vocal enough that I am compelled to write this post to defend the ending.

[angelsndragons]

so i think i have too many c3 thoughts right now to be entirely coherent so fuck it, we roll. warning: super long post, i insincerely apologize.

while everyone is getting lost in the sauce about the gods and whether they “deserve to live” and whatnot, i think we the audience (and the players to a lesser extent but that’s just my reading) are missing the forest for the trees. because c3 is not about the gods, it’s about our pcs, moreover, it is about our pcs and their relationships to/with power, control, and responsibility. as conflict avoidant (and avoidant in general) as our party is, we need something big and in your face to really delve into their understanding of their issues and the solutions they believe will solve the problems. the gods are only part of the story because they are the biggest, most in your face representation of these issues. the gods have power; do they use it to control others, to control fate? what are their responsibilities when it comes to what their followers do? does any of that even matter in the face of their annihilation? if they have power and don’t use it, what is their responsibility then? adjacently, is free will even a thing when dealing with time and power on a scale that mortals cannot comprehend? and if we “surrender” to that, if we “just have faith” are we ceding control of our own lives to these far more powerful beings and what would that say about us?

these themes are a continuation of what aabria started in exu where she hammered over and over again that power isn’t inherently good or evil, it’s the choices one makes that matter. and if you choose not to decide, if you choose to avoid the issue, you still have made a choice. and you need to own it.

back in the early days, bells hells were all potential, not quite coming into their power and scrounging around for any semblance of control they could manage. ashton told themself that nothing mattered, that everything was shit, and to care was to destroy themself. they chose to just let things happen. chet believed that the only way he could fully control his own fate was to be a loner. fcg thought they were in control and encouraged others, through admittedly not great means, to make choices and take what small control they could, even as they thought choices were not for them. fearne collected, stole, and held things and others too close to keep them from leaving. imogen fought for rigid control over herself, her powers, and her curiosity about said power. laudna avoided the problem altogether; out of sight, out of mind. if she didn’t think about or care about delilah, it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else. orym ceded control of his future to all the other characters and tried to redo the loss of his husband every time he entered a fight.

nowadays? despite their own perceptions of helplessness, they are undeniably powerful enough to make a difference, to make a real mark on the world. and now they have to deal with the responsibility of that power. while also grappling with those control questions that haven’t yet been solved. they’re level 10 characters- the nein were dealing with the happy fun ball, obann and his cronies, and the citadel, for reference. the hells have power, after spending so long feeling powerless and out of control. and i don’t think any of them is comfortable with this yet. having power has not, and probably will not, solved their problems. ashton still has the hole in their head and chronic pain. fearne keeps losing people. imogen is still being drawn to the red moon. laudna still compartmentalizes and is desperately disengaged with her own power and choices. power and control are ultimately separate factors and beasts, is what i am getting at, and having one doesn’t necessarily equate with having the other.

it’s a lot, is what i’m saying. the hells by and large haven’t solved their personal control and power issues so it’s no wonder they are flailing about and rehashing the god question over and over and over again. because the question isn’t really about the gods, the question is about them.

chet and orym have the most straightforward relationships with power and control in the party. orym is regaining control of his life, regaining the ability to lay down what he wants and expects, gaining the ability to lead in the process. chet’s reconciled the betrayal of his authority figure and more than that has consistently and repeatedly owned up to his screw ups and when his lack of control has fucked him or others up. and i think that’s why the pair of them most successfully separate the gods’ power from the gods’ control over the world.

fcg, he who was made to care for others and who now chooses to do so, has gained a relationship with his goddess. not for nothing was the first major breakthrough the one where fcg made a choice, owned it, and followed through. fortune favors the bold, after all, and the changebringer encourages mortals to seize their fates with both hands. through the tentative first steps of self-care, they have also gained more control over themself and their future. they figured out that murderbot doesn’t have to kill or hurt anyone. through the power of someone else helping them, fcg was able to retain enough control to not spiral. and that’s how fcg sees their new mission: the gods have the power to help others (and use it) so he wants to help them. simple, straightforward.

but here it gets murky. because ashton and laudna in particular see power and control as the same thing. they aren’t separate as far as these characters are concerned. if you have power, why wouldn’t you use it? why wouldn’t you control every single thing you could? why wouldn’t you stop this horrid thing? why would you let this happen? where the pair of them differ is that ashton, practically possibility incarnate, has decided to act. has decided that they have been stuck in a cycle of self-pity and wallowing and, well, if the gods aren’t going to act, even on their own behalf, then fine, they will. fuck it. someone has to. he will put ludinus into the ground for what he’s done and then...well, they’ll be a hero (don’t think i didn’t notice your word choices all episode, taliesin, i am watching ashton like a hawk here). through this decision, this acknowledgement of their own vulnerability, of how much they actually have to lose and how much they will have to fight to keep it, ashton has sent themself on the path towards regaining some control over their life. not for nothing have they been so focused on what power and possibilities their head could bring lately. but don’t think they’re doing it for the gods, oh no. they’re here for all the people like them.

but laudna? oh, laudna feels completely out of control. has for a while. her typical avoidance and compartmentalization strategies were completely failing her in issylra. in the face of all of this, she feels powerless. so what does she do? reach for control the only way she knows how: by using someone else’s power and giving them another foothold with which to control laudna’s own life. again. and after? laudna’s overwhelmed, she’s guilty, she’s worried about what everyone else will think. notice that she doesn’t yet seem worried about what delilah could do to her; it’s the betrayal to her friends, how they see her that worries her most. that she wasn’t strong enough, powerful enough, big enough to find another way (never mind that the facts of the situation were overwhelmingly on her side, especially before she called down delilah). that she lost control again. she’s a puppet on delilah’s strings so long as delilah has power that laudna wants or needs, why would the gods be any different in her eyes?

so, strangely in the middle, we have imogen. imogen, who intimately knows that power and control aren’t the same. but unlike chet and orym, in imogen’s experience, the more power she has, the more out of control she becomes. the more  power she gets, the more she’s drawn to that damn moon whether she wants to be or not. sure, the circlet helps now but it’s a band-aid, a temporary measure, and imogen knows it. and even it couldn’t completely block out her dreams. the cost she pays for her powers continues to climb (she lost her mother, her best friend and two of her party members were murdered for it, this solstice could end the world because of ludinus and ruidusborn like her, she can’t tell how overwhelmed laudna is without her powers). imogen, who questioned whether the bad guys have a point before any of this really kicked off.

and fittingly outside this strange intersection is fearne. fearne has no interest in the gods, really. she doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. however, she did just receive a vision from the duskmaven which honestly almost seems tailored to her specifically. the duskmaven’s champion, her person, is trapped in unending agony, caused by his love for his person. that fearne understands all too well. what she really cares about is her people, her new family. and so, she’s caught in the middle. because right now, all the group can agree on is that they want to stick together to take down ludinus. so where is that going to leave them, exactly, once he’s gone? where will that leave her, with a potential chet/orym/fcg vs laudna/ashton/imogen split, when she wants them all, when they are all hers? and how will her newly found sense of responsibility play into the next stage of the hells’ fight?

so i think that intersection between power, control, and responsibility is why certain characters are moving forward and why others are stumbling backwards. and why certain characters are gung-ho about saving the gods, others indifferent, while others are finding non-god reasons to involve themselves in the plot.

[super-paper]

in the bnha story fantasy is used to reject and ignore someone else like Tenkos family, who rejected the reality of the situation in favor of the fantasy of a happy family. if they admitted that it wasn’t a happy family it would be like challenging the fantasy of a happy family that they created for themselves and admitting their complacency in the abuse. they ignored reality in favor of fantasy in turn ignored Tenko who was hurting  Afo has control over the narrative and likes being in control by reducing people to roles and archetypes instead of people. he likes to lose himself as a character and doesn’t want to be understood as a human he rejects reality in favor of his fantasy but when his control of the narrative and fantasy is being challenged he becomes aggressive he loses control of the narrative he was piling up, for example, ofa is the only quirk that can not be controlled he is technically is eating his own words “reality doesn’t follow the old playbook” with the same reality he used to reject is now turning on him in the form of ofa.  izuku has been given a quirk and now attends ua he got to live his dreams as a hero he gets to live out his fantasy but while he was using his quirk he constantly gets injured due to his lack of control when izuku lived out his fantasy, in turn, ignored his mother's feelings as a consequence. which comes to a head when she was discussing after being back in school

Ye!!!!!!

MHA acknowledges that fantasy is not inherently a bad thing-- It can inspire people and give them the strength they need to get through their lives! It can give them hope for their future! It helps people dream of becoming better and becoming happier! It can be a wonderful and healing force! It can save people! Fantasy has value and that value deserves to be acknowledged and respected! But, fantasy should never be used to ignore or cover up pain instead of healing it. Pretending that everything is all right when it's not or pretending that the problem will just go away if you refuse to acknowledge it is where fantasy starts to segue into escapism.

Like, to clarify I don't think every issue in MHA falls under the banner of "fantasy as escapism" (in the case of Tenko's household, there were a looooot of complex factors at play and I don't want to diminish or oversimplify any of them)-- but a lot of the core plots in MHA do involve fantasy/escapism in some capacity, so like, it's hard not to think of it as one of the main themes in the series lol.

Outside of AFO's whole deal (and Tomura's) (and Toshi's) (& Izuku's), one of my favorite examples of "Fantasy as escapism" vs "Fantasy as healing" in mha actually comes from the Todoroki plot:

The anime adds a scene of Endeavor sitting in a dark room and wallowing in anger/self-pity as he watches All Might be lauded as the ~*~ultimate superhero~*~ on TV, while Rei watches on in horror-- it's an absolutely horrifying scene, and I do understand why some ppl are mad the anime added it because it's framed in a very..... viscerally uncomfortable way. But, I like the scene purely from a narrative standpoint because I feel we're meant to draw comparisons to an early-MHA scene between Shouto and Rei:

In this scene, Shouto associates watching All Might on TV with a tender, happy memory. Everything is framed in a warm and bright way, and Shouto takes what All Might and Rei are saying to heart-- That he must be able to recognize who he is and appreciate himself independently of his quirk, and that he isn't bound by blood. It's ok for him to want to be a hero because HE wants to, and not because Endeavor tells him he has to be one. This memory, combined with Izuku telling him that "his quirk belongs to him and he alone gets to decide how to use it," allows Shouto to finally start healing.

"And that's the despicable truth!"

Meanwhile, Enji uses fantasy purely as escapism from a wound he wont allow to heal and as a way to mask his own ugliness as a person. He projects all his fantasies about "All Might" being this invincible, unbeatable, undying superman onto Toshinori-- and he's spent his entire life madly chasing after a vision of All Might that only exists in his head. He chases after the fantasy of becoming the ultimate superhuman because supermen don't have to worry about pesky human limitations like, say, dying. Or death. Or being killed. After all, if his father had been a "true superhuman," then SURELY he wouldn't have died and SURELY he would have been able to save that girl and NOTHING bad would ever happen ever, right?? ...... Right??????

Enji's long laundry list of sins starts with him treating his own sons as an extension of his fantasies and placing that absolutely impossible, unreasonable dream on their shoulders. The literal moment Enji is confronted with Touya's humanity-- that is, the moment he's confronted with his son's inevitable mortality-- Enji's immersion is broken. He immediately clams up and retreats as deeply as he can into his Endeavor persona, shutting Touya out and prioritizing sparing his own heart from injury over the heart of his son. Touya simply can't understand where his father went and spends his entire childhood trying to get him back. Mentally, Enji went out for a carton of milk and then never came back-- and Touya, a literal child, was left behind and expected to make sense of this abandonment.

To Touya, Enji and Endeavor were the same person: His dad. To Enji, Endeavor was an alter-ego-- just a mask he wore to feel better about himself and play pretend. All Touya wanted was for Enji be his father-- but being a father of course meant remembering that he is mortal, and that Touya is also mortal. So, Enji ran and continued to chase after his fantasies through Shouto while becoming more and more abusive towards his family for refusing to play along.

*AFO Voice*"This body is just a proooooooop what you're actually fighting doesn't have a tangible foooorm lol rofl lmfao 😂🤣🤣"

Endeavor is AFO's main foil for a reason. Like AFO, he uses fantasy as a form of toxic escapism-- both men essentially cannibalized their own families in their attempts to escape "humanity, weakness, pain, and death" and achieve their idea of "godhood," and both men attempt to live out their dreams through their children (AFO just takes this one to a literal extreme 💀💀💀). AFO and Endeavor are quite the pair, and Endeavor choosing to keep playing hero over confronting the realities of his responsibility as a father only enables AFO to also keep playing out his own comic book fantasies.

Speaking of fantasy.........!

When the clock strikes midnight and All Might turns back into Cindertoshi in front of the entire world, Endeavor's immediate reaction is to fly into an impotent rage and scream at him. As if to say "How dare you be human. How dare you be human when the entire basis for my whole fantasy specifically hinged on dehumanizing you. How dare you be a human, just like me!" Endeavor never understood what made Toshinori an actual hero and spent his life treating Toshi as an unreachable, unattainable "other"-- And now that dream is over. Toshinori's just a regular human, and supermen don't exist. The cold, hard, cruel reality of what he did to his family finally sets in.

Just as Touya's constant burns forced Enji to confront the reality of Touya's and his own mortality, All Might's true form again forces Enji to confront the "human" part of the superhuman ideal-- he is forced to admit that there is no such thing as a "true superhuman" and that he was always chasing after a fantasy that never existed.

Side Note: Enji looking at All Might and basically saying "YEAH YEAH COOL COOL I'M SURE EVERYTHING WOULD'VE BEEN FINE AND I NEVER WOULD'VE HAD TO EXPERIENCE ANY PAIN IF *YOU* WERE MY DAD. WATCH ME FATHER FOUR CHILDREN TO SHOW YOU JUST HOW FINE I WOULD BE IF *I* WERE YOU AND YOU WERE ALSO MY DAD AND ALSO IF YOU WERE MY SON (???) :)" is like next level unhinged and I don't think the fandom talks about it enough lmfao. Dadmight game so strong it created a generation of deadbeat fathers who would rather fantasize about ~All Might takin' them to the ball game~ than raise their own damn kids.

Another aside....!!! Bakugo's reaction in particular always gets me during the Toshirella reveal, bc Bakugo n' Endvr are so often foiled with each other-- but their reactions are like night and day.

Like Endeavor, Bakugo is witnessing the moment his untouchable, unconquerable fantasy "falls to earth" and gets exposed as someone who as just as human as him, just as human as anyone else, and just as capable of getting hurt and discouraged as anyone else. Unlike Endeavor, though, Bakugo's reaction is neither scorn nor blame-- he instead chooses to cheer for Toshinori harder and louder than ever:

Another day, another instance of Endeavor getting absolutely owned in some vague capacity by a teenager lol. I should turn this into a drinking game and just get, like, completely smashed. I mean I would probably definitely die by the time we reach the part where he starting gets verbally browbeat by horribly bitchy visions of his teenaged self, but at least I would go out doing what I love: bullying fictional middle-aged men.

^ The above is another good example of how fantasy isn't always harmful when you're still willing to accept the reality underneath it. When the chips are down, one of the things that really defines you in this series is how you react when that layer of "fiction" gets violently ripped away and you see what's underneath:

-VERSUS-

god DAMN IT ENJI--

/end

[canines-alter-creation]

Hiii tysm 4 acers alter pack, 90° is rly happy with it! could we have a lvl 3 masc presenting loch ness monster / lake beast nonhuman alter? You can pick every thing else btw!

-💫 anon

Hi!! Sorry it took Us+ so long to get here, We've+ been really busy with school! But! Here you have it! A Loch Ness Mascter!! (get it because, monster and masculine!! I'm+ funny)

As always, not all alters based on these packs are going to turn out exactly as described but I+ hope you like anyway!

> Name(s): Dragyn, Draco, Nester, Ness, Nevin, Lochland

> Pronoun(s): he/lake/monster/it/dragon/loch

> Age: Ageless, adult presenting, but doesn’t have an age because it shifts from human to creature indifferently

> Gender: crypticmonsterenbyic, nonhumanic,creatureboything, gendercryptian,dimbathyic, videbleuon

> Sexuality: masc and nonhuman attracted, unsure on the concept of dating since it is a “creature”

> Role: Trauma Manager, protector

> Source: Loch Ness Monster

> Faceclaims:

> Sign-offs: 🌊, ♒, 🐉

> Song theme:

> Front triggers(pos/neg/neu):

+ large bodies of water, especially if the body has a fear of water, because that’s both of its job, talks of cryptozoology

/ Having to do its internal job, trauma holders being under stress

- Feeling in danger/the body being in danger, 

> Likes/dislikes:

+ Water, playing in water, fountains, traveling or going places, being alone, having space

- When people don’t believe in him, being dismissed as a protector because it “isn’t human”, being expected to be in their human form

> Personality: Ness may be entirely nonverbal or mute by choice, it may not want to speak to others, but will come into front to guide or shield (typically physically) certain alters from trauma. He is inherently very kind and gentle, and is more than willing to allow little alters to ride on his back or to go diving with them. 

> Ways they do their role: He may use his size to separate antagonizing alters from their victims, or use their size to block out what is happening in front that is triggering (as a form of soothing and intentional dissociation)

> Inner world occupation or behavior: Likely lives in some sort of lake or body of water, may protect the body of water and anyone who frequents the shores or lives in the Loch as well. While it can shift to a more “human” appearance, it rarely does so, and still maintains many of his creature features. 

> Possible outerworld behavior: Won’t be very talkative, may not engage very much with others, and may communicate almost entirely in emojis. Helps to protect the body by taking up more space, pushing for there to be a radius of protection around the body at all times.

[whywhatswrongwithblue]

I said I’d elaborate on this later so here goes

WHY TENTOO X ROSE IS THE PERFECT ENDING

A lot of people think tentoo x rose is a happy ending only within the scope of the show—as in, it’s the best possible outcome considering that it’s a tv show and that David and Billie couldn’t have stayed on forever.

I fundamentally disagree.

(disclaimer that this is just my opinion and I think people can and should write whatever makes them happy!!)

Let’s imagine David and Billie were immortal and were willing to stay on the show forever—tentoo x rose is still the happiest ending they could’ve had.

Why? Here’s a few things we need to understand—

1) Doomsday would’ve happened even if Billie didn’t leave the show in s2

Doomsday, or a doomsday-equivalent, would’ve happened anyway. The Doctor and Rose would’ve been split up somehow simply because a relationship between an immortal and mortal is inherently doomed. Even if their separation wasn’t sudden and accidental, it would happen. The Doctor and Rose were doomed from the start, and this is a huge part of why the Doctor never actually acts on his feelings (he was only going to confess his feelings on BWB the first time because he genuinely thought he would never see Rose again.) I do believe that if Doomsday hadn’t happened, they would’ve eventually gotten into some sort of relationship, simply due to the intensity of their feelings, but it would never be carefree! The Doctor would be constantly burdened by the fact that he’s going to have to live for centuries after this human, and he’d never let himself be 100% open and vulnerable with the woman he loves. Because it’s going to really, really hurt soon enough.

2) Being immortal is NOT A GOOD THING

Now you might say, the earlier problem could be solved simply by making Rose immortal—she’d stay with the Doctor forever and she’d never have to leave him, but a constant theme throughout seasons 1-4 is that immortality is not desirable. There is a constant motif of “living too long”, whether it be from Jack, the Face of Boe (cough), or the Doctor himself. Things are only precious and meaningful because they end—the human way of doing things? Fast, and bright, and temporary? It’s the right way. One of the many reasons the Doctor loves Rose is because she’s human—it’s a big part of why he’s attracted to her in the first place. Besides, an immortal Rose would mean having to outlive her family, her friends, everyone she’s ever known—who else has experienced that? Oh, yeah. The Doctor. And I can’t imagine him wanting her to go through the same thing under any circumstances.

3) The Doctor wanted to be human.

The Doctor, and the Tenth Doctor in particular, wants to be human. It’s peppered here and there throughout the first four seasons, but there’s this underlying current of wistfulness in him (“I’ve never had a life like that”; “The one adventure I can never have”), not to mention the entirety of the Human Nature two parter, and I think to some extent Rose makes him feel human, and it’s his alienness that’s the big barrier in their relationship. She makes him want to be human, to be loved and to be free to love her as he wants to.

4) Rose constantly has to choose between her mum and the Doctor.

Now to be clear, there is no doubt in my mind that Rose would choose the Doctor over her mum. She has, several times, and I believe it’s totally in character.

But she shouldn’t have to! She shouldn’t have to choose between the Doctor and everything else that’s important to her, that makes her human. She shouldn’t have to be forced to never settle down because “the doctor never would” or to eventually become someone that isn’t Rose anymore, centuries and planets away from everything that made her her.

The Doctor doesn’t want this for her either.

Every time she has to make this particular choice, it breaks her heart, and it sure as hell doesn’t make the Doctor happy either. Tentoo gives her the chance to keep them both!❤️

5) The “happy” ending.

I know that ending up together and eventually having a kid is a very cliche happy ending, and I don’t think they’d be unhappy without a kid, but isn’t the sheer possibility a good thing?

It never would’ve been possible with the Time Lord Doctor, be it the differing physiology or the fact that he wouldn’t allow it to go so far. It would be something he could never give her, as his original self.

But tentoo could.

As has been pointed out in the discourse several times by @metacrisisdoctor (who you should totally follow btw!) so much of Ten and Rose’s season 2 arc is centred around domestics and settling down. They were always headed for this!

For a character as lonely as the Doctor to have someone to call his own, to not be the last of his species any more—that’s powerful stuff! He finally gets to have the full human experience, with all its ups and downs, and sure, it’s a very ordinary adventure but it is no less important 🥺

To conclude, Journey’s End is bittersweet, but it’s no roughshod, hastily put together ending because the cast wanted to leave. There was a LOT of thought put into it, and I will be forever grateful that a pairing as doomed as tenrose, somehow, MIRACULOUSLY, got a happy ending❤️

[saintsenara]

In A Year In Every Ten Harry is gay right?

Is it your personal interpretation/head canon that Harry is bi or gay (or something else)?

yes.

and no.

now look... i've read the "here's definitive proof that [character] is [sexuality]" posts, and i've found some of them - usually the ones which are tongue-in-cheek to some degree - pretty entertaining.

but every single one is nonetheless wrong... because fictional characters - especially fictional characters being written in fanfiction - are not definitively anything.

they are tools to enable a narrative. and - as a result - they are inherently malleable. they do things and say things and go to places and so on - even if such actions would be illogical not only in real life, but in the canon material - because the story requires them to.

and the relationships they form - romantic, sexual, or otherwise - happen because the story demands it as well.

i say a lot that i think not being willing to multi-ship is a skill issue. i think the same about "he would never say that" takes. and i think the same about insisting on a set interpretation of a character's sexuality. this - like everything else - is flexible based on what a story needs. any character can be anything if an author simply has enough nerve.

which is to say, yes, in one year in every ten harry's gay. but this isn't because this is how i see him in canon, or how i always see him within an m/m pairing, or even how i always see him in tomarrymort.

it's because it's what worked best for a story which has as a key theme the idea that harry:

spent his teenage years convincing himself that the reason he was fighting voldemort was so he could have a specific future [marrying ginny, living in godric's hollow, being an auror] after he was dead made a series of rushed post-war decisions in pursuit of that life - marrying ginny included - without ever thinking about whether they were what he actually wanted realised that instead of voldemort's death being an ending, followed by nothing but the blissful oblivion of happy-ever-after, he had a century of life stretching out before him, in the course of which he might want to develop as a person beyond who he was at eighteen realised that interrogating his increasing feeling that he loves ginny, but his love for her is neither sexual nor romantic, is but one way of starting that process decided to ignore this impulse and pretend things were fine and that his fairytale ending was, indeed, a fairytale couldn't pretend anymore

in another story, he might have sat down and realised that he was bi and wanted to explore that, or that he was straight but his relationship with ginny was nonetheless failing, or that he didn't want to be with anyone regardless of gender. but in this one, him realising that he's gay - and that he'll be happier if he stops pretending otherwise and is honest [even if that honestly is messy and complicated and raw, while his performance of happy-ever-after was neat and easy] - worked better.

[sir-adamus]

Across the Spider-Verse is doing something interesting with its challenging of destiny or ‘the way things are supposed to be’

Miguel is insistent on these ‘canon events’ being immutable constants in the multiverse, but also these ‘events’ are portrayed in an incredibly vague way so they can be applicable to every Spider (and even then, Maguire Spidey never had a connection with a captain or a meaningful relationship with Gwen Stacy) and it seems like the fear of losing is what has been used to browbeat the Spider Society into following his mindset - but that’s the thing, the fear of the apparently inevitable is what made it inevitable (and as we saw in the ‘verses visited in this film, ‘canon’ events can be disrupted and the universes won’t collapse - Miles’s has been going for over a year after him becoming Spider-Man, Pavitr’s universe doesn’t collapse in on itself after Miles saves Inspector Singh, a building just falls into a rift that was already consuming it because the Spot made that rift by activating the collider. and Gwen’s dad quits being a cop, thereby saving his life and yet, Earth-65 still spins on. hell, Earth-42 never got its Spider-Man and is still going, even if it is a dark edgy dystopia. hell, Miles’s influence is outright stated to be the reason Mayday was even born and yet Miguel doesn’t treat her like an anomaly despite the fact that she by definition has to be a disruption of Peter B’s canon)

Miguel’s mindset is inherently flawed (if there’s a way things are supposed to be, then nothing would ever happen in a way it shouldn’t - Ohnn should never have been able to yoink the spider out of Earth-42 into 1610 for it to bite Miles in the first place) and is likely a result of him projecting, he’s trying to conflate replacing a dead alternate version of himself and inserting himself into that alternate version’s life and family (on a metatextual level, trying to stick himself in a position where his story can’t continue because he’s happy and fulfilled, by stealing someone else's happy ending, which is also really fucked up) and that reality then collapsing, with anyone trying to deviate from what he sees as the set ‘path’ (because if he can frame it as an undeniable fact of reality then the only thing he’s guilty of is ignorance - it’s not entirely his fault that that universe collapsed, it’s just the way reality works)

and then he creates a society of Spider-people who he convinces that these ‘canon’ events are inevitable, undeniable and have to happen - they’re railroaded on a set path and are too scared of what might happen, what else they might lose, to challenge it, but what you end up with is an angry authoritarian control freak at the top of the ladder deciding who lives and who dies, imprisoning people for challenging him, and forcing everyone to live by the rules he’s arbitrated (as a result of a sunk cost fallacy he outright admits to right before he meets Miles "I've come too far"). which all presents a couple themes:

1) ‘you can’t save everyone’ - true, they’re not gods. but just because they can’t doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. they’re supposed to be heroes, they’re supposed to be the good guys - if they’re not trying to save everyone then why are they even wearing the mask? what’s the point of being Spider-Man if they’re not trying? they shouldn’t get to pick and choose who to save, especially when someone’s telling them to. Spider-Man is supposed to be the friendly neighborhood hero who protects the people, not an arbitrator of the status quo for the multiverse at large

Miles was embodying Spider-Man more than anyone else in the Spider Society when he ran away to try and get back to 1610 and save his dad, and his constant challenging of Miguel’s mindset is what leads to the others - Gwen and Peter B especially - questioning what they’re doing and some eventually defecting

2) ‘X is supposed to die’ is a really big slippery slope. that mentality devolves into ‘we only save the ‘right’ people’ - again, they’re not supposed to be making the call on who lives and dies. and Hobie clearly saw that before anybody else did (and was trying to stealthily teach the younger Spiders that), which is why he shows exactly zero respect to Miguel’s authority and quits

there's a reason Miles' entry to the Spider Society has him riding the ascending elevator upside down - mirroring his rising in the first film, here he's descending into hell itself. and the place looks like a supervillain lair after the fight and the veneer has come off. Hobie was just the first to see it, but no one took him seriously

"We're supposed to be the good guys."

but back on the destiny thing - Miles refuses to resign himself to the seeming inevitable, challenging both Miguel’s mindset and the Spiders who have bought into it, and on a meta level, the idea that every adaptation of Spider-Man has to follow the same general story beats note for note, and is instead determined to do his own thing, tell his own story, and the film has laid the foundations (retroactively from even ITSV) to show that Miles is right; all the things he’s blamed for by Miguel are the result of the actions of others (Ohnn and Octavius), with the only actual impact Miles has had on the multiverse at large has been a net positive overall (Gwen would’ve likely stayed closed off forever until her dad died, Peter B would’ve never reconciled with MJ and had Mayday, and Miles’ defiance of Miguel causes the formation of a group of Spiders that are determined to do the right thing - Miles makes the lives he touches better) while also shaking the foundations of the ‘canon’ Miguel ascribes to because there is no predestined order of things

the fact that any of this has happened at all is proof of that