#it's not that she just generally doesn't like herself it's that she thinks she's fundamentally incompatible with the things she wants

[musical-chick-13]

One of the...saddest? Most difficult? I can't make words right now. things about writing this fic is that from an emotional/characterization standpoint, a large part of it hinges on River (as in canon) thinking that she needs to be So Extremely Careful with her love because there's no way at all that this person could possibly actually love her or value her in remotely the same way she values him and I just want to shake her and go YOU ARE AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR IN YOUR OWN STORY. HE DOES CARE. HE DOES LOVE YOU. OPEN YOUR EYES AND EMBRACE ALL THE PARTS OF YOURSELF PLEASE.

[copperhawks]

The funniest thing to me about Kel, and maybe one of the most interesting because of how understated it is, is that Kel becomes a good commander in the end, not by emulating Wyldon who was cold and implacable and insensitive, or by emulating Raoul who mostly only disobeys orders out of principle or because he has an issue with what the order says about his personal relationship with Jon, but by emulating JON.

Kel doesn't even LIKE Jon, she BARELY respects him as a person. He's a good enough ruler that she's willing to fight for him and swear loyalty to him and to at least mostly believe that he wouldn't work with Blayce to make his own killing monsters, but that's as far as it goes for Kel. If he's kind to her, she finds it uncomfortable and almost untrustworthy because she assumes he doesn't care about her and so his kindness and respect towards her must be fake.

But from the outside, as readers, we know just how much Jon fought for Kel. We know how much he does respect her right to be a knight. Jon is the sole reason that Kel DID get the opportunity to prove herself, if he'd capitulated to Wyldon completely, she just wouldn't have ever been allowed to join. Kel doesn't KNOW THAT, obviously, but we do. We know that Jon did everything he could to find a way to convince Wyldon to let Kel become a page. While Wyldon claims later that the reason he chose to let her stay at the end of the probation year was because his better judgment convinced him she'd earned it, I'd be willing to bet that part of that better judgment also included knowing if he couldn't prove to JON that she needed to go, then he'd be in trouble. Kel was training and working in front of plenty of other trainers and teachers who could easily contradict Wyldon's lies if he'd tried it, many of whom are closer to Jon than they are to Wyldon.

Kel's experiences and feelings about that experience are entirely valid, and she doesn't have the knowledge we do about how hard Jon fought for her, so it's not shocking that she's upset with him for a good portion of her series. She never even discovers this truth by the end of her series, even though she does get a lesson from Jon and Thayet (and Raoul to some degree) about how politics and compromises work in order to make changes happen. So her opinion of him by the end is boiled down to the quote from Squire: "good kings weren't always good men." It makes sense for her to think this, but because Kel's knowledge base is so limited (and her worldview so black and white for much of her series), it makes her an EXTREMELY unreliable narrator about this particular issue.

Kel believes that while Jon generally does his duty and keeps the peace, he doesn't actually care all that much about his people as individuals. But in their only meaningful conversation in Squire, Jon is able to point out that he (and Thayet, who is actually equal to Jon in power, something Kel either doesn't know which would be a failure in her education or just tends to ignore so she can focus her ire on Jon) has to make a LOT of compromises in order to get ANYTHING useful done at all. Sometimes, often, it means making deals with people he doesn't like or people he just fundamentally disagrees with, because it's the first step in a multi-step plan to help more people in the long run. He also points out that just throwing his weight and authority around in order to be able to change everything he wants to change immediately regardless of what anyone else thinks about it is a great way to get himself and his family killed. Because even if he had good intentions, that would be tyranny. It does make Kel think a little, but she doesn't tend to like him much still afterwards, her resentment from her page years will always color her opinion of him a little.

However, then she gets to Haven and she's suddenly tossed into a position of leadership over a lot of other people, many of whom disagree with each other or disagree with her or both. And all of the sudden, Kel has to make compromises. She doesn't LIKE the way the sergeants often treat their men, especially the sergeants whose men are convicts, but there's very very little she can do about it without really pissing off those same sergeants and that's not something she can afford to do. There's a moment when Neal starts getting frustrated about the treatment of the convicts and she takes him out to vent to her so he doesn't vent to the sergeants, something that the sergeants would then take out on their men. Kel's reasoning as she does this is that she "preferred to avoid battles with them now so she would have authority with them later if she needed to use it." Later, Kel is talking to Daine and she says "That's all this job is... Trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. And it will only get worse, not better."

Both of these moments showcase Kel choosing to make compromises. She may not like the way the sergeants treat the convicts, but she needs to stay on the sergeants' good sides because she doesn't have enough resources to butt heads with them nor enough authority to just force the issue, and even if she DID, it could cause the sergeants to become troublesome or take out their frustration with her on the men in ways she can't see as well. But staying on the sergeants' good sides might mean letting some of their maltreatment slide if it's not physically harming the convicts. And even setting that aside, she's dealing with nearly 500 refugees eventually, all of which are from different towns in the area and have different needs, not all of which she can accommodate. This requires compromise. Sometimes she can please some of them and not others, but mostly she probably just ends up not pleasing anybody because that's often how compromises WORK.

She never makes the active connection to Jon and his lesson on leadership from Squire while she's in Haven, but that quote up there about how this job (aka being a commander) is all about trying to please everyone and pleasing no one? It sounds a HECK of a lot like "good kings weren't always good men." You can try your best to help others, but often doing the right thing can involve making everyone unhappy. You can't be everybody's friend if you're going to get anything done.

Some of this she might've learned from Raoul's style of command, but Raoul commands a fairly small amount of people (at least in comparison to a King), and so we see him able to be pretty friendly to the people he commands in a way that Jon is perhaps unable to do. And she might believe that she learned some of this from Wyldon, but Wyldon had a tendency to be very unfair and biased due to his raging bigotry and conservative values, as well as the fact that he doesn't actually even LIKE being a training master and that likely impacted the way he treated the pages (he's almost never that kind to the pages, whereas we see him capable of being quite kind with the refugees later, which is where Kel comes to the conclusion that he hadn't enjoyed being a training master).

But Jon makes an entire speech about how he (and Thayet) have been working THEIR ENTIRE REIGN to change laws that help people. He explains how they have to consider the needs of merchants, nobles, farmers, street people, priests/priestesses, and mages. They have to consider not only what these people might need or want, but also what they could do when they feel sufficiently offended and how that could impact not just the royal family or the nobility but the realm as a whole. Jon points out that they HAVE made changes, for the better, and that just because they don't always succeed at everything or because they have to compromise sometimes, doesn't mean they aren't working at making changes or that they don't care about helping people. Not everyone you have power over is going to be your friend, they might not even be someone you like. But if you're going to take on the job of leadership, that's something you have to be willing to accept and work with, which often means making compromises with people whose needs and values are contradictory to your own.

Jon probably knows when he makes the compromise with Wyldon that it will likely impact a lot of people's good opinion of him. Alanna is right there and clearly angry, and we know Thayet doesn't like the decision, either. And it's entirely possible that Jon knows in the moment that Kel herself will put the blame on him because he's the King. But he also knows that if he insists on Kel being allowed to be a page without trying to compromise with Wyldon, Wyldon will quit over it and he'll end up with ten DIFFERENT problems that could cause a lot bigger issues to far more people than just one girl. So he makes the compromise. He sacrifices Alanna and Thayet and even Kel's good opinion of him in order to ensure that Kel gets the opportunity to become a Knight without turning all of his nobles against him which could ultimately lead to a civil war. Is it fair? No, and he knows it. But it's the best option he has in order to get the outcome they all actually want which is just for Kel to have the chance to prove herself.

Kel has to make similar choices once she's finally in a position of leadership of her own. And whether she realizes it or not, without ever even spending more than a few minutes with Jon, she ends up emulating his leadership style more than anybody else's because it WORKS and it works WELL. She'll probably never admit it, she might never even realize it herself, but she's so much more like Jon than any of the other men she sees as role models. And I love that. I love the dramatic irony of that, that the one person Kel only barely respects because of a compromise he made on her behalf that she'll never even know about, is the person Kel ends up most resembling. Jon is the reason she has the opportunity to become the Protector of the Small in the first place, Jon is the person who created that environment that allowed her to nurture those values, and she'll probably never even really be able to acknowledge that, because sometimes that's what being a good leader means.

[spif-lol]

People can hate on Chibnall's era all they want and while it's not without it's problems I will always defend it if ONLY for it's interpretation of gender in the change from 12 to 13.

I remember being so excited for Jodie, but also so scared as to how they were going to handle her characterization as the Doctor. While Moffat did okay with Missy in the end, her original introduction was dripping with stereotypes and changes in personality which in universe boiled down to she's a girl now lol. Because of this I feared the introduction of a hyperfeminine Doctor, reinforcing sexist stereotypes that men and women are fundamentally different in some ineffable way. I feared jokes about boobs and hair, I feared a weak Doctor who had to be saved by male companions, I worried there would be a lack of personality entirely, with Chibnall trying to play it safe and make her just a blank slate. Or that she would be a rehash of an old Doctor but GIRLY with nothing really distinct to her personality beyond that.

I did not at all expect what we got. Even if the writing is in general lower standards than us fans had come to expect, Chibnall's handling of the Doctor's sudden gender change is phenomenal and I will explain why.

Top 13th Doctor gender moments:

It is so obvious that from the Doctor's point of view, she hasn't really changed. She still perceives herself the same way and finds it hard to adjust to a view of herself as a woman and often uses masculine words to describe herself out of habit. She doesn't dislike being a woman! She's just forgetful! Her regeneration is not special because of the gender change, that's just a quirk alongside the other changes every Doctor goes through when they regenerate

The way she still dresses in a distinctly Doctorish way, and leans towards flamboyant but practical masculine outfits like her suit in Spyfall in contrast to Yaz's more feminine presentation in the same situations. (Yaz isn't even that feminine either. But her dresses and blouses compared to the Doctor really stand out.)

I love how the Doctor's gender doesn't change anything about her, only how other's view her. And mostly people still treat her with respect and as an authority figure. I feel like chibnall struck a good balance between not acknowledging the gender change at all vs hitting us over the head with it. There are episodes where her being a woman is detrimental and she expresses annoyance, there are others where it causes confusion, and there's some where it opens her up to new experiences like the wedding party with Yaz's nan! But ultimately it doesn't make a difference in the Doctor's day to day

The introduction of the Fugitive Doctor as a previous regeneration but also as a female doctor with a distinct personality from thirteen! We got a multi doctor story with two badass female doctors years before it should have been possible! I hate the timeless child thing but the fugitive doctor is my beloved. Props to Chibnall for seeing the hate and people going oooh but the doctor has always been a man and responding by going nope she's been a woman before and a black woman too fuck you. actually iconic. #Season6B btw. if you even care

Idk i just think Jodie really captured the Doctor really well, while still having a unique twist on it and her portrayal really reads as a genderfluid alien in a feminine body. Like oh cool this is new but ultimately it dont matter she still the doctor

[anneapocalypse]

On Wuk Lamat, and Female Characters in FFXIV

The Thing with Wuk Lamat is you can tell me you think she had too much screentime; you can give me numbers on how many lines she had or how many scenes she's in relative to other characters or other expacs; you can prove to me "objectively" that she gets more focus than other main NPCs; you're simply not going to convince me that this is something I should be unhappy about. And not just because it's silly to think you can use numbers to prove a story is good or bad and make someone else go, "Wow, you're right, let me just throw away all the joy I experienced with this story and revise my opinion because you've scientifically proven to me that I'm wrong."

Because while I love Final Fantasy XIV and I have greatly enjoyed its story in so many ways, fundamentally one of my biggest beefs with this game has been how much female characters have been denied complex character arcs and growth and agency and interiority.

Minfilia gets treated as a sacrificial vessel who lives for everyone but herself and doesn't even get to have feelings about her own death because that entire arc is focused on a male character's angst about it instead. The game tells us in the Heavensward patches that Krile sees Minfilia as her best friend and then just forgets about that later and never follows up on what that loss must have meant to her. Ysayle is basically right about most of what she's fighting for but harboring a bit of self-delusion is apparently such a terrible sin that she has to pay for it with her life, while her male foil is deemed so worthy of salvation that there's a whole plot point about how important it is that we risk our lives and others' lives to save him. Y'shtola is a major character who's been around since the beginning, and the game keeps dropping maddeningly interesting things about her (apprenticed to a cranky old witch in a cave! saved her own life and the lives of her friends with an illegal and dangerous spell and it worked! reserved and undemonstrative yet regularly through her actions reveals herself to be deeply caring! disabled!) and then shows complete disinterest in following up on any of those things with the kind of depth and care shown to male characters with complex arcs like Urianger.

In general there is also a repeated thread of female characters being portrayed as weak or overly emotional: Minfilia is weak because she doesn't fight and needs to be eaten by a god in order to gain "a strength long sought." Krile is portrayed as not being able to pull her weight with the Scions (despite the fact that she actively keeps five of them from dying in Shadowbringers) and the only thing they could think of for her to do in Endwalker was be yet another vessel for Hydaelyn (hmm, that sounds familiar) and it's not until Dawntrail that she gets much actual character development in the main story and even that has to come alongside "Look, she can fight now so that means she's useful." (And I love Picto!Krile, I'm just saying, there's a pattern.) Alisaie, despite having very good reasons for needing to find her own path apart from her brother, is portrayed as having to prove herself when she returns, that she's "not the girl she once was," and "will not be a burden" (while Alphinaud is repeatedly given the benefit of the doubt and reassurance and affirmation from other characters even after he takes on responsibilities he isn't ready for and fucks up big time).

And if you follow me you know I adore Urianger, and I love Alphinaud and Thancred and Estinien too, so please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here! I'm not knocking those characters, or saying we shouldn't also love them. I just use them as a comparison to demonstrate how the female characters have been neglected.

Lyse has some of the stronger character development among the female Scions, and while she's still kind of portrayed as being too emotional and hotheaded in early Stormblood, I think it's actually explored in more depth in a way that I like; Lyse has good reasons for wanting to fight for her nation's freedom, but having been away from Ala Mhigo for several years now, she needs to understand the stakes for the people who've been there fighting for years, what they've lost and still have to lose. She grows as a person and rises to the challenge of leadership, and I'm even okay with the fact that she leaves the Scions afterward because it feels right for her to stay in Ala Mhigo, and at least she doesn't die.

And by all accounts she was, like Wuk Lamat, widely hated when her expansion came out.

Unironically I think the other female Scion with the strongest character arc is Tataru. She tries to take up a combat job, finds that it's not for her, and decides to focus on where her strengths are instead. In doing so, she both holds the Scions together as an organization in the absence of a leader by capably managing their finances, and also comes into her own as a businesswoman and makes international connections that benefit both the Scions and her personally. In contrast to Minfilia, she's not portrayed as weak because she doesn't fight, and is actually allowed to be an important character who's good for more than being sacrificed. Tataru is still distinctly in a supporting role for the player character, however, and her character arc happens as a side story that takes up a relatively small amount of screentime over several expansions, which I think is probably why she doesn't evoke such a negative reaction.

But there is a pattern of the game's writing showing disinterest in the interior lives of female characters generally, and in making their growth the focus of a story.

So yeah, I'm going to be happy about Wuk Lamat! I'm going to enjoy and celebrate every moment of her character arc, of her personal growth, of watching her put the lessons she's learned into action. I'm going to love and treasure every moment when she gets to be silly, embarrassing, emotional, scared, grieving, confused, upset, seasick, impulsive, and still deemed worthy of growing into a hero and a leader. I will love her with all of my soul and you simply will not convince me that it wasn't worth the screentime after such a profound imbalance for basically the entirety of the game. We've never had a major female character get such a strong arc with this much love and attention put into it and that means more to me than I can truly say. The backlash to it is disheartening, as this kind of thing always is, but I'm not going to let it ruin the wonderful experience I had playing it and how much joy it continues to bring me.

And for those of you who don't want any of that for a female character, thank goodness you have Heavensward and Shadowbringers and Endwalker and no one can take those away from you.

(And if you follow me you know that I love Shadowbringers and Endwalker and have very fond memories of Heavensward despite some issues with it, so not only can I not take that from you, I am not trying to!)

Some of us have been real hungry for a character like this with an arc like this, so, I think, y'know, maybe we can have that. As a treat.

[genericpuff]

What is the thing you feel like Lore Olympus failed at or did the worst. The comic has a magnitude of problems but what is one problem that you have the most hatred for or just flat out makes you angry?

(Just curious)

There are so, so many things I could point to as "the worst" thing that the comic did, because it has a LOT of worsts, but I think ultimately the failing of the original myth's messaging has to take the cake because it's ultimately the root of all of LO's problems.

Rachel herself seems to have this disconnect between what's going on in her head vs. what she's actually writing. It's especially present in her Q&A's and interviews where she claims certain things about the comic / text that just aren't present in the slightest during the actual comic. One such example that ties into my answer is this response she gave to Girl Wonder Podcast:

"I feel like female characters in general, people will be a little harsher on them and sometimes way harsher on them, and I used to be like.. before I started writing the story and like making a story I was like yeah, sexism is not that bad, and [now] I was like oh it's bad. It's quite bad [laughs], so like, I don't know, I feel like the female characters in the story don't get so much of a pass. But this isn't consistent across the board, it's not all the time"

It's ironic at best and tone deaf at worst that she would claim that it's her audience being harsh on the female characters, when she's the one who wrote them into the characters they are that would get that reaction. Minthe had her BPD retconned so now she's just the abusive other girl. Hestia was turned into a cruel hypocrite when it was revealed she was a lesbian. Hera is racist to nymphs and cruel to the lower class and yet she's still rewarded in the end by getting to run off with a nymph girl who we've never seen her have any extended interaction with. And worst of all, Demeter was robbed of all of her agency all in favor of turning her into the evil Mother Gothel mom who's overbearing and cruel to poor Persephone. Some of these women deserve to be called out (Hera and Hestia), and others like Minthe and Demeter were simply used as props to do exactly what Rachel claims she doesn't like people doing and is labelling as sexism - to get harsh reactions and give the audience someone to hate on. Rachel desperately needs to learn to read her own work. Her audience is "sexist" towards these women because Rachel wrote them that way.

It fucking sucks and it's, ngl, extremely disrespectful to the messaging of the original myth that was written to comfort and empower the mothers who had lost their daughters to marriages back in the day. It wasn't some simple "aww the girl moved out and now she doesn't visit anymore!" girls who got married off were often literally never seen again and it wasn't by choice. Not only that, but in certain regions (such as in Athens) the women were isolated to their own section of the house upstairs (while the men lived downstairs) so that they wouldn't be seen by visiting guests or strangers.

It's why in some cultures the original H x P myth was considered a "golden standard" for marriages (at the time) because not only was Persephone given power over the domain alongside Hades, but she actually did get to see her mother - but it wasn't because Hades was just such a kind guy who would let her go willingly, it's because Demeter had to literally hold the world hostage and fight for her right to reunite with her child.

So for LO to not only twist Demeter's love and justifiable concern for her daughter into "helicopter parenting", but also rob her of her agency and power in fighting for her child, it fundamentally misses the entire point of the original myth and undoes itself as a retelling that's trying to be taken seriously in the discussion of Greek myth media. And for that, Rachel should be ashamed of herself.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Follow up to this post where I was asked about the "Autism presents differently in girls" myth, which is one of my many berserk buttons.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of reasons this concept makes no sense and you should stop saying it:

A. Autistic people are more likely than non-autistic people to be trans, nonbinary, or otherwise gender-non-conforming, so any attempt to group autistic people by binary, birth-assigned gender is even less likely to be accurate than the gender binary already is in the general population.

2. There is absolutely no evidence supporting the "presents differently" theory that could not be better explained by clinician bias.

iii. The alleged "presentation differences" between autistic "girls" and "boys" are just bog-standard gender stereotypes with "autism" plugged in somewhere. "Boys are better at math and science and logic and not having feelings and their dominant emotion is Anger, but girls are better at socializing and caretaking and brushing hair and their dominant emotion is Approval-Seeking." "Huh, that sounds like reactionary sexist hogwash." "No, I mean, autistic boys are better at math and science and logic and not having feelings and their dominant emotion is Anger, but but autistic girls are better at socializing and caretaking and brushing hair and their dominant emotion is Approval-Seeking." "Oh, okay, now it's Objective Science."

four. Sexist bias, including among clinicians, tends to frame "male" neurodivergence as essentially cognitive and "female" neurodivergence as essentially emotional, because, as we all know, Men Think, Women Feel. Psychology is obsessed with the idea that "girls" are universally and inherently self-loathing and self-destructive -- anything a "girl" has trouble with cannot possible be a skill she hasn't learned or an ability she doesn't have, let alone merely a different way of being; she must simply be self-abnegatingly denying herself the thing she cannot do. So a "girl" with the same traits as an "autistic boy" will have those traits attributed to something emotional, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, or eating disorders. "Autistic girls" aren't being "missed" (read as neurotypical); they're having their exact same autistic traits as "autistic boys" being framed as mood disorders instead of neurodevelopmental disabilities.

cinco. Fundamentally, this premise gets completely backward what diagnosis means and why pathologization happens. People are pathologized and diagnosed, with any kind of disability, when they have traits that fall outside the range of traits considered "acceptable" for their position. "It's more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns, so autistic boys have more meltdowns than autistic girls, so the boys get diagnosed with autism" -- No, this doesn't make sense. That's not how diagnosis works. If it were more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns, then boys who have meltdowns would not be getting diagnosed with anything. Their behavior would not be seen as pathological. If "It's more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns" were to explain any kind of diagnosis differential, it would be "Therefore girls who have meltdowns are diagnosed, while boys who have meltdowns are just considered normal boys." And, to be clear, that kind of thing is absolutely a factor in gender differences in diagnosis, but in the opposite direction from how people mean it. Like, as a "girl," I wasn't really expected or pressured to be athletic, so my absolutely abysmal gross motor skills were just shrugged at and not seen as a sign of disability. Can't run or throw? Well, I was a girl, and a nerd to boot. What do you expect? A "boy" with my level of gross motor skills would draw a lot more Concern.

ζ. "Girls are pressured to mimic/mask more than boys are," even if true (debatable), elides over the fact that many autistic "girls" can't "mimic/mask," because they are disabled. They have a disability. Because some of the things their society expects them to be able to do are things that they cannot, in fact, do. "Girls don't have meltdowns because they're not allowed to. Girls don't forget to do essential tasks because they're not allowed to. Girls don't --" Okay but they do. Girls do in fact very much do those things. Because they are disabled. Because they have disabilities. Because there are things they are expected to be able to do, which they cannot, in fact, do. And it's weirdly disability-erasing (ableist) to claim that people simply develop the ability to do things they can't do just because they're expected to.

heptad. Circling back to point A., while I can't prove it, I really think a lot of this "gendered autism" stuff is a way to pathologize and also explain away queerness/transness/gender-non-conformity in diagnosed-autistic kids. "Oh, no, don't worry, the reason your son consistently Fails At Masculinity isn't because he's some kind of sissy; it's actually because he has this Masculine Male Boy Disorder where he just doesn't understand how boys are supposed to behave. Lots of boys have it. No, no, the reason your 12 year old son is kissing his male friend on the mouth isn't because he's gay; he just has a social skills disorder and doesn't know that boys don't kiss their platonic guy mate dude friends. It's a very masculine disability. Elon Musk has it." I know somebody who was told by an Autism Mom that all autistic people are bisexual because "They don't know the difference." Sure, keep telling yourself that.

8️⃣. In the past, when I was less Galaxy Brain Mad Radicalized, I conceptualized the phenomenon of "'Boys' are diagnosed with autism while 'girls' with the exact same traits are diagnosed with depression/anxiety/OCD/BPD/ED" as a phenomenon of "Autistic girls, who objectively are autistic, whose objectively, scientifically correct diagnosis is autism, are misdiagnosed with psych disorders instead." But what neither autistic nor Mad people really want to admit is that "autism" is as arbitrary a diagnostic category as any other. No two human brains are exactly alike. All systems of classification are made up. I happen to think that the proposed explanatory mechanism of "autism" (brain processes sensory input/information differently than average, results in wildly uneven skill development) is generally more accurate than the proposed explanatory mechanism of most psych diagnoses (people are weird somehow and that's bad somehow), but it's still fairly arbitrary. People with autism diagnoses get ABA and people with psych diagnoses get CBT/DBT, and you can argue about which is worse, but ultimately anything with a B in it is fundamentally abusive. Abolish psychiatry.

[zukosdualdao]

Just some more thoughts I wanted to chat with you about. I am getting some of these points from anti-Zuko spaces, admittedly, in an attempt to think about things, but only the ones that I think are interesting questions to explore regardless.

The first thing I think is interesting is the idea that part of why Zuko stole the ostrich-horses from Song is not just because it was convenient, but specifically because he resented the vulnerability, and it was a way for him to lash out. I think that's interesting and it fits with some of the other stuff I've seen you saying. It was especially cruel given Song's mother helped Iroh, but nonetheless, I think that makes sense.

Second one isn't actually directly from any anti-Zuko blog I don't think, but I've seen people in your circles (I can't remember if you said this) say that Azula brought Zuko back in honor purely as a way to pawn off the blame on him potentially, but I... don't feel like that really fits? Like, obviously she was also being manipulative a lot, by not telling him she told Ozai he killed the Avatar, but if she really wanted Zuko out of the way, she didn't need to bring him in at all? She could have probably won by herself (or at least, I find it hard to believe she would think she would need Zuko), and she certainly didn't need to give him credit for killing the Avatar– she could have just said that she got in a deadly blow but the Avatar has a waterbending healer, if she knew that as I believe Giancarlo Volpe said.

Fundamentally, I don't see a reason for her to bring Zuko back, especially in such a way that he would return to the role of crown prince, unless she genuinely also wanted to have him back. Sure, her love might be selfish, and she may have also wanted someone for Ozai to blame for things, but it strikes me as odd to claim that there was no positive feeling towards Zuko, especially given The Beach, which I just rewatched for this ask. For example, we see her come get Zuko from their old house, and then try and help Zuko figure out who he's angry at, which I do think was genuinely her being helpful, given Mai and Ty Lee were also doing it.

To be clear, she obviously also loves making fun of, tormenting, putting down, and generally, abusing Zuko, and it's very possible that was part of her motivation for bringing him back, but it seems like it's not just that.

Third, and this one you might agree on, Zuko seems to genuinely not have much positive feeling associated with Azula? Like maybe I'm forgetting something, but I can't think of a single time Zuko felt positively about Azula. The closest three times I can think of are when he suggested to Iroh that he should try and get along with Azula (which sounded kind of rote, but maybe he also believed it), when Azula was falling and he said she's not going to make it, sounded shocked and maybe a tad worried, then had a very slightly barely soft expression for a single frame when she did, and finally after her breakdown. I think that does fit in with the idea he can only feel compassion for Azula when she's in a vulnerable position, which I think I've seen you reblog before and I agree with? (And of course, this is precisely what makes it possible to help with Azula post-war, because he's seen her in that vulnerable position and she continues to be in a relatively vulnerable position).

Anyways, that one seems doubly interesting because he also doesn't seem to have any good memories of Azula when she was younger, either? He has a flashback of Ozai with his hand on young Zuko's back, of Lu Ten and Iroh, of Ursa of course, but there's never a time when he has a flashback to Azula at all.

Anyways, these are just some things I was thinking about and I was wondering if you'd be interested in going some of them, and what you feel about the positive feelings in the Fire Sibling relationship more generally. Are there signs of care from Zuko to Azula that I've missed?

Putting most of this under a cut, lol, maybe one day I'll be able to talk about things with any sort of concision but no one should hold their breath on that tbh

Oh, I 100% agree with the point regarding Zuko and the ostrich horse he stole. I don't even really see that as an anti-Zuko take and rather, just like. What happened, because it was part of his journey, lol.

(Aside: which is I guess what bothers me about many anti-Zuko spaces? Which is not to say you're doing or saying this, I know you're not, just in general. I'm perfectly willing to criticize the characters I like and talk about their faults and poor choices, of which Zuko has many. The issue is that so many treat those things as a condemnation of Zuko's character on the whole or his redemption journey, but, like... the narrative treats those things like they're wrong. Iroh may agree to it, but he's not happy about taking the ostrich horse and notes it as being unkind, especially, as you note, given the kindness Song and her family just showed them. For a redemption arc to work, the character has to have something to redeem himself FROM, so I"m like... yeah... he sure did do that... and then he grew and changed, lol. They don't go back to every specific instance and be like, "Yup, that was wrong" because it wouldn't be realistic and wouldn't move the story forward. When he does get confronted with the wrong things he did, it's from the Gaang, because that's what's most relevant to the larger story being told, and he takes accountability and atones.)

I think something important to remember that Zuko's perspective on the war and the Fire Nation cannot be disentangled from Zuko's perspective on Ozai as the father who abused him. Because Ozai's power-hungry and imperialist worldview, whether Zuko would put it in these terms, was something he was challenging when he defended the division being sacrificed, and even in refusing to fight Ozai back. Which relates to this episode because Zuko, for the first real time, is considering the perspective of the people the Fire Nation, in their war efforts, have othered and harmed. When Song is showing him the scar on her leg, he looks horrified - the war effort is not just soldiers battling out on even footing, but families getting displaced from their homes and torn apart, civilians getting burned, too. Zuko, up to now, has been willfully ignoring what some part of him knows is wrong, but when confronted with Song's suffering, real and right in front of him, he is forced to look at that more deeply. I know a lot of people might say "Okay, but then, if he knows it's wrong at this point, why doesn't he change right here and now?" But that's what I love about Zuko's character arc. It's not clear or linear are simple because people aren't that way, generally. Yes, in this moment, Zuko is confronted with and aware of at least some of the atrocities the Fire Nation has committed. But in that same scene, he's also confronted with Song noting that he is a victim of the Fire Nation, too. (Which he is, albeit not in the exact same way. But there are parallels - not only were he and Song both burned, but they were both forced out of their homes.) Zuko can't fully acknowledge or comes to term with the Fire Nation being on wrong side of the war without also acknowledging that not only is Ozai abusive and doesn't want him back, but that he's wrong for that. Zuko isn't ready to accept any of that, so instead of taking this moment of vulnerability as a chance to grow, he doubles down and reasserts himself as what he thinks, based on Ozai's standards, he should be - someone who's cruel and take things like they're owed to him.

I do think we disagree on the second point pretty heavily, which is fine, but to offer my perspective:

I disagree with the notion that Azula wouldn't think she may need Zuko to win. Azula is very skilled and can be very arrogant about and assured of her own skills, that much is true. But she also often prefers not to fight alone. I remember reading an interview (I would have to dig around for it) where one of the ATLA creators said that she surrounds herself with people like Mai and Ty Lee because she understands they have skills she doesn't. I tend to see her as someone who is very distinctly aware of what advantages she has and very intentionally fills those gaps.

Zuko is the wild card in "The Crossroads of Destiny." He is the only person, by the point of the final battle, who no one (I think, for a moment, even himself) knows exactly what he'll do or which side he'll fight for. Iroh and Azula both make their bids for him - Iroh tries to appeal to his sense of morality and sense of self. Azula tries to appeal to things she knows he wants - his honor and the love of their father back, yes, but also to be genuinely needed and respected by his family in general, including her. And while what she says here is couched in manipulation, often, what's so dangerous about manipulation is that there is or can be an element of truth to it, but it's twisted to fit the manipulator's agenda. She tells him that she needs him to win the fight, and I think that part, she genuinely means.

I don't think she would believe she needed Zuko to win a fight in most or every circumstance. This fight is different. She has faced off against the Gaang-Zuko-Iroh when they very, very briefly joined forces against her in "The Chase." The only reason she got out of that is because she feigned surrender, and, using their moment of surprise/distraction, targeted Iroh. That will not work twice. I think she is incredibly aware that this group of people at least holds the capacity to genuinely pose a threat to her. In fact, she is notably growing wary and arguably losing, with Aang and Katara facing off against her together, before Zuko intercedes. She's also very explicitly losing when she and Katara are facing off and Katara's got her trapped with her water-tentacles, and again, it's Zuko who cuts that off and saves Azula there. So not only do I think she was very intentionally encouraging Zuko to join her to fight because she needed him, I think she was pretty smart to do so. (Not morally good or justified, of course, but strategically competent.)

Of course, people can have more than one reason for doing something. I would say most people usually do. I don't think that Azula MINDED that the end result would be that Zuko came back, because (this is something I will delve into more below), having him around, I think, kind of boosts her ego. It's possible that she also has some degree of unhealthy but genuine affection for him - after all, people are complicated, and while Azula is abusive toward Zuko, it's possible to abuse someone and still love or be convinced you love them. That doesn't make it healthy or the abuse okay, of course, but my point is that I do agree with the general notion that Azula, while a villain in the narrative and abusive on a personal level, is not born evil nor 100% devoid of any good qualities. But I think we would also be remiss to act like it's not true that, a lot of the time, the reason Azula seems to enjoy having Zuko around, it's because she can demean him, like when she cornered into playing with them so she could embarass him as children. Or when she quite obviously delights in calling him paranoid and making him squirm while he confronts her about the lie she told that he killed the avatar.

Zuko being around gives her someone to be better than, given her status as Ozai's golden child and Zuko's as the scapegoat. (But again, more on that in a minute.) Any affection she does have for him is unfortunately deeply entangled with that aspect of their relationship as well.

I don't know if you've read that interview with Volpe in full, but I made an addition to this post a while ago that details the quote about this. Volpe makes it pretty explicit in the interview that as soon as Azula saw Katara sweep in, it was her explicit intention to lie about Zuko killing Aang so that he'd be the one to take the fall if/when it came to light that he was alive. One could argue about how well that was executed in-show (I would argue well, but to each their own), but it was the authorial intent. Authorial intent doesn't count for everything, of course, but in such a series-defining moment as this, I think it should count for a fair amount.

(*Note that I don't know where to fit but I think is relevant - on the Zuko coming back and being crown prince front - I agree that it seems somewhat weird that Azula's willing to have him back, given that. But I did also read a post a while back (I can't find it; I'll try to see if I can dig it up at some point) talking about how Zuko's status as the crown prince, set to take over as Fire Lord one day, is... somewhat murky. Yes, he returns and is immediately hailed as a hero because of Azula's lie - but he's also often aimless and unsure of his real role in the Fire Nation at this point. He's frustrated with being sent off on a 'forced vacation' in "The Beach", he's not even sure whether he's allowed in the war meeting from "Nightmares and Daydreams". (And I read a lot of deliberate manipulation on Ozai (and Azula's) part in that. As mentioned in that last post, Zuko spends a lot of time in the series talking about his crown - but I'm not sure he spent a lot of time thinking about what it would mean to get it back. By the end of the series, Ozai is clearly drunk on power and trying to make himself the most powerful person in the world, basically, handing off the hollow title of Fire Lord to Azula. In truth, I don't think he ever wanted or expected either of his children to succeed him; he only saw them as extensions of himself. When Zuko is back, yes, he's being treated like he's a hero and more trusted/respected, but I'm not entirely convinced it would have lasted very long, had he not left. This next part is somewhat based on conjecture/headcanon, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to think that Azula doesn't think bringing Zuko back will mean, in Ozai's eyes, he is still next in line to become Fire Lord. Which I actually think she's right about. In her eyes, Zuko has always been the scapegoat who can't do anything right, and it won't take long before that's true again. But I also think that, while Azula has a pretty good read on how Ozai sees Zuko, part of her tragedy is that she does not have as good of a read on how Ozai sees her - he might on the surface treat her more respectfully or with my trust, but at the end of the day, he sees her as a weapon in service of his own ego and power. Knowing that, it's not difficult for me to imagine Azula might have thought she could eventually work things in her favor so she would be Fire Lord - she does, after all, have a pretty good example in Ozai of him doing just that. When Ozai makes her 'Fire Lord' in the finale, I do read some surprise there, but it doesn't seem to me like surprise that he would do such a thing - she deems that it "seems appropriate". I think the surprise is because the timing makes it pretty clear what a hollow gesture it is, and for the first time, she's being confronted with how Ozai truly sees her, and has truly used her.)

The last point is difficult to discuss because Azula and Zuko have a very complicated relationship because of Ozai's abuse of them both, and because his treatment of Azula encourages her to participate in Zuko's abuse as well. (Something pretty relevant to the second point above.)

I talked about this briefly before, but to reassert it: I see the way Ozai treats Azula and Zuko as a pretty clear demonstration of the idea of an abuser treating their children a 'golden child' and 'a scapegoat', respectively. (I have complicated feelings about the origins of these terms which I won't get into now, but regardless, they are pretty commonly recognized roles family structures can fall into that character dynamics and tropes often parallel.) Azula, on the surface, is praised and seemingly treated with more respect or trust, but there is a lot of pressure that no one can truly live up to placed on her, Ozai sees her skill as an extension of himself and in the context of how they can serve him (see him having her demonstrate for Azulon in the flashbacks of "Zuko Alone"), and Zuko is always there as an implicit threat of how she COULD be treated. ("You can't do this! You can't treat me like Zuko!") Zuko, by contrast, is most often treated like everything he does is wrong, and even when he's trying to do what he thinks Ozai wants, he's still a failure. (He's notably displeased by Zuko, in the same flashback sequence, trying to demonstrate his own skill even before it goes wrong, because the expectation is that Zuko will fail before he ever even tries.)

I know this is just like, defining terms, but I genuinely think it's important context to consider when talking about Zuko and Azula's relationship. The tragedy of Zuko and Azula is that they should be able to have a good relationship, but Ozai's abuse has ensured that they don't.

So, yes, I would say that Zuko seemingly has few positive feelings about Azula. Because there has been very little to be positive about. What he does displays a desire that things were different. While Azula is lying about wanting Zuko back home, she is obviously there as an extension of Ozai, but it's her telling this lie, her he's choosing, in this moment, to believe. Because he wants to be able to trust what she's saying and that their family, as a unit, including her, wants him back. In the moment you mentioned where he says he should be trying to get along with her, I think that is another acknowledgment that he wishes things were different because he would like to just get along with her. But she has proven herself dangerous, having just attacked Iroh, and Iroh rightly points out that he doesn't have to simply get along with her, because she is not willing to make the same effort. And yes, a lot of the moments of compassion he seems to feel for her are in moments of vulnerability, because in moments where she's in power, she's often using that power against him, to target him.

Azula does have moments where it may seem she has more positive feelings about Zuko's presence, but as I said before, it's hard to disentangle that from the broader context of their dynamic. I do think the moment in "The Beach" is one of her more genuine moments of care for Zuko, because she sees that he's sad and does something to show there's more to Azula than just cruelty, manipulation, etc. But it's also notable that Zuko is sad because he's finally starting to acknowledge that the way their family is isn't right or healthy, that he's not happy being back in the Fire Nation. Turning away from that is what Zuko's BEEN doing most of the series. He NEEDS to face that if he’s going to grow. Azula trying to get him to turn away from it in the moment isn't entirely healthy, even though that's not something I think she herself recognizes. I'm less inclined to think she was being caring when she asks him who he's angry at, because she immediately demeans him for the answer.

Which is sort of the problem with a lot of the evidence people will sometimes pull to show Azula caring about Zuko - they usually come from moments where either she's manipulating or straight up lying to Zuko or where she is insulting him. It's fine and in fact important to acknowledge that she has more sympathetic moments and is not this completely evil person with no capacity for love or affection (one of the show's central themes is, after all, to suggest that no one is born evil), but I often feel that, when people are making this argument, they are using it an attempt to justify the abuse Azula has committed against him. To say that, because she cares about him, it's okay. And I've seen people go further than that and suggest he's a bad brother for not putting up with her abuse. And I don't agree with either of those stances.

[pickastitch]

so gem being a woman is impactful in basically all of her series since it makes her a minority, but overall, if she were to be a man, the core of the series wouldn't change

except for e1!gem, her being a woman is so fundamental to her character. yeah, in theory, it could still work if she was a man, but it would dullen the story. it is clear that she is forced with responsibility repeatedly with fwhip's bombs, sausage's wither flowers, corrupted sausage, ender dragon egg, xornoth, and so much else. she is always forced into maintaining peace, being a passive figure. with the codhead arc, jimmy (i feel) unfairly asks her to help him against her main alliance, and there is an implication that gem feels she has to help

specifically, with fwhip and sausage, she is constantly being talked over. gem pushes for them to not cause a war, but is ignored by them and almost gives a "oh it's a 2 v 1 vote so your opinion doesn't matter" type of vibe. when sausage was getting into dark magic, gem very explicitly told him that he should be cautious about it. then when he gets corrupted by xornoth via the whole dark magic fwhip looks to her to clean up his mess

with xornoth, there is a silent expectation and agreement that she needs to help solve the issue. although the blame very obviously lies on joey, sausage, and fwhip she is the only one who actively helps in getting rid of them because she has much more pressure on her

AND we have the whole baby dragon thing. when the mother dies, she feels responsible for her death and takes up the egg. she is putting all the responsibility upon herself as she doesn't flaunt that she has the egg around. when corrupted sausage comes to visit and steal the dragon egg, one of the main motivators of dueling sausage in that moment was to protect the dragon. the freeing xornoth thing was just a bonus. when the eggs show signs of hatching, she does everything in her power to help her. going so far as to burn down an entire village. just generally, people need to think about e1gem and her being a mother wayyy more

now with the whole schooling thing, it's no secret that most teachers are women. this does come back to gem's constant need to give back, just this time it's information. the main thing is her and scott, where she pushes him beyond his limit, and scott throws ice everywhere. i've always interpreted this scene as gem holding herself to such a high standard and expects that of other people by accident (projection!!!). and idk what girlhood is other than expectation being so pressurizing that it spills out onto the people around you

e1gem is obviously a caretaker, but i don't think it is by choice. there is a silent expectation by the people, and specifically the men, around her that, "oh it doesn't matter what we'll do gem will always fix it," and she internalizes that and interprets it as the only way she'll be wanted, making the cycle repeat. now i don't think many of the actions are intentionally misogynistic, but subconsciously gem is being placed into this generic woman box by the men around her in canon (to clarify i'm not saying any of these cc are purposely misogynistic, just that their unconscious biases could be interpreted into their characters)

so why does gem accept and play into these roles? she is a people pleaser, but also, yeah, this whole post is why transfem gem makes the most logical sense. we never see her be explicitly uncomfortable with the role itself, just how the role affects her. i would argue that gem is taking on more responsibility by choice, with the most obvious one being the ender dragon egg. even when she is already swamped with work, she just keeps on taking more and more, almost like she has something to prove. she needs to be useful. she needs to fall into these stereotypes. she needs to be seen as a woman in any way possible

[sophsicle]

im not being mean or anything and not judging u at all but why don’t u like taylor??? im just curious bc there is some reasons why u could not like her

I MEAN okay. first things first. taylor swift is fine. like she is totally fine. i don't think she's a villain or anything. she has a fan base that is loud, and obnoxious, and currently dominating the public sphere and so if you are someone who doesn't WORSHIP her (hm hm *me*) it gets to be just a little annoying.

like there are t swift songs i bop out to. i don't have a fundamental problem with her. it is more the way she is spoken about that starts to get on my nerves.

and like. y'know. i don't think her winning album of the year again is something to celebrate. she's grammy bait. pretty lil blond girl who makes palatable pop music. im with jay-z on this one. in general i think she is someone of mediocre ability who has received praise far surpassing what she deserves which, is not her fault, but i find the god-like status she has acquired aggravating

the other thing is that taylor swift has a tendency to adopt political causes exclusively to the extent that they financially benefit her.

she presents herself, especially in her netflix documentary, as someone who wants to be an activist for causes, but she is quite frequently silent about things that she could clearly have a huge impact on *cough cough* Palestine*cough cough*

AND BEFORE someone comes at me with the whole "why do you need celebrities to speak about political issues blah blah blah" two things

like i said, taylor swift has specifically placed herself in this conversation

she doesn't HAVE to do anything, im not saying throw her in jail, but, you know, when you have all the power and all the money and you consistently choose not to use it (except, again, in very specific situations that benefit you) i don't respect you

taylor swift's carbon footprint just from her private jet, not her whole lifestyle, but just her private jet, is unconscionable and that is a specific her problem, like the negative impact she is having on the environment is extreme even when compared to other celebrities, which I’m so sorry, makes her an asshole

taylor swifts specific brand of uneducated white feminism that she tends to weaponize against, usually other women but, people in general, who she just feels are being mean to her is annoying and not helpful to anyone but her

her pursuit of a sexual harassment case as a spring board to launch a new album, just to several years later publicly associate with a man charged with aggravated sexual battery feels hypocritical

LIKE there are worse people in the world

but she does not have the talent or the moral fibre of someone worthy of the adoration she receives

[familyagrestefanblog]

Though, let me clarify something here: Nathalie is just as guilty in how this turned out, in a couple of things her blame significantly outweighs Marinette's. This is important.

But im right now bothered by Marinette more because while the narrative claims Nathalie is good now, the story has also never shied away from properly acknowledging that she's AT MINIMUM a morally grey character.

Marinette on the other hand is consistently glorified, praised, and martyr-ed for absolutely EVERYTHING she does no matter how much it hurts others and harms the story in the long run as long as they end up smiling at her. Her feelings and validation are put first and it is treated as a fundamental truth that Maribug is the greatest girlboss goddess of all time who is always entitled to support, control, and power because it's HER and she says so and if she doesn't get it she's being bullied and oppressed and must make sure she gets what she wants.

This is not the same, and its what consistently turns Maribug's characters into such a moral threat since the retooling of season 4 that makes her involvement alot worse than the involvement of other characters.

Nathalie absolutely is a major problem in this now forwards, but Marinette's long established entitlement to play god and prioritise her feelings over morality whenever she doesn't like something and just hope for the best is the main problem. And this isn't new.

And no, I don't see how gaslighting Adrien now believing that the 14 years of abuse he experienced weren't real and HE is the problem in everything cause HE got it wrong because MARIBUG lovingly says so and teaches him what to truly feel and think is a loving thing to do (as we see at the very end of season 5, Marinette's lies fucked Adrien UP)

This once again just feels like Marinette doesn't want to have a fucking conversation so she's taking the fucked up route that's nicest to HER if she gets through with it.

So she learned nothing. She's still doing what she claimed to have been sorry for and she's still making herself out to be the most generous and caring goddess over it because she has complex human feelings (like everyone else) and Marinette is so spoiled by the narrative that she still takes that as her being right she's just "misunderstood" and not catered to enough.

This is, as always, what it comes down to. The problem is always the same. Marinette may genuinely start out with good and caring intentions, but her execution always ends up priorizing protecting herself and making sure SHE is okay first and foremost.

The problem is Marinette's goddess framing and that she can't be just wrong about something anymore without a giant fuss being made about it that overshadows the actual victims and stops the necessary steps from being taken to just get over the moral problem because the show refuses to not always have Marinette be validated in some way which muddles the morality.

[softantlers]

why do you ship lottienat when nat said "maybe lottie dying wouldn't be the worst thing" on 2x08? gen question bc i just wouldnt want to ship two characters where one of them says the other dying isnt a bad idea

kay, i'll bite.

i think a thing to consider here is that no one really is suggesting that they're canonically together and making out in the shadows during season 2 -- what people enjoy about this ship is the possibility between the character's, the tension, and all of the thematic parallels. it's an enemies to lovers kind of vibe.

so following shauna beating the shit out of lottie & lottie recovering, natalie says something about maybe it not being a bad thing if lottie dies to coach. i'll point out here that season 2 for me kind of represents an evolution in how natalie views lottie, like their relationship is pretty core & they get a lot of moments together as foils over the episodes. tbh not to diminish your point, but when natalie said that, my first thought was "that's so high school of her." it tracks with her frustration/resentment over lottie's influence on the girls. natalie also follows it up by talking about how everyone has changed because of lottie & coach asks if she's jealous. again, the jealousy thing? so high school to me.

personally, i don't think natalie is the type to actually wish ill or death on anybody. she's having a moment of frustration after witnessing extreme violence & not able to understand how they got to this point. tbh i can almost see echoes of the victim blaming she likely directs toward herself wrt her own dad in the way she says that. like in that moment, she's feeling that lottie let this get out of hand -- likely in the same way that she probably blames herself for her dad's death... i think it presents an interesting insight into natalie's character tbh. when shauna points out in season 1 that she has all this guilt & she's dragging other people down? i mean... she's not wrong.

okay going further though. another thing i would touch on is that season 2 is when natalie carries jackie's bones back to the plane. she has a moment with jackie (although they didn't particularly get along before she died) where she sends her off, so to speak, and mentions that she's made everyone jealous one last time. here you can see a bit of natalie's suicidal ideation come into play. honestly, i'm not sure that she thinks dying is the worst thing, in general, at least not that deep in the winter. (i won't make this too long by going into it, but i think that fundamentally changes when she finds purpose as the leader in the spring, re: the way she tells ben that the suicidal feelings will pass.)

another thing: if natalie actually wanted lottie to die, why wouldn't she have suggested they eat her? natalie was fully participating in the queen draw just like everyone else. at that point, everyone pretty much agreed that lottie was off the table. it's telling that there's no scenes where she argues that they should eat lottie. in fact, when she draws the queen, she's fundamentally moving toward dying in lottie's place. by the end of the season, it's my impression (and it's so delicious) that her feelings toward lottie start to change a bit. when lottie gives her the leadership, there's a switch there & for the first time in the winter, natalie feels seen for all her efforts (instead of passively ignored by the other girls). i think it's extremely meaningful to her that lottie did this for her, even if she doesn't have the words to explain it.

anyways, i hope that answers the question? (i know you said /gen but with the state of things i'm always worried they aren't in good faith.) anyways, i don't think that line really needs to be taken so seriously tbh.

[ilikekidsshows]

I think it's fascinating how Marinette fans' argument simply never change. It's still the same general and basic explanations they've been saying for years on end and they all come down to saying that the rest of the narrative beyond Marinette herself doesn't rlly matter.

They think they have to explain that Marinette is 14, has feelings and is stressed and traumatised because that's somehow something that can be missed while watching the show? Or they think that you not liking her means you somehow "forgot" about these information, or you just never considered it and put it together.

That's so wild to me. They genuinely believe that the most basic information about our main character and the story and every single conflict in the show is some secret special knowledge only THEY have.

As if it's impossible to just fundamentally disagree with the morality of a main character's writing. Especially when the main character centric morality hasn't always been a thing, so things obviously changed.

It's so interesting to me that Marinette fans act like they dont understand that it should be NORMAL for a piece of media to be consumable in long term even if you don't vibe with the main character. It's totally valid to just enjoy a piece of media for other characters and the world it shows. It's a sign of a GOOD show, if you can do this.

What ruins it for Miraculous is that the writers are OBSESSED with making everything they established now as one sided as possible, even if the retcons are incredibly mean spirited and even harmful messages to the kids watching, because Marinette must have her way, be the center of the universe, and be validated that she's pure and the greatest person ever.

What ruins Miraculous in this sense is that the show doesn't ALLOW you to ever escape Marinette and her main character centric morality for 5 seconds. Other shows just have the plot be about their main character but they still let the world be on its own. But Miraculous is obnoxiously aggressiv in telling you that it's only get to be about HER, even when it hardly ever IS. That's insanely insecure writing.

Just let Marinette be the MC who we follow as the plot happens around her in the interesting world. She herself barely matters because that's how they WROTE her. But don't make it ABOUT her when it isn't?

---

The Maripologist creed of “she's fourteen, stressed out and traumatized” really just leans into that thing I’ve been saying, how Marinette is the only character treated as a fictional person by the writers and her apologists. Because, like, even when the more reasonable Marinette stans also use this cliché, they at least apply it to every character. The typical Maripologist only cares that everyone understands that Marinette being a teen in the show means that criticizing her is the same as bullying a child, while they hate on other equally 14-year-old characters, who are also stressed out and/or traumatized.

The thing is that I know where this defense came from. It sprung up as a way to defend young protagonists making typical young protagonist mistakes that the fandom was very harsh on them for. It was intended as a way to get people to put a character’s mistake into perspective. “The writers intend this to be a mistake and they're purposefully writing this character as an inexperienced child.”

It's basically the Mabel Pines defense. But, like, even in the case of Mabel Pines, the “this is a fictional character” aspect covers more of her so-called crimes than “the writers are just making her a realistic kid on purpose” does. Because, like, here's the thing: the Weirdpocalypse is the consequence of Mabel thinking: “I’ll stretch out the summer for a bit so that I can come to terms with going home alone” and the entire second act of Weirdpocalypse storyline deals with Mabel being confronted with the issues that caused her to think messing with spacetime was a good idea. You can't say Mabel got off lightly just because there was no big moment of “Dipper found out Mabel got tricked by Bill and now Dipper is mad at her”, when she was put in court to confront her own issues. The writers dealt with the cause of what happened, so it won't happen again.

Never mind how the fans still harping on about Mabel years after the show ended ignore how the Weirdpocalypse was always going to happen because Ford decided “this knowledge that is essential in keeping my arch enemy at bay should never be shared to any allies because I’m a paranoid control freak and what if my arch enemy finds out through them?” I’m not saying Ford should be getting dragged across the coals for “getting off easy” because the writers dealt with even that by having Ford face how his own paranoid behavior was pushing people away (mostly Stan) and his consequences were to have the thing he wanted to prevent happen anyway, have someone else save the day and almost lose the person he pushed away the most permanently.

Like, there are ways to tell if writers are actually holding their characters accountable or if they're just milking a character’s flaws with no intent of payoff and it’s not just about what characters say but how these things are framed. You can tell if the writers are actually interested in dealing with the reasons behind a character’s behavior or if they're just giving you backstory to serve as an excuse. Because, as I said, Ford has to face how him being unnecessarily cryptic and distant with anyone who isn't his protege/new best friend he can manipulate and order around is the very reason he's so lonely and has to deal with things alone.

Ford doesn't let people help him because he keeps unnecessary secrets from people who would help him, or would need that info to not fall into Bill’s hands. Ford takes responsibility for the whole world of his own volition, all because of this kind of thinking. And the thing is, the feud between him and Stan is the result of this attitude and it lasts for alomost as long as Ford is a character in the series, until they finally talk honestly. I will say that before that confrontation Ford grinded my gears with how static he seemed to be as a character, and that was only for half a season, so it is in writers’ best interest to deal with things like characters trying to piss you off on purpose in a timely manner. I can’t say I would have enjoyed Gravity Falls as much as I did, or at all, if Ford was the only character whose perspective was allowed to matter and him acting like a self-important dunce lasted for an entire season, like we’re aiming to do with Marinette gaslighting Adrien.

When characters mess up in Gravity Falls, the plot is gonna twist in a way that specifically gets them to unpack that. When Marinette messes up, the plot is gonna twist in a way where she gets vindicated or the bad thing she did is going to be ignored in favor of her getting pats on the back for failing again. We're to the level of Alya getting mindwiped to justify Marinette not having to actually confront the things she's done and, most importantly, why she keeps doing this. Marinette going: “The truth is too harsh” is not addressing the core of the issue: the fact that she's scared because she can't control how Adrien will react to the truth and how he will see her afterwards, because the truth makes her look bad and Marinette is overly self-conscious of other people’s perception of herself. Marinette being worried about how things will reflect on her is behind so many of the hurtful things Marinette does, so addressing that would be what any good story aims to do, but Miraculous isn't a good story.

And, like, as you said, if the show didn't try to be so Marinette-focused all the time, they wouldn't be shooting themselves in the foot by having Marinette constantly doing annoying things while insisting to the audience that only bad people get annoyed at Marinette. Like, just don't have Marinette cause the inciting incident so often! Focus on other characters! You have a huge cast that used to have a variety of hobbies that weren't just shipping Marinette with Adrien. Have Nathaniel deal with someone plagiarizing his art, deal with Adrien's fans not respecting his right to privacy when it's not about how inconvenient that is to Marinette, have Nino coming up with new gimmicks to try to break it into showbiz and how that could backfire. We had other options than: "Marinette is trying to get close to Adrien, hijinks ensue" and now "Marinette is a lying liar who lies, drama ensues".

[robinmage]

It's curious to me, how the general consensus among others when it comes to Chise's curses are "bad; we need to get rid of it (we just don't know how.)" Which, considering they are both curses made of pain and suffering, makes sense why someone wouldn't want to keep those around.

We (the audience) know vaguely how the curses interact with each other. The dragon's curse: made from strong emotions of anger and despair, provides Chise with her strength and durability against both magical and physical elements, at the cost of her own strength one day tearing herself apart. Cartaphilus' curse prevents her from dying, but offers no protection against injury or decay. Together they "keep each other in check"-- Cartaphilus will keep her alive, the dragon will keep her strong.

A lot of things have happened in the past arc that make it easy to forget the fundamentals of the first season. When the series started, Chise was a few steps away from walking off a roof. Even after she arrived in England, it took a long time before she decided that maybe life wasn't so bad. Her entire life up until that point had been nothing but misery; abandoned and alone, she had no one to protect her from the constant targeting and harassment by both fae and humans alike. She believed that the only way to escape her torment was through death... I think its a facet of her character that goes unfairly unrecognized a lot (especially after the first arc).

When she's in England and is going through her mental/psychological character development, she is still facing the imminent threat of her weak sleigh beggey body constantly failing her. Using magic exacerbates her condition, causing her to be sick and/or incapacitated for significant stretches of time. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, it's frustrating. By the time she realizes she wants to live, her clock is already running quite short.

Her solution is handed to her on a rusted platter. To be "just like everyone else", for once. Finally.

Going to school, hanging out with friends, using magic without it killing her-- all things shes never been able to do before. All thanks to the curses trapped in her. These things that should be considered a horribly tragic fate have now become her salvation. Both physically and mentally, she's the strongest and most resilient she's ever been. Yet, when faced with the idea of liberating herself from her curses...

The curses only work the way they do because they're in sync with each other. Taking away either curse would leave her vulnerable to the other-- the dragon's curse would slowly overwhelm her into a brutally agonizing death, while Cartaphilus' curse would leave her to live and suffer through the constant breaking down of her sleigh beggey body.

When told about the reality of her curses and just how severe they are (not just to her, but to the people around her), she doesn't seem to completely understand what that may mean for herself and her future. Or perhaps, she just doesn't care. After a life where pain and suffering was her "normal", she finally has the means to create something meaningful and positive out of herself. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

She understands on some level that these curses were only ever meant to be temporary. Elias' original goal, to keep Chise alive in spite of her sleigh beggey curse, has not changed. Tacking on two more curses was not a part of the plan, and though they've offered a temporary solution and some time, curses are called curses for a reason. They cannot be relied upon. They've got to go.

But getting rid of those curses (both, or either) essentially puts her back at square one. Back to the pain, discomfort, and illness. She probably won't be able to use magic without hurting herself, too. She's gained freedom in both mind and body for the first time in her life. Sure, she encounters a few hiccups, but considering what she's used to, this is a big step up.

Something has finally given her the power and freedom to spread her wings and fly. Would she be able to clip her own feathers just because that power is "supposed" to be "bad"?

Could she? Could you?

Through it all, everyone she's come across has appointed her curses as a problem. Everyone, except...

[blorger]

jkr doesn't like Draco but is also desperately trying to make some sort of point with his depiction, I just think it doesn't translate very well to her audience. - can you explain more?

and jkr is terminally incapable of making a femme-coded villain that doesn't read as attractive - what do you mean by this?

Just to clarify, you're not asking me to prove that jkr dislikes Draco, right? Because that would take ages.

If you're wondering what point jkr was trying to make with Draco's depiction, well... in the post you're referring to I pointed out that we as readers often end up interpreting Draco as good looking (because of the way he's described) and that is just one of the many things that proves the huge disconnect between what jkr wanted Draco to be perceived like and how he's generally understood by the fandom.

Draco was deliberately created to be an amalgamation of things jkr dislikes:

he's evil wealthy

With the unquestioning belief in his own superior status he has imbibed from his pure-blood parents, he initially offers Harry friendship on the assumption that the offer needs only to be made to be accepted. The wealth of his family stands in contrast to the poverty of the Weasleys; this too, is a source of pride to Draco, even though the Weasleys’ blood credentials are identical to his own.

[x]

Notice how jkr herself compares the Weasleys, her genteel poverty-coded ideal family, to the nasty rich Malfoys. Reading jkr's books gives you the impression that she feels some type of way about rich people; on the one hand she started writing hp at a time in her life where she didn't have much money so she gave Harry a secret fortune as a sort of wish-fulfillment, on the other hand, despite what she says she definitely believes that experiencing poverty makes you somehow a better person.

2. he's pathetic

jkr has stated multiple times that Draco is someone to be pitied; in a series where courage=nobility of spirit Draco is a consummate coward and his deliberate femme-coding is there to further give you an overall negative impression of him.

3. he' s a Bad Guy

Like, Draco is on the wrong side of things for a reason, not only that he's on the wrong side in a way that jkr considers to be near irredeemable. Despite jkr herself acknowledging that Draco's beliefs are a natural result of his upbringing

I pity Draco, just as I feel sorry for Dudley. Being raised by either the Malfoys or the Dursleys would be a very damaging experience, and Draco undergoes dreadful trials as a direct result of his family’s misguided principles

[x]

She still considers him to be fundamentally unlikeable.

[x, x, x]

We're not supposed to like Draco, we're not supposed to sympathise with him, we're not supposed to see him as fundamentally redeemable. jkr (as clearly shown by her terf ways) is frankly incapable of feeling empathy for people whose experience cannot in some way shape or form relate back to her and will therefore never truly understand why people like Draco.

Draco, just like Pansy, is built in the image of a standard bully

[x]

and in the hp books, a series with a very black and white depiction of morality, a grey character like Draco can never truly be redeemed.

I don't know about you but my image of Draco differs greatly from jkr's. As I pointed out previously, the books read very differently if you don't hold the exact same worldview as jkr and that is precisely why Draco is a popular character; people are still able to empathise with him, despite jkr's intentions, and many people get a completely different, more nuanced read of his character.

As for the femme coding thing, I'm afraid I was using a hyperbole. I was thinking of jkr's bonkers depiction of Tom Riddle when I wrote that but there's quite a few characters that read very feminine but aren't described very flatteringly (Percy and Slughorn come to mind).

Hopefully this is the answer you were looking for,

xoxo

[pynkhues]

What is your favourite aspect of Gabrielle's character? Are there any scenes or dialogues you most want them to adapt in Season 3?

I love that she's unavailable to others. I love that she's selfish, I love that she's a survivor, with no interest in being anything more than that, I love that the second she gets the chance to live a life that's only her own, she takes it, and that as a character, she chooses to exist in her own interiority.

I've mentioned it before on here, but there's this really recurring theme in the books of these vampies wanting to be known and understood by others, to be seen in ways that might not always be the truthful version of themselves, but somehow never stops being something honest too.

Gabrielle fundamentally doesn't need or want that as a character, and it really sets her apart to me. She doesn't ever ask to be understood, to be known, to be seen, she only ever wants to live a life that belongs to her. I don't think there are many characters like that in the series, but I actually don't think there are many characters like that in general. We tend to imbue characters with our own need for connection, no matter how twisted up or arm's-lengthed or badly-motivated, but Gabrielle truly can lie down at the hearth within herself, stoke her own fire and be enough for herself.

Is that learnt? Did she claw her way inside herself to try and keep what she could in an abusive marriage, to fill the space of too-many dead children, to survive a life that told her she was never more than her parents' money and a womb? Or was she born that way? I don't know! That's what I love about her character. Every time she's given a voice, she uses it to tell us that her life, her interiority, her self is none of our business, and in an age (and a series!) that lives and dies on oversharing, I just think that's neat.

There are so many scenes that I want from the book - I want her madcap rescue of Lestat and Louis at the end of it all, I want her and Armand facing off, I want her teaching Nicki how to hunt (and oh, I want it juxtaposed with her never having taught Lestat how to read, and Armand telling Lestat that nobody has ever loved either of them enough to teach them anything - education as an act of love, my beloved), but I think more than anything, I want her monologue about childbirth after the wolfkilling.

I love that scene, and it's incredible writing from Anne, but the comparison of Lestat killing the wolves to Gabrielle's experience of being in labour, of birth and death being ever connected to her (and maybe Lestat too), of this idea of being utterly alone in acts of creation and destruction, and knowing that no one can ever bridge that divide - - it's a scene of all time for me, and I hope the show delivers.

[whiskawaybelf]

I saw someone post about Pacifica only ever getting mentioned in relation to the twins and I can’t find that post (if it was you, I'm so sorry, let me know and I'll update the post with your username) I thought that was so fair and valid and I love her, so I have like five big things about her character that fascinate me but I’ll just do one at a time.

One of the first things was Pacifica finding out that her family didn’t found Gravity Falls. Her parents know this, they don’t seem affected but she is. We hear her take it badly and ask them if this is true.

Here’s the thing, Pacifica is introduced as someone just generally awful and she is but she also has been fed a steady stream of bullshit about why the Northwests deserve to be adored. How they’ve earned it, they founded the town, they made deals and worked for their money and have elevated themselves with their own fundamental skills and talents. They have a right to their pretension. (I think that’s partially what the bell is, you have to earn your place as our perfect daughter. If you don’t behave correctly then this family has no use for you. Only the best and brightest and the most compliant, if you won't be that then what is your use?).

We see from her introduction that her fear of failure is worth more than her earning that crown, she paid McGucket in order to win, but she makes a hell of an effort where surely she could have thrown some money into the crowd and won without breaking a sweat.

She, again, makes a massive effort to beat Mabel at the mini golf, we know she's good. Genuinely, has put in a lot of work kind of good. She needs to prove herself. She got the hole that Mabel didn't get before their competition, that could have been enough, but no, it has to be official. She had to prove she is actually, actually better. Faking it isn't enough. And she ends up respecting that Mabel is also good and put up a hell of a fight (I also super duper want to get into her anger and punching the door in that episode but I have a whole separate post about Pacifica's anger, so we'll get to that at a later date.)

In Northwest Mansion Mystery, she's so proud of herself and this dress she chose, and her parents inform her that it's not good enough. And she shrinks. She finds out her whole family legacy is a lie and it genuinely affects her, she's disgusted and disappointed in her family. If they behaved that way and all the things her family earned were actually stolen, then does she actually have a right to her pride and pretension? Is shrinking herself to be the right kind of daughter, one that deserves her family name even worth it? And she's been repeating her family's cycle of cruelty, deception, and unearned entitlement . It rattles her to the bone. She doesn't deserve what she has, she hasn't worked for it, her family hasn't either. She's confronted with her family being the worst, her being the worst and the fact that it's not everyone else that is the problem. It's her. All this work only to be... worthless. She didn't know that. She was so conditioned (bell is another post, obvi) to never question, so she didn't. She gets a crash course in guilt and so many things slot into place that fundamentally alter how she sees her life. In the course of one evening.

Pacifica protests her father's bootlicker attitude towards Bill, she's on the team sent to go rescue Ford even though she probably could have refused. She's trained to be the best because that's what the Northwests are. But then when they're not, she has to alter what all her work has been for, who she can trust and who she wants to be. She was always a spoiled rich girl, but she's also one who never rested on her laurels and who did have a fundamental moral compass (really, really, really deep inside) and the changing of her world view was traumatic for her in a million different ways. And then she went, 'Well, fuck it, it is what it is, let's start breaking the cycle, I guess.'

Anyway, I love my abrasively perfectionist gremlin child. The end.