#like I do get bitter abt random things in the past but it doesn't make me feel like I should change my whole course of action to achieve

[oceanmoss]

It's always so concerning to some of my friends that i can never conceive of a future like I dont have any genuine plans or aspirations other than what seems to be the best course of action for the next year or so but like???? It's honestly a blessing to me I love never feeling the weight of wasted potential or what I couldve had or should become or whatever because whatever's in front of me is just my reality now lol ive never felt like im failing any ideal or smth I'm just trying to have a good time and be a good loving person who cares abt the rest

[angevinyaoiz]

Love the designs in the new comic! How would Richard's later years look like in the AU?

I actually haven't thought about how the boys would look like or what their lives would be outside of my Humorously Recreating Historical events--especially since the timeline is very compressed so everyone is basically speedrunning 30-40 years of Events in like 1-2 teenage summers lol. I wrote a lot of thoughts below (also going into overthinking of How Burger King Universe even works), TLDR the binary is he'd either be a Dead Teen who rocked out a little too hard and made the wrong random person mad or he'll grow up and become a completely normal guy with no relation or connection at all to the historical Richard the lionheart aside from that tumultuous period, but to do so one has to exit the story I make in my head hahaah

Burger King Edgyverse : In this verse it would prob sort of be one of those really edgy teen narratives that follow the Richard timeline of he goes to the crusade concert, has massive interpersonal drama stemming from the 10000 personal and familial issues that escalates and catastrophizes all the relationships, goes home, tries to fix things, continues to have massive drama, maybe comes close to fixing it but then ends up dying really randomly out of some weird karma situation IDK maybe it's like the legend where some kid who he forgot about HATES him and then idk hit him with their car or smth on Châlus street while he's busy beefing. And then everyone is finally like damn.....he was a hot mess but he did some cool stuff so now we are all going to watch his videos and think Abt his life from another angle recontextualized and we now think he was cool now (PR internet movement gets built up. ). idk I'm a bitch who loves weirdly anticlimactic tragedy so that's one universe.

Kind of is my processing and sticking to the main points of the historical Richard life which always struck me as very Dramatic and almost cyclical, which Is very fun for me. Idk there is something very "cursed" about all the family members and their ends and relationships so following up with that (in a more modern sensibility way) is fun to me.

ALTERNATIVELY:

I also thought about...what if characters in the Bk universe aren't cursed to that eternal return...idk. I had a funny thought earlier like that Geoffrey in BK universe doesn't die, he just becomes self-aware of and chooses to exit bc he's tired of the bullshit hahaa (tv equivalent of actor having to leave the show). In my mind, for the Narrative, some people do have to die, namely in my mind Junior does die in BK universe and shifts the mood from haha sillie goofy conflict to more strained and bitter. After all it IS an AU. Maybe BK Richard can leave being "Richard" timeline behind and be just a guy in an unrelated story who grows up past the predetermined historical event timeline parallels and can be a normal person with average life sort of thing. But that's beyond my scope since I'm mostly interested and focused on reinterpreting specific dynamics in that timeline, and deviating too much is when characters feel less AU and more distant and become different People to me (which would be the point...the historical figure must die for a person to live? Idk.

I know this feels like a weird distinction to make, and prob plenty of ppl probably see my delusions and think it's ALREADY so deviant but its more internal like in my mind I like having specific connections to historical stuff even if it's a weird tangled thread heheh. In general though, all is in good fun.....it's late so I may write later so apologies if this makes no sense at all but thanks for reading this far if u got it hahaah

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

[skunkpixels]

Like... im gonna be real here and say that ive been a little irrationally bitter towards at and sv/tfoe purely because at the height of the whole su crit thing, adventure time and star vs were like the leading "thing that is way better in every shape and form that people should pay attention to instead" cartoons. Like people even straight up moved on to claiming that they had better lgbt rep because of non canon relationships or ppl kissing in the background like. That's not me ragging on them if there really are censors in place but dont... act like those two things are somehow better than ruby and sapphire

So im at least? Happy? That everyones immense hateboner for su has died down to this point but at the same time i am very very worried about the existence of crit blogs in general right now. It just doesn't seem like the solution? Not that im claiming to have an answer but like. Yknow

The thing with having an entire community built around picking apart different wrong aspects of a show is that, like the su crit community, it can tend to start off with a good intention in mind, go on with that decently well, and then just keep going after everything useful has been said until it's just a big fucking mess of people clamoring for problems that don't exist.

Like, i used to follow the person who really coined the whole crit thing (i later unfollowed for reasons outside of that, my general contempt for su crit has nothing to do with them) and their blog was just kind of one blog. They made it because people didn't want to see constant crit of su on their dash, but they felt like there was a lot they needed to say. To this day, I still find that a fair goal.

Im not gonna say that problems began the minute people started joining in because honestly there was still a whole lot to talk abt in terms of what su got wrong so it was cool to see other perspectives on it + get some interesting other ideas for what they might have done.

The thing is, though, particularly with the hiatuses su gets, people just kind of ran out of things to talk about. I was noticing some uncomfortable trends before, but the minute people started trying to continue after the fact is when it all just turned to useless complaining.

I fell out of crit stuff a little after the "Steven is a bad person for accidentally giving Connie's eyesight back" discourse happened.

So then, basically, by that point, people really fucking wanted something to be mad about. Su wasn't airing much, we weren't getting much side content, by that point it was time to just. Reach for shit. What was worse is thay they didn't even keep it on their own posts anymore. Random posts made by fans and little pictures from crewniverse would always have like seven blogs in the notes trying to make some epic funney potshot at the show. As much as crits hate to admit it, yes, even innocent little posts enjoying something got overrun with people telling them every reason it's actually not good (thinking back to that animation gifset where op wanted to say how nice they thought the animation was and half the notes were people borderline mocking them).

New episodes came out and somehow mysteriously nothing was ever good about them. Long, obnoxious fucking posts littered my dash which were basically just unfunny thought bubbles pasted over caps from the show (which op put in the main tag and refused to put in a readmore, mind you, because they thought it was progressive or some shit). People littered tags in hate saying "well what im saying is relevant just block me :///" as if it hasnt always been fucking rude to put hate in random tags? Every new episode i saw just had this feeling of "i dont want to see the fandom reaction to this anymore" because i was always on guard for every little wrong thing and dreading the way people would blow it out of proportion. Every character ever became abusive, Lapis and Pearl were suddenly the worst characters in the world, Rose was unlikable, Rosepearl was an unacceptable ship, blue diamond cried too much, nothing could be revealed without a full explanation on it thirty seconds later, it was pure hell where everyone wanted to put their two cents in but none of them had even one to give so they just resorted to tossing in dirt. If you even tried to point that out people would just assume you were too uncomfortable about people hating the show to just grow up and take it.

And, honestly, in my mind, that's something that'll probably just. Inevitably happen to any crit community. Groups of people together whose only connecting trait is "I have a problem with this thing" will always eventually turn into "i passionately hate this one thing and will do anything to prove im right" because thats just the people they always interact with and it's all they want to hear.

I scrolled for a little on the star vs blog and honestly? I didn't find anything I found to be overtly ridiculous. It was mostly just talking about pony head (eugh), body diversity problems, how the show treats girls, etc, which is all things i already saw from the couple of episodes i watched. But, a crit community's a crit community. Also, considering i saw them rbing from su crit blogs as well, im extremely wary about where something like this is headed. Especially since star vs is not something i can put judgement on myself.

I remember what happened to su as soon as one person had a problem with it. All of a sudden all of its representation was bad, all of its storytelling was bad, and it was tossed into the bin of "cringy things to enjoy X3" where nobody even talked about it anymore.

Even though hiatuses had some part in su's decline in relevance, the ball's already rolling and i dont want to see othet cartoons get the same treatment just because people can't be bothered to employ nuance in the ways they address a problem

Just found a star v critical blog and i dont rlly have the energy to check if there are any of those for other cartoons by this point nd i have extremely mixed feelings