#narratively and morally yeah it’s a big fucked up what’s going on

[david-talks-sw]

I got a good feeling about "The Acolyte"

Not even kidding. Like, I've spoken before about why I'm wary of it.

George Lucas' Star Wars is something that intentionally has black and white morality, rather than shades of gray. Those movies are meant for kids and projecting a "gray" morality onto them then proclaiming it was George's vision all along is doing so in bad faith.

The narrative of the Prequels doesn't frame the Prequel Jedi in as negative a light as Leslye Headland, Dave Filoni, etc etc do.

See here for more details, but bottom line: yeah, a show that has a darksider as the underdog is bound to demonize the Jedi (who are the actual underdogs in the Prequels), and obviously that rubs me the wrong way.

BUT.

The trailer looks fucking cool. It really really does.

And more importantly? I've done some research... and Leslye Headland is ticking a lot of good boxes, in my book.

1. The Acolyte won't be a 10-hour movie.

I've criticized Disney Plus shows before, explaining that a big source for most of their issues is that these series are being structured as "long movies" rather than, y'know, actual shows.

But in this interview with Collider, Headland addresses that: it'll be a series. Not a long movie that you need to watch across four weeks.

Thank God. You have no idea how much that comforts me. Finally a showrunner who's, y'know, actually running a show.

And this goes hand in hand with what she told IGN, here, about how she's going about building suspense.

Yes! Exactly! That's how it's supposed to be!

Like, compare this to Baylan Skoll's storyline in Ahsoka.

In no possible way was that emotionally-fulfilling. For 8 episodes we had no idea what he was after, and the season ended where we still don't know. What does he want? What is he after? Your guess is as good as mine, it's something Mortis-related.

So yeah. Maybe getting the Emmy-nominated trained screenwriter on board to run this was a good idea.

2. Maybe the Jedi will not be as demonized as I originally thought.

Don't get me wrong. 80% of what she says about the Jedi makes me cringe. It's the typical fan's interpretation and y'all know I disagree with that interpretation.

It's painful to see her refer to the Jedi as an institution (not how the Prequels' narrative frames them) and to see her frame "Balance" in the "oh there's so many of them and just two Sith, that means the Force is out of balance" meaning... but at least she acknowledges the Jedi are a benevolent institution.

They're not an "elitist force hiding in their ivory tower" as others have described the Jedi.

Moreover, there'll be a variety of Jedi POVs, many personalities.

Yord Fandar, is described as a strictly by-the-book Jedi Knight and guardian from the Jedi Temple, is an overachiever and a rule follower.

The question now becomes: will the narrative frame him as "your typical Jedi" or is it just this one guy? I'm hoping it's the latter.

I also like how her reasoning goes re: Jedi drawing their lightsabers.

Which explains the hand-to-hand combat seen in the trailer.

This teenager is coming at Carrie-Ann Moss with a dagger, of course the Jedi won't draw her saber.

3. She's a fan of Star Wars... but a screenwriter first.

You can tell in the interviews she's a fan. She's using words like "BBY" and "EU" casually. In the above-linked interviews she's bringing up the Nightsisters, Timothy Zahn, The Clone Wars, she mentions she has a tattoo of Ralph McQuarrie's concept art of Leia, the High Republic books, etc.

She's done her homework. She's a fan.

But the vibe I'm getting from these interviews is that she's weaving in these various lore-elements in a more organic way, rather than in the "fan-servicey" way Dave Filoni has been doing in his shows.

The references and Easter Eggs will be there, but the narrative won't bend over itself just so you can get it. Crafting a good story comes first, and Andor is a beautiful illustration of why this is true.

Which is why I was never bothered about one of the writers never having watched Star Wars before getting the job. You need those fresh eyes when you're tackling something of this scale.

That makes sense to me. Maybe it's because of my own screenwriting experience, but yeah. That out-of-the box perspective is precious.

And like, obviously, that writer watched the films eventually, but for some reason everyone who bitched about Headland omitted that detail and opted for a more bad faith interpretation.

Hm. Wonder why.

Maybe it's the same reason that months ago this clipped audio circulated socials without context, in which she debates whether Star Wars only came from George Lucas and only Lucas is the key.

The FULL context of that interview reveals that she's actually:

debating the "autheur director" myth and positing that it was achieved by a collective of excellent filmmakers and craftspeople that George was skilled and smart enough to recruit...

the studios now think it's a simple as hiring one guy and throwing money at him, because they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. See Napoleon (2023) for example.

Yes, she also does a jab to the Prequels, which speaks to the generation of fans she's a part of... but overall she's giving Lucas props whilst also stating an ideological difference, that's it!

George is a proponent of the "autheur" theory, Leslye isn't.

However, guess what, in like half the talks George gave post-selling Star Wars? He's giving shoutouts to everyone who helped make the first film, even remembering their names.

So I'm not even sure he'd vehemently disagree with Leslye, in fact they'd prolly have a conversation about it and immediately bitch about how stupid studio executives are :D

But that's not as incendiary, is it? Again, the more I do the research, the more it feels like the reason most of these influencers are hating on her is purely sexist.

I mean, on IGN she's even acknowledging that she does plan on taking stock of fan reactions for Season 2.

It's not a guarantee that she'll incorporate the feedback, but at least that's more consideration than, say, JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson gave the fandom.

She's even bringing the moral ambiguity that the Gray Jedi-loving edge-lords love so much.

"No, she's a woke feminist! Anything she does is evil! Eww, girls!"

🙄

Needless to say... I'm gonna give it a shot.

I think it's gonna be a good show, I think it's gonna be a solid story.

I'm crossing my fingers that they won't as biased against the Jedi as it seems they'll be. Even if they are... if it's still an enjoyable experience, I'll gloss over it.

As @gffa states in this post:

Worst case? It's not a story from George. I can dismiss it from my headcanon without a moment's hesitation :D

[sir-adamus]

One thing I love about RWBY is how it manages to thread that needle of, "That's a person" & "They have a reason for being this fucked up" without forgetting or failing to convey, "Doesn't mean they aren't still being bastard!"

See Adam, Ironwood, Salem, Mercury, hell even Jac got some of that treatment, as much as his narrative role needed and more than someone like him would usually be given.

In that regard though, it does always leave me vexed and confounded that people act like the Brothers will be some big exception. As though their issue is just that they are a little confused and don't understand some things, but once its explained and or they go home, it'll all be chill.

Like, sorry but if the woman they tortured for potentially millions of years still gets the "She's still being a bastard" treatment I cannot envision why the Brothers genocide would avoid being framed or treated as such.

yeah it's kind of weird how people have a blindspot for the gods being petty, arrogant assholes in the backstory; like it's been a weirdly common trend to see people making posts claiming it's fine for the gods to be assholes because they're gods (and therefore shouldn't be held to any kind of moral standard whatsoever), or thinking that post-volume 9, now the goal of the show is RWBY reuniting the relics to summon the gods because "the world is united" and the gods will deal with Salem.

like, the terms of Salem's immortality are made very clear, and these jackasses aren't gonna rescind on their punishment of her (which i need to point out was immensely disproportionate even before the mass genocide. "you need to learn a lesson, so now you can't die until you do" is fucked up) just because everyone else is on the same side.

and on top of that, the gods returning only means hanging a Sword of Damocles over humanity's head, because if they don't stay united, then it's just gonna lead to another disproportionate tantrum and Remnant getting the full scorched earth treatment. not to mention the gods dealing with Salem would ultimately prove her right and be immensely unsatisfying narratively (it would literally be a deus ex machina)

RWBY borrows heavily from Final Fantasy and other JRPGs, and a major recurring element in those sorts of games is that defeating the present big bad in the narrative is never the end of the story, there's always a greater scope threat that's usually either your dad or god or both. coupled with how Light and Dark are heavily influenced by mythological gods and how those are often petty, short-sighted and abusive bastards who cause more problems than they solve, and we've recently been outright told that the Brothers have completely misunderstood what 'balance' is and how that's factored into their conflicts and decision making, and how that then filters down to their treatment of Salem, demanding she understand something they don't and expecting her to learn it through the punishment they inflicted on her only ended up causing more damage

Salem's defeat has to be factored into ending her curse, and the end of volume 9 makes heavy implication that it's RWBY, not the Brothers, who are going to achieve that. but even with Salem then out of the picture, the Brothers are still a threat, they still wiped out the population of an entire planet for childish reasons and routinely abandon their creations; someone else could go for the relics to try and summon them, so there's the potential damage they could do to Remnant again, and who knows what same horrors and punishments the Brothers are inflicting on the worlds they've gone on to make and abandon since?

[autisticrosewilson]

So I’ve seen some Jason fans talk about how even tho they like him they don’t agree with his kill policy and how at the end of the day his stance on killing is wrong and I don’t really get it. Is it because they’re applying real world ethics to it? Cause yeah obviously killing in real life is wrong, but in a fictional world where it’s been proven over and over that villains, rogues, and violent criminals will escape and cause more harm, he says only way to truly stop them is to kill them, I don’t see how he is wrong? Is it completely motivated by his personal experience with death? Yeah, absolutely. But so are Cass’s beliefs and everyone accepts her stance on killing as valid. I would really appreciate your perspective on it because I’m wondering if I am missing something given how many Jason fans I’ve seen with this opinion.

I totally agree with you! I'm a big fan of Jason being someone who believes that killing is necessary and moral, and that he's not even wrong about it most of the time.

I think what it comes down to is the percentage of people who don't actually read the comics. The people who think Jason should give up killing forever are either the younger "but liking characters who are bad people makes you bad!" Crowd or Batfam/fanon people who are willing to saw off any edges necessary to make all their blorbos fit together. Both of these people obviously run the risk of completely misunderstanding the character and the overall role Jason is meant to play narratively.

I won't put the blame entirely on the fans though, Jason has had a LOT of bad writing (Scott Lobdell when I get you) and the writers kind of hate him, so I think us Jason fans are kind of naturally pretty defensive about Jason because god knows he's been through the character assassination ringer.

Personally I think that if you genuinely can't stand a core and fundamental trait about a character, maybe you shouldn't engage with that character. Jason fans who want Jason to never kill again, to follow all of Bruce's rules, to forgive Tim for everything (shit talking him while he was DEAD), to be besties with Cass and what the fuck ever should just go read Stephanie's comics. It really does seem like she's the character you guys want. And not the happy go lucky ditz that fanon made up, I mean feral, compassionate, rebellious, insanely intelligent and witty canon Steph.

[zeroducks-2]

Zero you mentioned hating on people who get prissy about people shipping characters they dont actively ship and it sparked a LONG burning question of mine concerning bias shipping culture in Batfam fandom. Fans who attack and complain and make a big show of hating on ‘batcest’ ships ARE SO DUCKING HYPOCRITICAL OH MY LORD. I don’t understand why it’s considered okay to ship Dick x Barbara or Barbara x Bruce, or Steph x Tim. But seen as a cardinal sin to ship Jason x Dick, or Jason x Tim or Bruce x Dick??? Especially when the only argument antishippers make is ‘that’s gross their brothers/father and son and that’s incest 😤’. I’m sorry? Did you not just post nsfw Dickbabs content? Did DC not make Steph and Tim romantic love interests? Is that not incest too? Considering the fandom classifies all of them as family, and in a lot of fan spaces and fanfics, are they not interacting and being written as a family unit? I see SO many people blog about Bruce seeing Babs as his first daughter, or being making weird headcanons on Bruce and Steph’s relationship and donning it ‘tired uncle!Bruce and weird niece!steph core’. Like you obviously see them connected to Bruce through familial ties, and yet you’re okay with them dating Dick and Tim who are legally adopted by Bruce and who are also known as his sons? The irony. The hypocrisy. The ducking mockery of it all. Personally, I don’t think the issue that antishipper have is the ‘incest’ part but rather the ‘gay’ part of it all. Game of Thrones taught me that the general public actually don’t care about fictional incest between characters as long as it’s not between two male characters. Because lord forbid the’s a couple of queers in media.

I have been talking about this many times and I have no qualms talking about it some more:

✨ IT'S NOT INCEST, YALL JUST HOMOPHOBIC ✨

The whole idea around "batcest" makes no sense. These are people who did not grow up together, aren't related and never even lived under the same roof. Incest is not a spectrum, incest means sexual intercourse with a relative within the prohibited degree of consanguinity, consanguinity means BLOOD RELATIONSHIP, and these people DO NOT HAVE IT.

But even then, they are a bunch of hypocrites because I have not ever seen anyone batting an eye over Dickbabs or Timsteph (or Jaybabs, or Timbabs - yeah depending on the time period or the media, poor Babs has been passed around a lot). Their relationship is the exact same as the boys' when it comes to shared experiences. Steph has even been a Robin. But nobody cares because 1, DC is not pushing the "family rhetoric" with the girls all that much since they treat them as lower importance characters (when they're there at all), and 2, it's not queer relationships.

And this is ultimately what makes me go insane about queer kids parroting anti bullshit. Censorship is the weapon used by bigots to criminalize, punish and ultimately erase queer people from existence, it takes to study queer history for five minutes to understand this. You can see it happening in every fandom space where every type of queer ship gets put through some sort of moral sieve, and they WILL find reasons why it's unethical to ship it. Did you know that now shipping Dick/Wally is problematic because "Wally has a wife" ? So basically they're turning the very reason why fandom was born (exploring something different from the standardized heteronormative/amatonormative way of doing everything when it comes to narrative) into something pRoBLeMaTiC.

And these little fucking idiots keep spouting queerphobic nonsense while feeling morally righteous, not understanding that they are playing the game of the same people who if they could would shoot them in the street for being anything but straight and cis. And I'm not even taking into consideration the amount of harassment that comes from antis who think bullying and suibaiting someone over the perceived honor of fictional characters is okay.

BTW it's working. Just to name one, tumblr is not even doing its little rainbow capitalism number this year, because it's not a good look to be queer friendly anymore. Antis are helping the people who want us dead get to a spot where being anything but "normal" is illegal. When it happens, and if we keep going the way that we are now it will happen, it's going to be their fault too.

[33446699]

I think that a lot of fans are claiming to dislike Golden because Golden is a pop album, and they're trying to seem edgy and cool. The truth is, if Golden was released by a Western artist or any artist that isn't Jungkook, they would've ate Golden down.

Unfortunately, the label of Jungkook being a fuckboy/player has been placed on him, even before the release of Golden. Ever since his debut, every move of his has been hyper-analysed. In 2019, before he started experimenting with piercings and tattoos, he was infantilized. This infantilization was to the extent where a fan brought an infant hat to a fan meeting and made him wear it even though he looked visibly uncomfortable. After he started experimenting with piercings and tattoos, he was sexualised. Fans started claiming him to be a red flag because he is a virgo, and his name starts with a J. They claimed that he was a fuckboy, who played with a lot of women's hearts. Jungkook has never been not extremely perceived from fans.

Instead of choosing to listen to his words, they decided to claim that he chose to do songs like Seven and 3D to play into the image that he has. When it's not the case. A simple interview would fix their narrative but I guess when it doesn't fit their narrative, they won't believe Jungkook's words.

Yeah ,I agree to what you are saying .I also don't have any problem if people have different taste to whats in Golden as it's really normal that not everyone will have the same taste in music .what I find really annoying and immature is them giving so useless reasons that's when they are trying to seem edgy and cool ,it really shows how immature and ignorant they are.

To criticise something you have to have enough knowledge about something to actually act like a critic .To give opinion about something you should have enough ethics ,morals and maturity to not do personal attacks on him but give your valid reasons as to why you don't like Golden but sadly I don't see it here on Tumblr atleast . People do be mostly act really childish here and thinking they really achieved something by mocking him in one way or other It's just sometimes shows their own insecurities too .

Yeah ,they would eat it up if it was from a western artists or from any western label .I stopped bothering about this particular thing because I think maybe BTS and Jungkook have set the Bar so high that people feel a level of accomplishment by trying to say things like western validation and other things in an attempt to seem cool .Cause that's the level of motivation and dreams I want to have and everyone who wants to be successful in life have in their head to set a goal and reach a level where you set a trend and people and their fav artist aspire to be.

People are way too obsessed with him and not at all in a healthy way .The hyper analysis of his every move is the reason also why we have so many delulus in this community .No way if they act normal and don't put a Microscope on his every move they will breathe peacefully and he will too .

That's what I am trying to say he was insanely infantilized before he had any tattoos and as soon as he got them they labelled him as fuck boy .Some people really be treating him as their personal toy they can make him do anything and honestly a large number of people still have those fixated views on him as to how he should act and how he should behave.

"His songs are emotional less .Only My and SWY was better.It feels only commercial ,it feels like he made it in a rush ,it feels he was given these songs by this and that's ,he didn't write these songs that's why it feels empty ,he is greedy because he craves numbers , success and money which everyone do but they have problem when someone dreams big ?"

Some people really wants him to stuck in that My you and still with you era and not let him try or experiment different things because he even himself said that he as an artist wants to experiment.

Sadly people want to him to go on a path they have decided themselves and it's really creepy in a way .Yeah ,I remembered that how uncomfortable he was because of this insane level of infantilization .Every K-pop idol monitors what their fans are doing and he even mentioned how he monitors fans and everything related to him.It's really embarrassing that not only people do this to him in real life they do more openly online .

Oh yeah ,how can I forget this the insane level of sexualisation he go through on a daily basis and how people justify their actions .Just with tattoos and him changing his attitude a lot bit and people are behaving like crazy .From an astrological point of view that's really ridiculous how sometimes people label certain zodiacs and limit certain traits to some specific points in astrology and when it comes to jungkook ,him being Virgo is something and the things I have read about just limiting everything negative to him just because he is a virgo is so ridiculous that I sometimes really be questioning their knowledge in astrology and their common sense .

They still claims he plays with women hearts and is a playboy .That's another mainpoint we have two main things here

1) people who wants to label him as a play boy

2) people who wants him to be pious/pure /flawless /untouched /unscathed

and is breaking every women heart and is doing this and that but the moment you start agreeing with them you will know how most of them visibly start getting uncomfortable that why he isnt the way they want him to be and why he is living a normal life and is doing normal human things which is a flaw in most of them eyes

He is sadly the target of everyone even someone who is even 1% percent familiar with K-pop he is in that zone .

You totally nailed it here. When it doesn't fix their narratives they don't believe his words .

The things I have read alone on Tumblr and them be having discussions you know slightly come in a not so normal type of zone (feeling so comfortable attacking him and immediately shut down everyone who raises a question ok then .They feel uncomfortable how seven and 3D isnt a song which is to their liking so act mature leave it here but no They will go and say

" It's not him he must be forced to do seven and 3D ,lyrics are dirty ,song is dirty ,it feels like he wants to f*CK every woman he can get ,aren't they creepy to think like this (sorry but to think sex as something dirty and creepy thing you really need a lot of healing to differentiate what is normal and what is not and if this is a limit which is only for jungkook that he shouldn't sing these songs ,I wonder why ??He is like a play boy in those songs and it's not about true love,true love is this and that ,what he is portraying in his video is this and that etc "

People who are shallow inside are shallow on outside. They may feel by being like this they did something but it only shows alot more about themselves than it should and sometimes it reveals about more about themselves than they want to reveal about him .

My answer to your ask got really long .The way jungkook is treated in this tarot and astro community and that too I am talking about those people who doesn't have something nice to say about him .It was also a reason I asked that poll in which I asked about which album they like because at some point I really felt that I atleast should know that what kind of music taste do people have on here and what is going on because I need to comprehend the reasons and the what's and whys

[amaltheas-garden]

Some food for thought: I am an a Dany fan who supports a very nuanced reading of her that makes most other Dany fans accuse me of secretly hating her (lol) and I also do ship her with Jon because she’s had horrendous experiences with creepy older men and I would find it cathartic for her to find love with someone her age.

BUT I don’t like the idea of them just being king and queen and having a standard fantasy romance. I think there’s a distinction between Dany fans who love Dany the character and Dany fans who love Dany the ruler, Dany the queen, Dany the perfect chosen one. In fact the only way I’d actually want to see J/D played out in the books is them escaping the narrative together and fucking off somewhere (which, regardless of Jon’s involvement, is also the only realistic happy ending I can imagine Dany having that would be a satisfying end to her arc for me). To me it’s clear that Dany does not enjoy ruling and doesn’t genuinely want the throne—she wants the feeling of home and to be loved. I think she’s chasing the throne because she sees it as duty, both a familiar duty as taught by her brother and a divine duty as evidenced by hatching the dragons. I can see a world where she’s able to accept that she hates ruling because violence sickens her deep down (evidenced by her feeling sick recalling the crucifixions and having to convince herself it was just) but being unable to tolerate the moral compromises she must make to avoid violent solutions and thus can carve out a new path, eliminating the sense of threat because she’d be “free.”

However I’m not sure I would’ve considered the ship if not for the show (not that it was at all good in the show but it planted the idea) and I don’t agree with other fans of the ship that it’s undeniably foreshadowed in the books. So I just don’t really engage with ship content because I don’t jive with most of it. Especially because many of the fans get hostile about the fact that I also have positive feelings about Jonsa, although I’m just as picky about what kind of Jonsa I like, haha. Such a bizarre and frustrating experience. Luckily, most Sansa and Jonsa fans don’t mind that Dany is my favorite and that I also like J/D, but the same can’t be said for other Dany and J/D fans when they see I also love Sansa and Jonsa.

Weird fandom

Hello anon!

This is an amazing breakdown of Dany's character! 100% agree with the Dany ending up as Queen of the 7K being a bad ending for her. It just seems like a miserable job to have. Dany has had it ingrained since birth that the Targs must reclaim the IT at any cost and only then will their lives get better. The trauma Viserys inflicted on her has definitely left her clinging to that dream as motivation to keep going, which is the saddest part. She wants the IT, but she really just needs a home where she feels safe and loved (and far far away from the creepy men plaguing her chapters). My only real objection to J/D is I can't picture Jon leaving the North, but they do share a ton of parallels, and I can see why so many people love the ship. And since pretty much every big fan ship doesn't have anything more than possible parallels and foreshadowing, it's really anyone's guess at this point. And Jon is also one of only three dudes in the series (Sam/Gendry) who is nice and of an appropriate age to be shipped with most of the main female characters, so it makes sense both Sansa and Dany fans would want our faves to end up with him lol. I also can't really blame J/D fans for not liking Jonsa, when most Jonsas think Dany will have a villain arc. Like yeah there's bound to be some animosity, but it got way worse after the show since it kinda confirmed there was a decent chance Dany might die in the books. Ultimately the fandom is gonna continue to be at each other's throats until we get answers in twow/ados. Weird fandom indeed.

[rise-my-angel]

I’m such a big Targ fan but I can not stand most Targ fans because they don’t get it. The valyrians are interesting and cool because they are fucked up. I love the Targaryens because I am a horror and sci-fi fan. Like yeah dragons are cool too but they wouldn’t be nearly as cool if everything surrounding them weren’t horrifying and twisted. I love Dany because she is a flawed and complex character and it is so easy to draw lines through her narrative to understand why she is the way she is and what led her to make different mistakes and how she got to her self delusions. But most Dany fans will call me a Dany hater for being like hey let’s analyze why Dany has never second guessed her decision to kill Mirri even though every other act of violence she’s been directly or indirectly responsible for (ie the crucifixions or Viserys’s death) has weighed on her conscience to some extent despite the fact that Mirri was a slave who was punished for rising up against her master, Drogo. The cognitive dissonance is so interesting and ripe for analysis but I have been accused of only pretending to be a Dany fan for recognizing this. A lot of actual Dany haters churn out way more meaningful Dany metas because most Dany fans are just oh she’s an unambiguous good hero who will be queen and I think that’s so boring

(note I got off my couch in the middle of writing a new chapter to go to my main computer to answer this that's how much you caught my attention)

The thing is, I totally get what you mean. Theres a Targaryean I am sort of like this for in a way. The character himself has been soured by such a deluded and hostile fan base about what is allowed to be said or thought about him, but if it weren't for the way most targ stans are, I would be 1000% more into Rhaegar as a character.

It would never change I think he's a bad person who did monstrous things for questionable if not quite selfish means who I would never support, but I also love Euron Greyjoy who is 100% an irredeemable monster. Rhaegar's entire existence is fasnicating. From the Ghost of High Hart being the reason his parents were married, to his life defining birth right in the middle of the fiery tragedy of Summerhall which effected his life. How such a terrible place was the only place he was every described as being happy in, likely because his existence is tied with great tragedy. How that likely deeply influenced him into buying into the Ghost of High Harts words of the prince that was promised being born from his father and mothers blood line which led to his delusions which ended up negatively impacting every person in his life leading to their deaths including his own. He should be a fascinating character study for me, but the way targ stans talk about him has ruined any chance of discussion because any nuance I could provide is going to be taken as pro Rhaegar talking points.

Same with Valyria in general. The Valyrian people were delusional and terrifying and the world is better off without them, but I love exploring why. I don't hate Targaryeans to hate them, I hate them because they are interesting to hate. They are facsinating because of what makes them horrible. And liking them as characters isn't at all wrong.

Its the lack of willingness to engage with their favourite charatcers greatest flaws and realistic motivations. It's a disconnect. They will push back against every single argument that Dany is a horrible, selfish tyrant possible, and then cite her atrocities as why I'm wrong and it's like..they have bought so much into the propoganda that they have created a false image of this character they supposedly love. Why love a version of a character that you need to bend over backwards to justify is the real version against the facts of the actual story?

They are desperate to look as if their favourite characters make them morally righteous. When liking a morally honourable character does not say anything about you other then what particular character you enjoy more then another. I am not claiming to be better then Rhaegar stans because I love Ned Stark, but they will slander Ned Stark as much as they can to justify why they prefer Rhaegar instead of just admitting they have a preference.

I get accused of being a Sansa hater, because I am both very against jonsa (ship and shippers) and I am very critical of her post season 4 character. But in the books and the first 4 seasons, shes not my favourite but I love her. But because I go against the popular ship and I am critical of her various actions over the course of the different versions of her character, I am seen as a hater. Its the same with Dany and many Targaryeans.

Its either toe the public opinion, or keep them out of your mouth which is insane for a fandom of a story literally built upon the varying complexities of a characters grey areas.

They want asoiaf/got to be way more black and white then it ever has been. Which is such a poor way of interacting with a story you are passionate about.

Dany can be a tyrant and an interesting character. She can be a cruel and selfishly bloodthristy woman and your favourite character. But these stans are allergic to those ideas not being mutually exclusive.

I dont hate targ stans because they are targ stans, I hate targ stans because they will attack any dissenting opinons that do not fall into their perfect protagonist hero image they've conjured up.

But they got nothing on me. I love Euron Greyjoy. The most disgusting monster in the whole series who I also would rather slingshot him into the sun then let him walk around alive in the world. I will never defend his bad choices, and never condemn someone for calling him an immoral monster. His lack of humanity is what makes his choices so interesting.

These targ stans though, could not possibly be strong enough to be the same for even a minute for their favourite Targaryean.

[meanbossart]

I've been really enjoying your fic and it got me curious about how your campaign went??? I got the important parts (your Durge denied Bhaal, Shadowheart spared nightsong I think, Astarion obviously didn't ascend) but what else happened? Will we ever see any of the other companions?

Thanks for enjoying the story! I can say with pretty much certainty we won't be seeing any other canonical characters from the game, Jaheira, Minsc and Halsin would have stayed behind in Baldur's Gate, as well as Wyll. My Durge killed Lae'zel early in the game and Karlach also died at the end of my campaign.

Gale's character decided to go after the crown, and while he was the staple fourth member of my party the relationship had always been uh... Tense. This was before they apparently patched out how needy he was, but frankly it made for a really interesting story since i just kind of assumed his character was kind of a creep wearing a nice-guy's face. Also, to be fair, I DID fall for his "wanna see a magic trick" line but that just kindled the fire to my theory that he's actually a fairly manipulative person (and perhaps he's unaware of it). MIND YOU PLEASE that this doesn't mean i don't like his character - honestly i feel like I got a REALLY interesting side of him in my campaign and i wouldnt have it any other way - this was a party composed of the dark urge, Astarion, Shadowheart and GALE and to have us all turn down power and glory only for the goody-two-shoes wizard of the camp to turn kinda evil and power-hungry made for a really satisfying narrative.

... Sorry i ended up rambling about Gale LOL to actually answer the rest of your question, my campaign went like this:

I made a Fighter, champion sub-class, BIG hulking drow because i thought it would be funny. Because i went in blind I started off as a confused homicidal murderer who is a liiiittle weirded out about his urges but he doesnt stress TOO much about it. Is fairly standoffish and distrusting toward all of his companions which made for a weird start. Motivated by gold, killing things, getting this worm out his head and making off-color jokes. Ends up siding with the Tieflings because i also decided that, as a very hedonistic character who thinks we should be lunatics because we want to rather than because a cult is telling us to be, my durge would profoundly hate the absolute. As a male drow he also really hated Minthara so yeah, easy choice there. As mentioned above, I also killed Lae'zel when she tried to murder-suicide everybody.

I wasn't going to fuck anyone, believe it or not, so during the tiefling party i went with Gale because it SEEMED like he just wanted to show me something neat (it ended early because i failed his checks and i guess he can't get hard unless i can cast fireball). Also, at this point even though i made mostly "good" moral choices i *was* still a dick the whole time - despite this, everyone in camp wanted to fuck me BESIDES Astarion, which was so fucking funny and devastating that I decided my Durge would, from that moment on, turn on the charm and the flattery and make it his mission to bang him. So yes, they were manipulating each other. I don't have to explain why that made for a really really fun little dynamic. Also Astarion had to tell me he was a vampire through dialogue instead of biting me and i got to say "yeah duh" which was hysterical.

I finally banged him sometime during the underdark (didn't go to the creche at all) and during Act 2 I followed the same pattern of doing mostly the Good Thing while being arrogant the whole time, I fell into a kind of chaotic-neutral/true-neutral aligment and watched my little homicidal maniac cluelessly stumble his way into a hero's journey. I had also really grown to like Shadowheart at that point after having a really negative first impression of her character and she basically became my durge's best friend. Astarion also grew on me for all the reasons we know and love and he did his confession to me sometime in late act 2. I Never met Araj (though i think i mention her in the fan story only because her interaction is interesting) so I got the dialogue that isn't prompted by her encounter. I also had to "break up" with Gale at this point which boy that sure came as a surprise to me! I also didnt break the shadow curse.

Because I didnt kill isobel (Again, my guy didnt like people telling him what to do or not to do), my little butler guy made me wanna kill Astarion. I SWEAR this happened pretty late in game, maybe even in the first night in baldur's gate which i realize is unusual. Naturally I didnt and I decided that would be the turning point where my Durge decides to not just Go With The Flow of things but actively fight his urge and pursue its root cause. He tried to be more of a good person from that point on which was kind of a clumsy effort lol

He completely antagonized the emperor immediately upon him revealing his true identity, stole the orphic hammer from Raphael's house, betrayed Gortash after setting an "alliance" with him, killed Orin (she kidnapped the orphan and killed her in front of me because i failed the check :| ) stopped Astarion from ascending and helped Shadowheart kill everyone in the house of grief, i let her make her own choice regarding her parents and she decided to kill them. I also encouraged her to not immediately align with the Selunites just because of her past.

I got Astarion the thing that helps him read the necromancy book and i cannot tell you how satifyins it was that, after giving up unspeakable power by killing Cazador, that dude and his little ghoul army basically mauled Orin and her grandad for me practically by themselves while I was down on the floor with 1 health. PROUD OF YOU BUDDY.

Gale spoke to Mystra as well at some point and i swear I NEVER encouraged that guy to take the crown for himself. It was always either "do whatever you want" or "i think thats a shitty idea." At this point my Durge was super sick of him so they had a bit of a crappy relationship which may have something to do with how things turned out.

I betrayed the emperor, released Orpheus and when he asked if any of us wanted to be a mindflayer i went "Fuck No" big time and luckily the guy just did it for me. Chaos ensues, I kill the emperor and the absolute in an epic battle that took me like a whole day. I also killed Orpheus when he asked me to. Karlach died ( :c ) and Gale told me he was gonna fuck off to get the crown. In the final Astarion dialogue I told him we would find a way to get him to walk under the sun again.... AAAAAnd thats it i think? Man this game is huge lmao i swear i wasnt trying to be long-winded.

[godtier]

so i wasn't gonna make a separate post about this but @sapphire-weapon had a post (that i reblogged a few days ago) in which someone mentioned that they think it was a missed opportunity in RE6 for jake to not have spoken to wesker. i had a p long conversation with sirea about it and my thoughts about that sentiment, but it was also nearly 3 AM my time when that happened so i dunno if i was even articulating my thoughts properly lmao

and yes... this is technically a meta post and i know i said i was gonna do the mmx meta post first... but this one isn't gonna be nearly as long (i hope) and i gotta get the brainworms out before i die

(quick edit note: i reworded the list item below from saying he was "likely a drug addict" to "likely a recreational drug user" because i feel like that better encompasses what i'm trying to get across

(another edit note: i made another post regarding jake's usage of drugs that stemmed from this post! it's marked as mature bc of drug usage, so it won't show up in tag search. if you're interested in that, look here!)

so the idea that wesker being alive in OG RE6 would have brought an opportunity for jake's character is kinda, imo, antithetical to the purpose of jake's character in the first place.

when we meet jake, we know a few things about him, right off the bat:

he's a mercenary

he's likely a recreational drug user or at least heavy/risk-taking user

he doesn't give a fuck about anything but making money

his whole character journey is going from this selfish, money-focused dickhead to someone who actually cares about doing something good, just because it's the right thing to do. at the start, jake refuses to simply give his blood away when sherry mentions needing it for a vaccine. no, he wants a cash payout. 50 million dollery-doos for a pint of his blood. by the end, he lowers the price to a mere 50 dollars. one could argue that was symbolic and he actually didn't care if he was paid or not, but that's neither here nor there.

but why was he like this? because his childhood was shite; his mother was sickly, he had no father figure, and by 15-ish, jake had to learn how to hustle to keep food on the table. and by "hustle" i mean "do a bunch of mercenary work and killing people." and when shit went south with his little group of mercenaries (their entire group was sold out by a heel-turner), jake basically went "fuck alla y'all" and lost all sense of conviction or morals.

during the game, he expresses his bitterness for his father, wesker, pretty clearly. even though his mother still loved wesker, tried to raise jake to respect him despite never knowing him, it didn't matter to jake. he hated that guy. well, really, who doesn't?

we're not gonna talk about excella rn ok

jake's entire character arc is built up around this hatred as well as a subconscious fear of becoming his father. the fear part doesn't show up until later in the story, after he and sherry were captured by the Big Bad's organization. they were both experimented on for several months, during which jake overheard the researchers talking about his father, wesker. this gives jake a sort of "explanation" as to why he is the way he is; he takes the "nature" side of the nature vs nurture argument.

ofc sherry scolds his ass and basically tells him "grow up and take responsibility for your actions."

and here's the thing... this fear, narratively, works just fine without wesker being there.

(since this got obscenely long, pls continue below for the actual explanation lmao)

jake eventually comes to the conclusion that yeah no it's definitely up to him to not become wesker, not his genetics. he does this without wesker being there. that's the entire point of his character journey. in order for an interaction with wesker to even matter or have any sort of impact on jake's character arc, his character arc as a whole would need to change.

see, imo, wesker being there diminishes a lot of the power of that journey. in the game, he isn't there for jake to scream at, to question. all those thoughts in his head that might be circulating around, like why he left his mother, why he did what he did, etc, cannot be answered. this is not a bad thing in a character arc as this is shit that happens to people all the time. people don't always get the answers they may want from family members because those family members are dead. they have to learn to move on without those answers or they have to rely on people who knew that person to fill in the blanks. this is what jake already does in game. he has to rely on sherry, and by a smaller extent, chris, to fill in those blanks for him.

but we as players, observers of the narrative, already know the answers to some of those questions. why wesker did what he did, primarily. anything else is only pertinent to jake and him knowing those answers doesn't change anything for his character arc as it is.

if wesker was there in the game, what would that even add to jake's narrative? a scene where jake yells at his dad? asks him "why did you leave?" when wesker wasn't even aware that he had a kid in the first place? remember: wesker had no fucking idea that he had a child. there would be no reason for wesker to even believe jake in the first place. sure, there could be a scene where he goes "well i'll be damned, ig he really is my misfired chromosome," but... then what? what does that add?

you could argue that wesker could use jake, maybe try to manipulate him into doing shit for his plans, but... that wouldn't work with the way jake's characterization is mapped out. his entire characterization would have to change for this to work in a satisfying way.

jake already hates wesker without ever meeting him. he would not willingly participate in anything wesker offered to him. he already knows that wesker nearly destroyed the world multiple times and had a hand in destroying an entire city. even if jake has no moral compass at the start of the game, by the time he learns about what wesker really did, who he really was, he's already showing that he does have one, it was just dormant up until that point. he's clearly disgusted by what wesker did. what foothold would wesker have that wouldn't immediately result in it just falling flat?

given how wesker is, i could see him perhaps belittling jake, maybe saying "wow you suck for being my spawn," or something during a fight with the intent to rile him up. would that work? no, not narratively nor not in the way jake is characterized. again, jake doesn't want to be like wesker. why would insulting him and saying he's not "as good" as wesker expected him to be motivate jake or even anger him? it shouldn't, because jake doesn't want to be anything like wesker. if anything, it may annoy him, but that's kind of a lame reaction, right?

if anything, the most i could see culminating out of this would be jake standing over wesker after he's defeated again (because it's resident evil and obviously wesker can't win) and having a "wow idk what i was worried about" moment. that's it.

but he doesn't need that. having a scene like that cheapens the weight of him figuring that out himself, without wesker there as "proof."

because the point of his story, of his character arc, is that he figures that out on his own (and with the help of sherry and the events he witnesses) because he has to. he doesn't need wesker there to spoon-feed that to him. he figures that out by working with sherry, by seeing the effects of the C-Virus on everything that it infects. wesker being an abstract entity in his life is enough, because the frustration of not seeing him, not being able to put a bullet in his skull himself, fuels the rest of his journey.

this is where i think that people who make these observations or criticisms (primarily those who think that jake's character would have been improved if wesker was there) need to understand the difference between what's good for a character as a person and what's good for their arc.

interacting with wesker would be good for jake as a person, in that he would no longer need to wonder about it. the answers would be spelled out for him, and he wouldn't have to do any wondering about the what-if. he wouldn't have any doubts left that he'd need to untangle.

but in doing that, it cheapens his arc; it would do more of a disservice to it, imo, than anything else. it would make his journey more formulaic and boring.

it would also clutter up the already cluttered narrative of that game. you have him not only struggling with his heritage, struggling with the fear of becoming his father, struggling with needing to be the "savior" by giving his blood, struggling with his moral compass, but now also struggling with seeing his father for the first time in person?

it makes his arc top-heavy. in that scenario, you could easily replace him with another, completely new character who has zero ties to wesker and the story wouldn't change in any meaningful way. the reason why it works the way to does now is because wesker is already dead. it creates that internal conflict, that internal frustration, that jake has to learn how to deal with since he cannot take that frustration out on his father in-person. he has to make peace with that struggle in other ways.

now, that's not to say there aren't ways that adding wesker into the story of RE6 that don't disrupt that balance. primarily, when it comes to a potential RE6 remake, the writing team can (and hopefully will) rework aspects of the entire game to make the plot more streamlined. this could include adding wesker in and redoing jake's characterization and character arc entirely.

this would be the only way i could see it working out. if jake's entire motivation was changed, his entire backstory was tweaked, then wesker being around could probably work! an interaction between them could be made to make sense and not bog down the rest of the plot as a result.

sirea also mentioned to me in our conversation that adding wesker in to RE6 remake could actually help streamline the plot and i do agree with that. she mentioned that all of the main characters have a tie to wesker in some way, which is absolutely true. having him there would neatly tie their campaigns together in the plotline and make the game as a whole feel less disjointed and messy.

this is especially true when we consider there are 4 fuckin campaigns that all run alongside one another and intersect at random points. it gets so fucking difficult to page through and figure out when certain things happen in the plot. you'll see them happen in order in chris's campaign, for example, then you go start leon's campaign and have to start over again and try to remember what happened at the same time during chris's campaign and so on.

now imagine that not with just two campaigns but four. it gets gross quick. sure, there are parts where the characters run into each other and that helps ground a general timeline in your head, but as far as time elapsed... it's so fuckin hard u guise

there's a reason why it's so hard to summarize the plot of RE6. it's because there is just so much going on in that fucking game.

anyway, that's my rant/sort of meta analysis about why i think wesker didn't need to be in OG RE6 and probably would have made jake's entire arc stupider than it already was

[batsplat]

no no you actually must enjoy sete’s suffering at least a little bit while watching the 2005 season. that’s what this rivalry is all about! it’s so so absurd with the whole curse stuff, tragic and pretty bleak (for sete I mean), hilarious, malicious etc. like when you watching any of those races and commentators mention the curse and how wouldn’t it be nice for sete to win here but you know something they don’t! he’s literally never gonna win again guys ha! so you wait for something to happen right (almost gleefully at times) and then it does you’re like “well fuck:((“

the caveat here is that you must also actually rate sete too!

- your resident sete anon

no literally, not only is valentino being awful - he's also making you the viewer complicit in the torment of this poor man by making you laugh while watching it. every time the commentators say one of those 'will THIS be the time' 'perhaps the most important race of gibernau's career!!' 'oh how much he'd want to win this' 'in the next n laps we will discover what gibernau is made of' lines, of course you laugh because it's just. well. funny. and then you see another sete misfortune and the commentator says something like 'rossi will surely be grinning under his helmet' and then YOU are grinning at it, which oh my god the moral decay of it all. I'm hardly a stranger to being a hater in sports, but I'm really not a sete hater!! clearly!! which means I'm watching these replays where one of the main kicks is knowing this one man is going to suffer and having a great time with it and it's just?? a bit of a unique experience given I don't even hate this guy?? so. yeah. cheers valentino

the 'he really won't win ANY of these' bit is really the key because the cruelty of it kinda?? gradually sneaks up on you?? the theory of 'never winning a race again' starts as a fun fact - but it's really the cumulative effect that gets to you. the suspense is in watching how it'll go wrong this time. what will it be here!! .... ah. oh no :( look at him sink to his knees in despair :( onto the next one!! it's like being told at the outset you're watching a tragedy, but you watch it anyway... and once you really start clocking just how MANY of these things he could've won, how the pressure must have been building and building, how trapped he was in this truly absurd hellscape, how he was TELLING HIS FANS he would win one of these 2005 races and you just know he won't!! the horror of it all just hits you in the face. it's so bleak! what a beautifully miserable little story! it's also so funny terrible because the commentators are waiting for a narrative that won't ever actually come to pass. they think that sete will get Revenge, they think he will have the triumphant comeback, they're constantly hyping up how this is the race where sete will finally show valentino he's no pushover... it's almost like everyone is stuck in the wrong genre lol. and you can track how they finally cotton on in real time. sete will never be allowed his happy ending

and what really rams home the tonal whiplash is how joyous valentino is being!! the thing about valentino is that he isn't typically outwardly spiteful in victory, though jerez 2005 is perhaps as close as he ever gets. sure, in context a lot of his celebrations clearly are filled with spite, he is obviously a deeply malicious character, but you don't immediately see that when you're watching him!! I regularly see photos of his phillip island 2004 championship celebrations passed around on various social media sites because everyone loves those, first yamaha title, 'che spettacolo' is such a vibe, he's grinning so much, clearly having a blast... but the moment you reinsert context, you do remember how evil that whole thing was!! how much sheer concentrated malice poured into that performance and the weeks that preceded it. two risky last lap passes because he just couldn't stomach the idea of letting sete have shit on his big day. This Is The Face Of A Monster

look at him :) dickhead

like, 2003-05 really is just. the perfect arc isn't it. by 2005 the wall between the joy and the malice has completely collapsed and you're just seeing him having the time of his life while psychologically torturing his rival. and you know there's no way he'd rather win. and it's compelling! and it's fun to watch! and it is also. kinda sketch. ffs

[godsfavoritescientist]

Bill Cipher: Lord of Hope (the homestuck classpect)

explanation for why I picked this classpect for him under the cut

First of all, a brief note on how I interpret classpects: I think classpect is heavily influenced by one's narrative role in a story. It's influenced by personality too, of course, but someone with the exact same personality could have a completely different classpect depending on how the story uses them.

Lord is an extremely powerful class reserved for the big-bad in homestuck. It means having unimaginable amounts of control over your aspect (which here is Hope). It's also a volatile, destructive, and self-serving class. It's also the mirror and opposite of the Muse class, which is equally powerful, but wielded passively for the benefit of others, often using methods more like setting up all the components of a rube goldberg machine behind the scenes, rather than the Lord's preferred method of steamrolling over things whenever possible.

Second note on my classpecting philosophy: Each aspect has an opposite, and I think these aspect pairs meaningfully influence each other by virtue of being on opposite ends of a continuum. You might even say they're opposite sides of the same concept.

Hope is the aspect of imagination, limitless possibilities, belief, and the literal meaning as well. It also has a ton of religious undertones. Its opposite aspect is Rage, which, other than the literal meaning, is all about doubt, skepticism, tearing down facades, and seeking the truth at all costs. It carries a deep disdain for the unfounded and the sugar-coated. Instead of living in a world of fanciful ideas, it cares about pushing past anything it sees as substance-less to uncover the way things really are, no matter how ugly the truth might be. They both need each other--without Hope, Rage becomes misery. Without Rage, Hope becomes completely disconnected from reality.

Which brings me to Bill. On the Hope-Rage spectrum, he's leaned so absurdly far towards Hope that he's convinced himself Rage doesn't even exist. In his reddit AMA, he literally says "lie until what you want to be true becomes true. Lie until you can't remember what's a lie and what isn't. Lie until you aren't lying anymore." I can't think of a better encapsulation of what it means to push the Hope aspect to its absolute extreme. He believes so much in the power of belief that he simply ignores any truths he doesn't like.

He embodies the Hope aspect in many other ways, too. Originally he was going to be more of a morally-neutral trickster character, whose whole purpose was just to show up randomly in Dipper's dreams and rattle off wild statements of questionable truth and conspiracy theories at him. The kind of things that people hope are true (sometimes to make the world seem more exciting and magical, sometimes for bigoted reasons, you know how it is with conspiracy theories), but the point is: Bill retains some of this in his canon personality. He tells Ford in the journal that the moon landing was fake. When he first meets Gideon, he says the whole "reality is an illusion" thing. He delights in sharing these kinds of things with people, and yeah, it's to fuck with them, but there's still something to be said about the fact that he accomplishes this through the use of things that exist as uncertain possibilities in people's minds, and things that some people have a strong belief in and/or hope to find proof of. He's wielding Hope as a tool, because that's when he's in his element.

Bill also preys on people's hopes and dreams, appearing to people literally inside their heads, and existing mainly in dreams and minds for billions of years--a place where you really can create anything you can imagine. He uses Ford's hopes of accomplishing something meaningful to get him to create a doomsday device. He also has Ford practically worshiping him, calling him a Muse with a capital M, calling his presence 'divine intervention'... the religious themes that often go hand-in-hand with the Hope aspect are definitely present. Of course a Lord would wield the Hope aspect to give himself worshipers who practically see him as a god.

And, speaking of doomsday devices, Weirdmageddon is the exactly what would happen in a world where the Hope aspect ran rampant without any laws or restrictions or concrete truths. In the codes of Journal 3, Bill says, "why should time only move forward, why must cause precede effect, who voted on the laws of physics - rules are perversions against all will, that's why I'm about to rewrite the whole system buddy, and no one is going to stop me."

We also get some insight into Bill's beliefs when we take a look as Mabel's dreambubble. He literally uses someone's hopes as a weapon against them, trapping her inside a twisted version of all the things that could've been true, if only the world was fueled by pure imagination, without any laws of physics or imperfect days or boring moments. Bill is so confident that this trap is infallible that he doesn't even bother to stop Dipper from trying to get her out once he makes it inside the dreambubble. Maybe the reason why Bill is so confident that this trap is inescapable is because he's pretty much trapped himself in a dreambubble of his own creation, where anything is possible and fantasy wins over reality every time (talking about the nightmare realm here), and was so intoxicated by the limitless lawlessness of the place that he spent billions of years trying to expand his little self-imposed prison to cover the rest of the multiverse, rather than ever stop to question himself or consider the consequences. Because with enough Hope, there are no consequences, only infinite possibilities limited only by your own imagination! ...right?

I could probably go on, but I think this is more than enough to support my case for Bill being a Lord of Hope. I'm always interested to hear about other classpect headcanons though!

[mellorphic]

In Defence of c!Niki - a Four Part Analysis of Every Arc

People who didn’t watch C!Niki see, in the fandom, a big sister type character with girlboss energy who wants to kill a child. Niki isn’t that. She has a well-written narrative which focusses a lot on her relationships with others. Here is me breaking it down!

PART ONE: c!Niki’s Early Days

PART TWO: c!Niki’s Rebellion

PART THREE: c!Niki’s Disillusionment (you are here)

PART FOUR: c!Niki’s Healing

TW FOR THIS SECTION: brief mention of sh, derealisation, a lot of discussion on grief and death. Let me know if I should add more tws

I don’t think c!Niki’s disillusionment arc started on Doomsday, randomly. I think it started on the day of the festival, when Niki watched her friend die, was chased out of her home, and saw how much her best friend had changed.

Despite her anger at Tubbo for his speech (which sounded very pro-Schlatt) she still told Schlatt to let him out once Schlatt and Quackity started to box him in. It still had not been revealed quite yet that Tubbo was a spy, yet Niki still stood up for Tubbo regardless of how she felt about him. That’s the thing about Niki. She is a good person with sound morals who will support people even if their views don’t align with hers, because she knows what’s right and what’s wrong and she won’t let ‘wrong’ happen to anyone.

Once Techno killed him, Schlatt literally fucking exiled her.

N: You killed him!

S: yeah, I did. I did fucking kill him, Niki.

N: you are so cruel- how could you do that? After everything he has done for you?!

S: he’s been a thorn in my side since-

N: I DONT EVEN WANT TO BE HERE.

S: he-

N: I DON’T EVEN WANT TO BE HERE!

S: […] you can leave if you want

N: ….Where am I supposed to go?

Manberg may not be Niki’s home but L’Manberg is and it always will be. That’s why the thought of leaving for good hurt her so much. Wilbur comes out into the open after she says this, and he defends her.

S: you really crawled up here on the day of my festival, celebrating my country. That you are not a part of. And you started- you started crying.

W: You sounded like you were gonna murder another person.

S: no, I was only gonna murder Tubbo.

W: you sounded like you were gonna go for Niki.

S: he’s the only person- well I mean, Niki..

N: what?

S: I might murder Niki, actually. I might murder her.

Wilbur tells her to run. Fundy gives Schlatt arrows but he and Quackity tell Schlatt not to do it, all the while Niki’s getting chased out of the country she used to love. This solidifies for her the fact that she truly has lost everything. Ponk chased her down and he killed her - Ponk, who a few streams before, Niki had called a friend. Earlier Techno had also killed her, when he shot at the audience after killing Tubbo. According to the wiki neither of those are canon deaths but I think they should be. At the very least, being killed by Ponk should be.

She joined Pogtopia that day, and Niki already had heard about Wilbur’s plans from Tommy. He, her and Tubbo had all vowed to get L’Manberg back and at this point in time, Tommy was the person she trusted the most. Her relationship with Tubbo had been ruined because of her thinking she was on Schlatt’s side - and even now that she knew he hadn’t been, it didn’t change the fact that he did not stick up for her while she was there. Her relationship with Wilbur was still a close one but she was scared for him and worried for L’Manberg’s future. But Tommy hadn’t wronged her, and she knew she could trust him to help with Wilbur.

Her birthday party was where she really saw the extent of Wilbur’s mental decline first hand and was completely powerless in stopping it. The day had been going so well, and she’d been having fun, until Wilbur went to blow up Manberg. Niki had to beg him to stop playing the anthem and Quackity talked him down from blowing it up, but Niki was terrified.

This is when Niki began working on her Secret City - intended to be a safe space away from the conflict, or a last resort for refugees if the war went badly.

On November 16th, Niki was hopeful, especially after Techno revealed his armoury. That day, Niki also defended Eret when they were accused of being the traitor, saying she trusted them and that they helped her. Once again, proving her loyalty and the fact she was grateful for people who stuck by her side.

We all know what happened later. After they got L’Manberg back, and were cleaning up, Niki found the TNT Wilbur had placed under the podium. She made sure nobody else saw it and she hid it again. Because after everything, Niki still believed in Wilbur. She was still loyal to him. She still saw the good in him and trusted that he wouldn’t. But he did.

She’d kept her promise, she’d been loyal to him and L’Manberg, and it didn’t change anything. She didn’t manage to help anything. And Wilbur, the one person Niki believed would always be there for her, no matter what, betrayed her. And she couldn’t even ask him why. So after that she was left hopeless and never wanted to let anyone in again. But as much as Niki didn’t want to, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Tommy reminded the L’Manbergians that the L’Mantree was still there. And I think Niki found that comforting, at the very least. She asked Tubbo what they were going to do with Wilbur’s body and his only response was “let him rot”. She and Tommy were the only ones who didn’t laugh.

At this point Tommy became a constant, for Niki. He’d been there since she joined, he was the only one who understood that she still wanted Wilbur back, and in her eyes he was able to take on his role in the sense of inspiring them all.

So, of course it hit her hard when he tried to blame her for burning down George’s house. Then, he’s exiled and the next time she heads from him it’s because he blew up the community house - we know he didn’t, but Niki didn’t. She begins to see Tommy as someone who just causes problems on the SMP, nothing more. She thinks he’s arrogant and a nuisance and that he doesn’t care for anyone.

When it comes to Niki’s character it’s vital that we understand - she has been through so much pain that got overlooked by everyone around her. At this point, she was poor, grieving, and felt as if nobody in New L’Manberg listened to her. She was going through the lowest point in her life and nobody in that nation seemed to care.

And she couldn’t hate everyone for it so she needed someone to blame and that happened to be Tommy. He didn’t deserve it but he was an easy target. And it���s true that he wasn’t kind to her, but he wasn’t the only one, and he was obviously going through his own things. But Niki was angry and she needed somewhere to put her anger. Is that fair? Not at all. But it’s what happened.

N: L’Manberg has not been L’Manberg. For many weeks. Maybe even months, maybe even.. maybe even, I don’t know.. since the start? […] I want the people to realise L’Manberg is not what they think it is. I want them to open their eyes and stop being in this circle.. in this circle of fighting for it. Because that will not bring us anywhere.

Do I even need to say anything? She fought for it for so long, on her own, and lost everything and everyone anyway.

On Doomsday, she spoke to Ranboo.

N: Do you.. do you really think L’Manberg should be safe today? …Ranboo, I will- If you think that we should fight for L’Manberg today, I will fight with you. Because I believe in you. And I always believed in you.

R: I think we should. […] the thing is, if we don’t fight with them, then what are we showing them? We’re showing them that we never cared about them.

N: .. i care about them, I really do. But I got.. hurt by them… They always talk over me, Ranboo. You know how that feels.

R: yeah. But like you remember yesterday, sometimes you just have to get louder.

N: You’re right..

R: sometimes you just have to get louder until they have no choice but to hear you.

And good god, isn’t that exactly what she did? Something something, peaceful protest is ignored (striking at her bakery, not paying her taxes, verbally standing up to Schlatt). OSomething something, she got louder. (Burning down the L’Mantree, blowing up her bakery)

An underrated line from Doomsday though? Niki telling her chat that she needed to save Puffy. I think she was muted so you’d only hear the line if you were on her stream, but she tried to help Puffy after and seemed distressed that she couldn’t get to her. Puffychu crumbs.

She held it together until she saw Ghostbur, believing she was hallucinating and repeating to herself that Wilbur was gone and that he betrayed her. She doesn’t want to care, but she does. And the idea of Wilbur still existing terrifies her, because what does that say about her grief? And if her grief isn’t justified, then the things she’s done definitely aren’t. As long as Wilbur is dead, Niki feels like she has a reason for her anger.

During her meltdown Niki is rambling. ‘Wilbur is dead’ becomes ‘L’Manberg is dead’ which becomes ‘L’Manberg is gone’ which becomes ‘I am gone’ and ‘I am L’Manberg’. This reveals a lot about Niki, even if it may seem nonsensical at first glance.

I’ve made a post before about how for crime boys, L’Manberg is interchangeable with the other person (For Tommy, it’s Wilbur. For Wilbur, it’s Tommy.) And I think that this is the same thing for Niki. L’Manberg is Wilbur. Wilbur couldn’t live without L’Manberg, and L’Manberg isn’t the same without Wilbur.

Then, she is gone and she is L’Manberg. Niki isn’t the same person she used to be and she’s starting to think that she can’t live without L’Manberg either, not happily, anyway. But at the same time, she helps to destroy it because the memories are too much to bare, and all it does is remind her of all the times she’s been hurt there. She can’t see the good in it anymore.

Destroying her own bakery was somewhere between emotional self-harm and trying to separate herself from L’Manberg as much as possible. There could’ve also been a sense of survivors guilt? Everyone else’s homes and things were destroyed but Niki’s bakery was untouched, and she found that really unsettling.

She talks to Jack about why she burnt down the tree, saying it was because she’s lost everyone.

J: that’s not a very good way of going ‘hey, I wanna be friends again’, burning down their sacred tree.

N: i don’t want to be friends with any of them again! Have you seen them?

J: then why do you care?!

N: because it hurt me! […] we both have been ignored by all of them all the time. We walk behind them slowly and-and carefully because they will ignore us all the time but we wanna be part! We wanna be part- we’re like little puppies, aren’t we?! Like little puppies, just walking and walking. But they’re never going to see us. All we are for them is something to take something from. […] whats the difference between these people and us? When we lose something, we lost it. And we grieve it. And it will be a part of us. When they lose something? They move on and they find something new.

I feel like people who think c!Niki is badly written or don’t like her just watch this stream and think she is overreacting because they don’t know her lore. But none of this came out of nowhere.

The thing is, Niki was ignored throughout Manberg and New L’Manberg by Tubbo and Fundy and sometimes even Eret. Niki has had things taken from her by Schlatt and Tommy. She has seen everyone move on from Wilbur when she couldn’t.

I think the other characters did care about her - Wilbur definitely did and Tommy did too. Karl did, Eret did, Puffy did. But it’s so difficult for her to see that because the love is so quiet in comparison to everything else. She’s no longer an idealist, she can’t see it when it isn’t right in front of her. And that doesn’t mean she’s wrong. She’s not completely right, but she’s not wrong about being used and feeling unwanted. That did happen.

So why does this turn into hatred at Tommy? Like I said earlier - he was a constant. The only one she still had after Wilbur, but he didn’t seem like he cared about her. In Niki’s eyes he became just like the rest of them - he used her left, and then when he came back she thought he’d replaced Wilbur with Techno and was now replacing him with Tubbo.

(I’m not saying I think that’s what happened but it’s what Niki saw. This part of my analysis is also partly speculation and partly based on things Niki said after the fact, because I can’t find the vod where she and Jack decided to target Tommy specifically, I think there’s a missing one between Niki’s Doomsday vod and the one where Jack tells her about the nukes.)

She directs her anger at him also because it gives her an ally. Jack blames Tommy for most of what’s happened to him, because Tommy resulted in him losing his second life; if Niki agrees that it’s his fault then she has Jack. So unconsciously she starts directing her anger more towards him.

The thing about Tommy is that he’s loud. He’s annoying. He can be rude. He doesn’t take things seriously, especially when he’s being painted in the wrong, because he doesn’t know how to handle it so he just deflects.

That makes him a really easy target for anger. But the vast majority of what happened to Niki was never Tommy’s fault. She blames him for Doomsday, she’s angry that he used her, and she’s processing her grief of Wilbur through hating Tommy. That’s why she does what she does.

[astronnova]

response to @imminent-danger-came from this post!!!! thank you for replying mwehehehehehehehehehehe

#DAMN#IT'S TRUE#people need to accept that shadowpeach is a fucked up an' unhealthy ship (that maybe can get better) and that's okay! that's why I like 'em

yes this is SO true so true so true. their dynamic is so warped and bonkers and thats why i loooove it. its about the obsession. its about the guilt. the tragedy. its about the unstoppable force vs immovable object and how they cant stop coming back to eachother. im normal, i swear

#''azure and lbd were kinda the same just different execution'' YEAH. HMMM PARALLELS.

i love parallels i love it when writing does this i love feeling the overarching theme tie into every part of the story i love storytelling

#macaque and azure are also the same with their Wukong abandonment arcs. Foil MK that way. It fucking rules

this too. im a big fan of how bonkers azure and macaque are for wukong and also how mk is so open to subconsciously absorbing others ways of thinking that he just internalizes that too. these guys......... its okay that wukong has other things going on u guys......... its okay.......

#I will say. On one hand yeah oh my fucking god the fandomization of Macaque is so fucking terrible. This post is so right#On the other: I think Wukong very much did abandon macaque first lol#But they abandoned each other (It's why MK and Mei not doing so is 👌👌👌👌👌)

hard agree about the fandomization of macaque, it reeeeeeks. let him be an awful bastard

ok this has me curious! id love to know when wukong abandons macaque first, cause i personally can't think of the time he does that. (i know tone is hard to come across via text so i want to make it clear im being 100% genuine here).

based on all the time we know wukong left macaque, he always came back to him and his intentions for leaving were to protect macaque and the monkeys on flower fruit mountain. when he left to train with subodhi, he came back after his training. we also never see macaque show any disdain for this or claim that was wukong abandoning him with the action.

then, wukong goes to the celestial realm and works as the stable boy before he gets super drunk and petty and then goes back to flower fruit mountain. macaque never shows any anger over this either, so i don't think that's abandonment.

after, wukong and the brotherhood attack the celestial realm and wukong is captured and put into the furnace and then forced under the mountain. i don't think wukong's capture counts as abandonment, especially since wukong makes it super clear that he does not want to be under that rock.

originally i thought macaque didn't know about wukong's capture like azure and the others, which could be a reasonable conclusion for him to come to; that wukong abandoned him for the celestials, but we know that macaque knows wukong was captured. macaque even visits him under the mountain. that's when macaque severs their ties and leaves wukong trapped.

also yes........ yes..!!! mk & mei are the wukong & macaque narrative parallels.... i love storytelling

#And I think like. Why should Macaque have to bail Wukong out and put himself in danger with all of heaven because of what Wukong chose to do

its less about "macaque having to bail wukong out and indanger himself over wukong's problems" but more of like, wukong and macaque did the exact same thing, which was attacking the celestial realm. that's why wukong got caught. it's not just macaque, azure, peng, bull king and yellowtusk have some sort of moral responsibility in a way to at least try to help wukong, because all of their combined actions led to wukong taking the punishment for all of them.

i mean, sure, macaque has no reason or responsibility to bail wukong out if you look at it from that scene alone, with the "you dont owe anyone anything" mindset. but considering the other things we know, like how macaque was apart of the attack and supported wukong and fought along side him, there's a bit of a moral obligation to help wukong out since macaque's apart of the reason why wukong was captured.

#This post almost has the opposite problem of ''Wukong is villainzied while Macaque is a baby boy'' like#Wukong wasn't a good person either (they both suck(ed))#But he changed

HAHA lol sorry, that wasnt my intent. i want to make it clear that yeah, wukong wasnt a good person either! but i think the major distinction is that he wasnt a good person, past tense. in the show currently, wukong's a pretty alright guy, and the journey to the west helped him grow into a better person. i jsut feel it isn't necessary to mention wukong's terrible traits from the past because they arent... relevant to him in the current tense. that, along with the fact that the fandom keeps bringing it up, im focused more on mentioning macaque's terrible actions instead of wukong's because macaque is still acting that way while wukong grew as a person hundreds of years before canon. no reason to mention the terrible past of someone who's already made up for it, that kind of thing.

and your right! he changed, and thats good! my main point is that macaque didnt, but the fandom loves to act like he did.

#''We can't change who we were yesterday or in a past life or a hundred lifetimes ago! We live with the choices we've made for what-#-matters is the choices we make right now!''#Like yeah obviously Macaque was biased. (He says so himself: ''Everyone is the hero of their own story'')

yep ^

#But Macaque also steps in in s2 because Wukong LITERALLY abandoned MK chasing after another source of power.

i feel like thats a misinterpretation of season 2 and wukong's actions, because the reason wukong "abandons" mk is to keep mk out of danger. wukong's objective is to find a way to defeat the lady bone demon without having to drag mk into it, because he feels mk isn't ready for that kind of large battle yet. he isn't leaving mk behind to go look for more power for himself, he's leaving mk in a safe place while he goes to deal with the main threat to keep mk from getting involved. he isn't quick enough, but the point still stands.

macaque steps in and even admits in the shadow play episode that he only came by to torture mk for fun ("i was gonna do the whole watch the hero be tormented by their own mistakes thing..." is what he says, which is funny because that's really relevant to wukong's character too haha).

#SWK is making the same mistake he always has. And then MK in s2 is ALSO making that same mistake#And Macaque had to be a loser about it but it is very interesting to see it from his pov.#He steps in when MK is acting that little bit too much like Wukong in all the wrong ways. (2x07 4x09)

and you've got a point! wukong has a habit of shouldering everything himself and believing he has to be the one to fix everything, since he has the most abilities and powers out of everyone... *gestures vaguely* alive, lol. that's why he keeps secrets throughout s2-3, because the way he deals with large scale threats is by keeping his cards close to his chest. given his past, i don't blame him

so true, too, cause mk's going down that path of self isolation like wukong has already done. mk's trying to spare his friends from his "burdens" (his trauma with lbd in s2 and his trauma from azure lion and the scroll in s4) and by doing so he shuts down and keeps to himself. macaque interprets this as him "abandoning his friends", but that's because macaque's a projector LOL. we already know he does that constantly. i find it interesting too, cause macaque is somehow the most empathetic person in the cast but uses that as a way to drag people down to his level, its rlly fun. i like macaque a lot

i'll be real, i don't think macaque steps in because he genuinely wants to help mk, it's more like he sees mk (season 2 specifically here) as a smaller, weaker wukong that he can actually punch around. he knows if he tried to mess with the real wukong he'd get his ass handed to him, so he goes for the easier target. in season 4, his perspective is different but it still isn't 100% in mk's favor. and also imma be real his advice was butt booty dog water bHKBHADBHKAHAH

side note that im not able to articulate that well because its late but it moderately fits this topic: macaque uses shadow play as partially a way to continue placing doubt in mk's mind about wukong. macaque has a vendetta, and so he thinks everyone else should hate wukong too, no matter how wukong acts now. macaque practically refuses to accept wukong's changed because that would mean macaque would have to self reflect and realize that he isnt all that like he acts like he is. he's very self righteous and tries to put down mk while also placing doubt and manipulating mk into disliking and not trusting wukong. he does this like every chance he gets in season 3, also

#But maybe I think in general that ''antagonist'' is a better word to describe macaque rather than villain

sure! i can agree, mostly s4 and up, but in s1-3 he fits the bill for villain too, imo

#Anyways me on team ''Wukong and Macaque both hurt each other in equally fucked up ways'': my totally unbiased imp opinion#''Wukong was on a path of self-destruction. We all were.''#MY PERSONAL INTERPRETATION: MK is to Macaque what the Monk was to Wukong.

oh yeah i agree, wukong and macaque are such a tragic duo because of all those centuries of baggage, and they've hurt eachother so much intentionally and unintentionally. its great, i love it

"wukong was on a path of self-destruction. we all were" that phrase caught my attention big time because up until those point macaque had like no remorse for anything he'd done, so it was super interesting having him say that to mk. i was like. what da hell, macaque redemption arc REAL!?!??!?!?! im interested to see where they take macaque! he's the most likely to get that redemption tbh he's got all the flags

also i think that's a pretty cool way to look at it, and i def see what you mean. mk's good nature and desire to help rubbing off on macaque when wukong's couldn't is a very cool way to look at things, and also it slots into canon very nicely. macaque won't listen to wukong, mainly because they're so connected and all those centuries of baggage (six eared "i want the old wukong back and i also blame him for everything that goes wrong" macaque), but having someone new who also has some stake in their lives (wukongs successor) be the one to tell him Stop Being Weird and having it work, its very interesting.

#LMK is very much a show about everyone dealing with the world in their own way.#Some open noodle shops. Some try to create a clean slate. Others want to leave the world better than they found it#And Macaque was very much just in survival mode trying not to die while also trying to get back at Wukong#''Look out for number one'' like that's how he coped with the world/how he saw it.#And MK kind of up-ended that point of view. 3x10 was THE time to abandon Mei yet MK refused to

so true! lego monkie kid's s1-3 message of the world being fine just the way it is because there's good people in it is what made me fall in love with the series at first. and also how it shows how people live their lives and keep moving despite the hardships of the world is very nice. me like. and yeah! macaque's "look out for number one" mentality is very nice and i like how that fits into his and wukongs characters. its very night and day (HA get it). wukong tries to look out for everyone else while macaque is only interested in looking out for himself. its cool , i like that. especially because it relates back to their original versions in the original story, where macaque represents the dark desires of the mind like his selfishness and spitefulness and wukong kills him as a sign of overcoming those desires and instead choosing the path towards enlightenment and doing good for others and the world.

macaque has a habit of forming full opinions and thoughts on people without properly knowing them and then sticking to those thoughts for the rest of time, not considering their ability to grow and change. mk constantly makes him have to come to terms with the fact that he is wrong and its so awesome. especially because we all know daaamn well that he saw himself in the "mei is my best friend, im not going to leave her when she needs me!" moment. its really good

#So strange to me people think they can't like villains. I'm assuming it's more than just the kids/teens in the fandom

yeah its super wild. a lot of ppl (esp in this fandom, i havent seen it this bad since like voltron i think and i wasnt even apart of that fandom) believe that to like a villain there has to be some reason why the character is secretly "the good guy" or something, because if they like a straight up bad guy then it means theyre a bad person, when in reality its just relating to the conflicts that those "bad guys" represent and stuff. idk its wild out here i have never seen people jump through so many hoops to justify why they like a villain. they dont have to be secret good people, they can be bad and you can like them because of that. like, one of my fav characters from modern cartoons is emperor belos from the owl house and that guy is like basically pure evil LOL

i'll answer your other tags tomorrow! i am very tired and it is past midnight for me. snoozing at my desk, almost

[mermaidsirennikita]

How come in even “real” enemies to lovers, it’s going to be FMC who gets done worse by the MMC than vice versa? I know it’s hard to quantify if these dynamics are equal.

when you look at the big picture, FMC is usually not the winner/on top despite these stories often being power fantasies + wish fulfillment

I think there's a pretty simple answer, unfortunately: Female characters are held to a much higher moral standard than male characters. Men can be horrible and fuck up. Women can't. Or, they can; but people WILL complain.

It's misogyny. And I often hear, "But women are the biggest group of romance readers". Well, yeah. However, lots of women do suffer from internalized misogyny.

A couple of books where the woman (at least at first) fucks the her over more.

No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean. The heroine doesn't necessarily MEAN to fuck over the hero, but she basically ruins his life when he did... nothing, from what I recall. Not surprised that MacLean is here, though, she's a heroine-forward author who does take those kinds of risks.

Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole. Sabine is one of the few TRULY bad heroines I've read, and I do adore her. Rydstrom, in contrast, is one of the more "moral" (very loose term) IAD heroes. He's known as the GOOD demon king, lol, and he's honestly pretty repressed but that's what Sabine is for! She captures him (on her brother's orders, but still, she's definitely not this total victim who doesn't relish it) to edge him until he agrees to marry and impregnate her, basically. As part of an Evil Scheme. It's pretty intense. And she isn't even like... narratively punished, really. It's more like Rydstrom wants PARITY than to truly punish her.

Because they're FREAKS.

"The sorceress may be an evil bitch, but she's MY evil bitch, and I'll have no other" ugh CHILLS.

[jackietaylorsghost]

I have a bit of a hot take regarding tlou/tlou2 which is that sometimes a parent will make a decision that goes against a child's wishes for their own wellbeing. I've heard it said "What parent wouldn't make the choice Joel did" and I think it relates to that, taking in everything with the fireflies and that Ellie is A Child, I think Joel was in the right to make that choice for her. I hope this doesn't come across as dismissive of Ellie, because I'm more trying to think of it from the point of view of a parent. Sorry this was so long.

i honestly think this is a very normal take and any to the contrary i find so baffling lol. like look we can debate all day about whether joel did the morally right or wrong thing in terms of the wider world and in regards to his lying too. i personally think he lied to alleviate ellie of this burden she was carrying that she personally had to save the world to make it up to her loved ones that they died and she didn’t. in the context of him telling her that he’d struggled with surviving but you had to find something to live for i can see his wish for her to not carry that burden cus ofc as a parent you wouldn’t want that and for me i think it’s a bit of a superficial take to say he saved her and then lied out of selfishness cus he couldn’t bear to lose her bcus whilst yes it benefits him too, i don’t see that as his primary reasoning - I think this is backed up too when he tells ellie that he’d do the whole thing again. that’s so striking to me cus the (stupid) consequence of his actions was losing a kid for a second time but despite that pain, knowing that consequence, he’d do it again. doesn’t smack of selfishness for me, i think that’s incredibly selfless of him actually considering he’d lost a kid before and took so long to get over it. but that’s MY interpretation and everyone’s will be different and i can at least acknowledge that.

but this continued nonsense about joel doing the wrong thing for ellie when he saved her bcus he was taking away her agency makes me want to die actually. it’s so fucking weird. ellie is ready to die bcus of TRAUMA. and that’s not actually a good reason to let a 14yr old kid die. if we wanna talk about agency/autonomy let’s talk about how the fireflies were attempting to manipulate/exploit ellie’s trauma and survivor’s guilt in order to justify what they were going to with her, cus that’s far more fucked up and is what ACTUALLY takes away ellie’s agency. it so fucking exploitative. ‘you know she’d want this’ well first of all then at least have the decency to actually ask her and second of all yeah i think she’d have agreed to it but wanting to out of guilt and trauma isn’t actually a free choice lol? and there should be no fucking debate on that. joel absolutely did the right thing to stop them.

i think a big part of this agency/autonomy thing is a result of part 2 lol. i think it’s easy to use it as some war cry to justify why joel had absolution coming to him and deserved to be beaten to death the disgusting way he was. almost as though it’s some sort of justification for abby and liking her. joel had it coming blah blah he stole the cure from the world and he took away ellie’s agency go abby!! which is just bullshit imo but what can you do.

what i think is the biggest shame of all is that part 2, in its attempt to justify a complete estrangement between joel and ellie so that her suffering would be Worse when he died (cus they didn’t give her enough trauma in that horrible game), went with this idea of ellie being mad that joel took away her chance to have a life that mattered. that fucking sucks for me cus she’s my favourite character and i wanted more for her. i wanted to see her overcome that trauma and let go of her guilt by realising it wasn’t her fault her friends died and i most of all wanted her to realise her life ALWAYS mattered and that’s why joel saved her. instead ofc the narrative wouldn’t work unless we had 25 hours of it being shoved down our throats that joel was so Wrong for saving ellie that they didn’t examine his actions and the reasons with any nuance or care, it was just so superficial and boring and heavy handed. how sad that at 14 ellie was ready to die bcus of trauma and thought her life didn’t matter/have value unless she was a cure and at 19 she still thought her life didn’t matter cus she wasn’t a cure. she deserved better. from the narrative AND this fandom that, if they actually cared about her as a character, wouldn’t keep banging on about joel taking away her agency/autonomy and would have wanted to see the same growth in her i wanted to see instead of thinking it’s some great masterpiece that she’s completely stagnant, even after she’s been tortured relentlessly for 25 straight hours lmao. i find it all so bizarre to see ppl claim to care about ellie but don’t see anything wrong with how the devs treated her in order to tell their misery porn story. these are the same ppl who so patronisingly write on this app about how they’re ‘the real fans’ (ive had this directed to me personally) cus they were sooooo clever to understand part 2 lmfaoooo.

anyway this got away from me and was far bitchier in parts than id intended it to be ajsjjs it just Grinds My Gears when this agency crap comes up cus it’s ridiculous BUT yes i agree with you completely.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

"I haven't seen it but I guess the pie scene comes after this Brad interrogation?"

It does. Mobius loses control when Brad calls him "nothing" and "a nowhere man" and he slaps Brad, so Loki takes Mobius out of the room. Mobius is upset about losing it and rushes off. They end up at the pie room.

Mobius: I lost it.

Loki: It's okay. Look, it happens. You know, sometimes a rage builds up and you just gotta... let it out. Do you remember that time I was so angry with my father and my brother, I went down to Earth and I held the whole of New York City hostage with an alien army? Tried to use the Mind Stone on Tony Stark. It didn't work, so I threw him off the building. [...] I lost it. Sometimes our emotions get the better of us.

We know from the Marvel site: Gifted with a Scepter that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others. Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth.

So, as far as Loki knows, a big part of what fueled him during the invasion was genuine anger. He makes it sound humorous to cheer Mobius up.

... except most people will ignore that part and choose to believe that Loki really did attack NYC because he was in a bad mood, because lol that's so funny or whatever. Do I wish they'd actually state the entire truth, Thanos and all, on screen? Fuck yes. Marvel continuing to not do that has been infuriating.

As for Brad, he intentionally kept Dox's plan a secret, so he supported her decision and had no problem with her pruning the branches - as long as he wasn't the one being pruned. He no longer wears the uniform, but he's still complicit.

Thank you. That last paragraph, specifically... why isn't Mobius framed the same way as Brad then? All these agents are the same, their ideologies are the same. They may not know about their past memories as variants, but they agree with the TVA and their methods. They say: "Following orders". Yeah, right, because they agree with them.

Anyhow... Mobius loses it but he's comforted and his actions are no mark of his personality, his core being or his moral failings? How quaint. If only Loki was treated with the same compassion. This is more of the same bullshit framing from S1. Some characters, namely this Mobius guy (is it obvious that I don't like him? lol), can never do wrong. What a shitty way to write a character. He's evil, let him be evil!

Okay, enough of the fascist, let me go back to Loki. I get what you mean regarding Loki's anger, but my main issue with that line is 1) The absolute erasure of Thanos, 2) The mention of the Mind Stone but only with Loki as the executor, never the victim, 3) He speaks of his anger but he doesn't expand on it.

Marvel does that a lot lately. They mention something in passing but they don't want to take the time to really talk about it, and therefore they end up simplifying a complex matter and the characters are put in "good" and "bad" boxes with superficial purposes that can be easily understood but do nothing to flesh them out. Quite the opposite, they become carbon copies of who they used to be.

Like, why not include a line during that conversation where Loki explains why he was convinced Thor had pushed him off the bridge? I don't want Loki to comfort Mobius, I want him to kick his ass and eat his head, but if he has to comfort him for... reasons... then do so, talk about anger and then mention "Although of course at the time the Stone was messing with my head and I even thought Thor had thrown me off the bridge." I'm not a writer but you get what I mean. One line, it takes 5 seconds, and you get a reference to a previous movie but a reference that is accurate and not a lie. He can even say it in a lighthearted manner if he wants to because he's supposed to cheer the fascist up.

They just don't want to. It doesn't fit their narrative of the narcissist Loki (ugh).