#or rather I have a problem because nobody else has this opinion and I feel lonely

[eri-pl]

I love Jirt's lore but

Jirt: This guy is Peak Evil and you're supposed to hate him, he's Satan Also Jirt: Oh, and if he didn't do his very debatable and controversial thing, humans (& elves) would not exist. Ever.

[dropoutconfessions]

Everyone’s allowed to feel how they feel about K. You do not HAVE to like K. K is an imagination people and does not matter compared to reality people.

The actual problems that I think all this discourse is stemming from is a problem in not just fandom here but in fandom as a whole. It’s a problem of trends: Why is our attention so frequently held by the masculine and white? Why, when we expand the world and look into the interiority of side characters, is our focus so targeted on white men? Why are women so overlooked, why are people of color so often ignored?

This is a wider issue. A trickling down of real world racism affecting our little play spaces. And the problem is that an issue which appears in larger trends, an issue that is a general pattern of behavior, is not easy to fix. We can’t fix this by harassing individual people. We can’t fix this by ignoring it. We definitely can’t fix it by pretending like its a problem here and only here rather than everywhere.

I wouldn’t be so bitter about K and dislike of K if I wasn’t overly sensitive to the idea of POC and femme characters getting the short end of the stick. I wouldn’t be so apprehensive about SamEvan, which is a frankly adorable and lovely ship, if I could trust people in general to act right about black women. I wouldn’t be so mad when people call Jammer and his friends rude while ignoring anything Evan did if I hadn’t seen it as the start of a malicious pattern.

If I hadn’t been in fandoms where every single woman got called a Hideous Bitch and every single person of color was Secretly Evil then I wouldn’t even be posting this. If I hadn’t seen people latch onto men with three lines and refuse to even consider thinking about women with entire arcs, I wouldn’t care about the lack of K posts. It would just be opinion. But it’s not just opinion when it happens over and over again to the same kinds of characters every time.

I don’t think it’s that bad in the mismag fandom. I don’t WANT it to get that bad here. But I don’t know how else to stop it, so I type up little confessions, and I hope someone reads them and thinks about this shit a little bit before they post.

I think people should calm down and stop insulting each other. I think people should take a break, if they need one, from fandom. I think people should leave each other alone and quit passive aggressively throwing ‘shade’ at opinions they don’t like because there is NOTHING wrong with individual opinion. There IS something wrong with the pattern its a part of but you can’t blame a person for a pattern you see in them or else you’ll end up snapping at a monster that isn’t even there yet.

Most of what I want is for people to think about how they think. Nobody has to stop liking Evan (ofc) but it is and should be concerning that even in this relatively progressive space, I keep seeing the same patterns creep their subtle and insidious way into the things I love.

I think we can all do better than this. I think we can do much better. I think we deserve better, all of us, than all of this.

-

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my mother not to do certain things?

Let me start off by saying i'm homeschooled. I've been homeschooled my entire life. I don't have any friends offline, so I've pretty much come here to ask for outside opinions from my friend groups (online).

Prefer not to state ages, if that's okay. It makes me uncomfortable.

I have ocd, suspected autism, and either auditory processing disorder or misophonia (we're not sure which.) as well as a plethora of other issues. my mother is very aware that i have ocd (she has it herself) and i've mentioned misophonia to her several times. she doesn't know about my other mental issues, as for reasons you're probably going to see here, as i don't feel comfortable or safe telling her. (or, i've tried, and she doesn't listen, or tells me i'm "being dramatic.")

my ocd is quite crippling, to the point i've tried medication, herbal tea (chamomile seems to work a bit!), asking friends for advice, and even asking her for advice. as of the last year, it's had a grip on my life and has been quite a problem for me. i'm unable to do things i want or need to a lot, and especially struggle doing most things, even basic tasks. i'm unable to see a therapist/counsellor or psychologist/psychiatrist for personal/financial reasons.

a lot of my triggers (well, not exactly triggers for the ocd, but they stop me from doing things.) revolve around sound, especially people talking. whistling is a major trigger for my misophonia/apd, as are other high pitched noises.

my mother has a tendency to watch tv a lot, and i often ask her to not do this when i'm trying to do certain things, as it makes my ocd a bit worse, and it's often rather loud. (please note i wear headphones a lot of the time for sensory issues.)

however, when i ask her either to turn it down, pause it temporarily, or ask her to turn it off for a bit, she has a tendency to get mad/upset. to the point of throwing a bit of a fit over it, in a way that to me seems a bit attention seeking (in the bad way). she says things like "fine, whatever." and flaps her arms about dramatically or slaps her legs, or she says "i don't even wanna watch it now, it's ruined."

i'll go ahead and say she's a bit self-centered in a lot of ways. for years she has said i've "targeted" her and "treated her terribly" even though any time i was (to her) doing these things, i was usually defending myself or telling her to do something that she needed to do that had been requested for days/weeks/months/sometimes years. i also have a tendency to ask her what she's doing, either out of genuine curiosity, or because she has done something strange to me that i didn't understand. which she gets mad over.

she also gets mad if i ask if she's coming over here (i have a tendency to walk/pace in certain areas to music, it helps with stress/adhd/also helps me write/act things out. she is very aware of this and this isn't really a problem.) or ask how long she will be over here. she seems to think me asking this is telling her she can't come over, or desperately trying to get her to move. admittedly sometimes i DO want her to move, but 90% of the time i am just asking so i know if i need to move to a different area to walk or just stop temporarily.

sometimes when i am having a particular peak in my ocd/anxiety/whatever else, i ask her not to talk for a moment/few minutes, either so i can do something i need to, or because i'm afraid it will make it worse. she'll either get mad about this, or go on a tangent about "not catering to me" and saying things "the real world doesn't work like this, and nobody cares that you have ocd/issues." she has a tendency to take my issues as a personal attack on her, when in reality i would ask anyone to stop for a moment.

she has a tendency to belittle me in a sense for it. i've tried to explain some of it to her (without revealing details of my trauma she doesn't know about, as most of my ocd is linked to severe ptsd.) and she says it "doesn't make any sense" and i "need to stop" and i "need to just make myself stop." she has ocd, and knows compulsions are not always rational, and yet still says these things.

part of my desire not to go to a therapist is because of her. she claims they will either try to put me away take me to another home/put me in foster care, or drug me up on medication that will make me dull. (the other part is more personal, and unrelated to her, but to my aforementioned trauma.)

one of the things i especially ask her not to do is whistle, or make a few other certain noises (eating loud, using nail files around me, etc) because they are especially triggering to me. she'll either blatantly refuse and say i "don't get to tell her what to do" or i don't "control her" (please note i am just asking, but when i DO specifically tell her to stop, it is because she either already knows this sound is triggering to me, or i've already asked, and i'm losing my patience.) or she'll do it louder/more just to trigger me further (my father also does this. sometimes as a joke which in some ways is worse.) or she'll go on the "not catering + nobody cares" tangent again.

i know my ocd and other issues can be a bit interrupting, but i don't ask huge things of her or anyone else. all i ask is for them to not make certain sounds around me, temporarily ask them to not do something/stop doing something, or ask them to do it a bit quieter for me. please note she has the ability to watch tv/videos on other devices with headphones easily, she just chooses not to. and worse of all, they treat it like it's not interrupting to me, when it affects my everyday life in ways far worse than asking/telling them not to do something.

it makes me feel unwanted and unappreciated, and i'll admit, i've contemplated....not existing, if you will, many times over this issue and others.

i just don't really know if i'm asking too much, or if they're just being shitty. i want outside opinions on this.

so, AITA?

(id put a tl;dr in here, but i don't really know what to put. feel free to do it for me. also, i know this was kinda long, but i needed to put some extra things in, sorry if thats like an inconvenience or anything!)

(adding my sideblog here so i can get notifs, @ocdaitathrowaway)

What are these acronyms?

[lollytea]

low hanging fruit but Willow for the character thingy :]

How I feel about this character

She is like a squeaky stress toy to me. I like to give her problems. I like to give her treats. She's become deeply special to me. She has melded herself to my insides and has basically become another one of my internal organs. She's also a character who has made me extra passionate about the concept of writing teenage girls as their raw, messy, complicated selves. I think a lot about Willow's trauma. I think a lot about her internalised insecurities that she'll never truly recover from but she can definitely learn to handle better. I think a lot about her rage. About her patience and wisdom. About her silliness. Willow just has SO many layers that I'm always flipping through her like a book. She is my favourite book.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

My non-romantic OTP for this character

It's very hard to choose!! Willow and Gus have this bond that's like. The school's most levelheaded dunce and the school's most reckless prodigy. Two bullied, isolated kids who took care of each other when nobody else did. They mean so much to me!!!

Also her dynamic with Amity has the potential to be so rough around the edges but imbued with so much love and yearning and hurt and betrayal and lack of communication and UUGGGHH!!! It's so fascinating, I love it!!

My unpopular opinion about this character

I dont think I have any opinion thats unpopular? Umm. I love to focus on her flaws I guess. I feel like sometimes they're overlooked bit in favour of focusing on what a strong independent kind loving sweet funny tragic young girl she is. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That is a huge chunk of her personality. But it would be cool to see some spotlight given to her occasional pettiness, her anger management issues, her tendency to keep her grievances to herself rather than communicate them because she's so averse to confrontation I feel like these are the nitty gritty details that are super fun to incorporate into a Willow characterization. But like. That's not me criticising the way she's usually interpreted. This is fandom. People can do whatever they want.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Yknow....I probably would have been left wanting so much more for Willow if FTF didn't come along and give me everything I could have wanted for her. So I'm honestly pretty satisfied.

I guess, if anything, I wish Willow's negative emotions causing her magic to go haywire had been a bigger issue over the duration of the show, rather than just little hints here and there culminating in the big FTF meltdown. Like I know she was just a secondary character but an episode or two delving into Willow's relationship with her magic and her emotions would have been really cool. Like it must be scary for a little girl, right? To feel like a bomb waiting to explode? I wonder if she was ever afraid of herself.

[me-ig1]

Hiiiiii I felt like ranting

I've been thinking, and I don't want to sound like I'm straight up calling obx sexist, but I've noticed some thing that slightly piss me off with how the main women (Sarah, kiara, cleo) are represented.

So first of Sarah; I don't have that many issues with how her character is shown, since the intro to her calls her "kook princess," meaning that she is obviously going to act more like a princess. She is obviously going to have a man to look out for her (like Princess's usual do), so I feel like her charicter is shown accordingly.

(I don't focus on Sarah that much, so I don't have a strong opinion)

Next kiara; I over all like kie, she's an interesting character,that has a lot of potential. But sometimes she pisses me off because she reminds me of what is called a 'pick me'. Her character is one that likes to act like and say things like "I don't need a man to protect me, I'm an independent, strong woman," yet she hides behind a man whenever danger is neer.

She also the classic 'all my friends are male, I'm one of the bros' type vibe, yet all the boys clearly think she's hot, and just want to date her. She also kisses all of them (and they kiss back, thay are part of the problem) , which kinda just makes it feel a bit like she is only there for a relationship, like it is expected of her charicter to date one of the boys, because what else would she be there for.

I just hate the fact that they try to make her seem independent whilst also having her lean on a man for her charicters existence.

I also, for some reason, feel like she should take initiative in her relationship, i don't know how to explain it, I just feel like JJ would be little spoon, I feel like if they where cuddling he would be leaning on her, but despite the lack of physical affection between the two she is leaning on him, which for some reason, doesn't feel right.

And finally, cleo; now I absolutely love cleo, she is awesome, but I feel like a lot of the issues that I have with kiara also (kind of) apply to cleo.

Cleo is represented as tough, brave, and strong. we see multiple times how she can handle herself, It is brought up about her rough upbringing, which left her to fend for herself. So, she clearly is meant to be strong and independent, yet she is still seen needing a man on a few occasions.

I do want to say I know she often is the one to help out the group and get them out of their various sticky situations.

The first time I want to bring up is when she gets kidnapped, the whole thing ending in Terences' death. In this scene , her life practically depended on pope. We get to see Pope pull off some cool stunts and shit whilst she is fearing for her life. I wana say I know she tries many times and defends herself a lot throughout these scenes, so my point doesn't fully stand here, I just felt like mentioning this.

The time that really gets to me, though, is season 4 episode 10 (when Pope takes the gun of JJ, not when Pope kills the guy). A question that constantly gets played in my mind is, "Why tf was Pope holding the gun?" naw, I know she says that she's never shot nobody,(im not saying she has/ should've) but I feel like she is braver pope, and stronger, and I feel like it kinda makes more sense for her to be protecting pope (not saying hes week, or needs protection) it's just that after everything we've seen I feel like cleo should be the one shooting, and she should be the hero. But no, it's pope, even though it feels rather out of charicter for him.

It makes sense for it to be pope the second time (when he kills the guy) because she's been shot, and it would be a strain on her to shoot. Like, i get that. But I feel like she's better than that, you know?

But yeah, I may be very wrong.

(I have only watched the show twice, and I usually need to watch it thrice to catch everything properly. /j)

I also may have made the charicters into something their not meant to be, or seen shit that just isn't there, I dunno, my brain be doing that sometimes.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

OK I slept on it and I think I need to stop playing guitar at my church and probably just stop attending entirely

The reasons for this are many, but I'm going to summarize the music thing in particular by saying that playing there has been one of the most bizarrely lonely experiences of my life

I've been playing there now eighteen months and this has been an issue pretty much the whole time. Most of them have known each other for years and are brilliant friends. It's always very difficult to break into a dynamic like that. I only make it worse, to be honest. I'm not super socially aggressive, I'm not good at small talk, and nothing about my disposition advertises that I am an approachable person. My attempts to fix this both in this specific context and in my life more generally have yielded...mixed results. Furthermore, I have gathered from eighteen months of listening to these peoples' conversations that we have essentially nothing in common.

This is compounded by the way the music itself is actually done. Everyone has in-ear monitors--sound-cancelling headphones connected to a personal sound mixing board. The strength of this approach is that everyone can create for themselves a mix that emphasizes the parts they most need to hear, and it makes it much easier to run sound for the auditorium because the sound engineers don't need to try to manage stage volume and try to balance the often irrational desires of the musicians with the demands of a good mix (e.g., if your guitar player is deaf and needs the guitar blasting on the stage, it's hard to make a good mix for people listening that doesn't feature the guitar blasting from the stage).

But this has the effect of hermetically sealing every person in the band from everyone else. You can only communicate with other people if you have a microphone and they have your microphone turned on. The experience is weirdly solipsistic. As you play, you simply have no idea what everyone else in the band is hearing. They might not hear you at all. You yourself have your own mix in your ears and you have no idea how what you are playing translates into the actual mix. You could, theoretically, be wailing away at full volume while the people at the sound board have switched you off. I don't sing so I don't have a microphone, so if I want to communicate with someone I need physically to walk to them and then gesticulate to get them to take out their headphone so that I can talk. This makes the relative cost of a social interaction fairly high, and so I am only going to do it if there is a problem that I cannot fix or endure.

This does not make for an environment of social cohesion. It's actually quite dehumanizing in a way. You are a widget who is plugged in and unplugged each week, it makes no real difference who else is there, and for all you know nothing you are playing is even being heard.

These are issues I have endured basically because I feel that I ought to perform some volunteer service for the church, and because they have continued to schedule me to play. But I strongly suspect that their opinion of my ability is rather diminishing, possibly because I can't devote as much time to practice as I could in the past because of my many and multiplying obligations elsewhere. But I would never know. Nobody really talks to me. I'm not really given notes about what I'm playing, which I take as a sign of indifference rather than approval. Sometimes people have said in the past that I played well, but not lately, perhaps because it no longer needs to be said, or perhaps because it is no longer true. I have no idea who if anyone even hears what I am doing. For all I know they have a recording playing and I am just up there to make it look like someone plays guitar, though I am not an especially good looking person so I'm not sure why I would need to be doing that.

I have also endured it up to now because life has been more endurable otherwise, and I felt like some suffering in the cause of volunteering was all right. But now that my life outside of this volunteering has become much less tolerable, volunteering itself has become much less tolerable. It's not clear to me I am adding anything other than a warm body, I am not especially enjoying the playing itself, and the experience of alienation and isolation that surrounds the experience--the awkward lack of small talk during setup and tear down, the awkward silence during the many down times--is positively punishing.

Yet further complications include that the music itself is extremely stupid, the theological content of the lyrics generally nonexistent, and my feelings about this brand of Protestantism increasingly sour.

Now the grown up thing to do is just to tell them that I cannot do it because I am so busy with other things. This relieves them of my existence in a way that spares them having ever to tell me that I am not good enough to be there or that I do not belong, and maintains the illusion of good will on both sides.

But the almost irresistible temptation is to say nothing and just vanish.

[cloudmancy]

i just finished acofaf and i havent finished the last few adventuring partys yet but it kind of makes me feel crazy how no one has brought up wuvvy clearly being in love with rue. especially in rue & wuvvy's last conversation theres never any indication of rue acknowledging the depth of wuvvy's feelings for them or the sacrifices she's made to be with them and its kind of baffling to me cause rue must know how wuvvy feels about them right? she left her court for them! which is literally the same exact grand gesture hob makes for rue to prove his "love" for them. except wuvvy didnt need to be persuaded. and i was so surprised how in the adventuring parties nobody rlly talked much about wuvvy's love for rue, like emily mentioned it a few times but it felt to me like this elephant in the room that no one was talking about. it's funny cause most/all of the pcs this season were queer but wuvvy comes across kind of like a "scorned lesbian" character where the lack of acknowledgement of her grievances belittles them so as to communicate that they are not legitimate and her feelings are petty and immature. which is obviously a trope intended to preserve a heteronormative and misogynistic status quo. sorry if this is kind of rambly and/or incoherent (i have the flu) i just like your posts and fanart of wuvvy and i wanted to share my thoughts!

OHHHH BOY... you're in for a treat because they do talk about wuvvy in acofaf APs 9-10. it's bittersweet because it's very much an acknowledgement of 'yeah she had feelings for rue and it's a bit fucked up what happened to her'. I cannot blame oscar for wanting to go for a PC/PC romance with brennan's character rather than the NPC but you're right... it really does bother me the way the fandom treated her as a bitch, making really aggressively violent posts when she burned hob's letter, oscar not really even acknowledging in or out of character how much rue meant to her... some of it has to be attributed to how short the adventuring parties are and how much of it was spent talking about ruehob (I have my own opinions about how baffling it was that ruehob was meta'd and built up so much entirely OUTSIDE of the campaign, the main content of the show? but that's a post for another time)

I don't think aabria, brennan, oscar, or anybody else actually meant to contribute to a lesbophobic trope or stereotype; aabria was playing a thoroughly cool character and the circumstances surrounding her just happened to end up this way. it's a game of dnd in the end where a pc/pc romance is more interesting roleplay wise and that is how the cards fell in terms of npc romance. it would not kill people to acknowledge wuvvy and how badly rue hurt her though 😞 I have a huge problem with the 'ruehob together forever, happy ending' part of acofaf & its fandom because of how little the fandom seems to remember or care about her... I do think that is a pattern of misogyny especially when you have many many fans who violently hate wuvvy for getting in the way of their (already canon) ship

I will never stop talking about wuvvy though. [slaps her horns] this satyr can contain so much devotion and angst in her

[procrastinatorproject]

Fuck it, I'm gonna start posting my own shouty thoughts on season 3 of Picard rather than just commenting on other people's stuff.

I'll keep taggin everything "#picard spoilers" (assume I'm talking about everything up to the most recent ep, I'll warn seperately for leaked/promo stuff about ep 10) and "#picard saltiness" so you know what to blacklist (or look for, I'm not telling you how to internet 😋).

I'm sorry/get ready.

Here's the thing. I would like to watch season 3 of Picard and think "Oh well, this wasn't made for me, the same way season 1 wasn't made for the type of TNG fan who is in heaven right now. And I'm sad my favourite characters and main reasons I liked the show in the first place got written off, but I'm glad these other fans are having the time of their lives. Good on them, I'll just mentally file this away as a season/new show that I don't connect with as much as I'd hoped." I really, really want to be able to think that and approach season 3 this way.

But the writers won't let me.

At every turn, and I mean every turn, the writers have gone out of their way to not just pretend the previous two seasons didn't happen, but to remind us they happened and they were stupid and you're stupid to ever have enjoyed them.

It's not just that Picard, in the middle of his disillusioned identity crisis, when he has been holed up on his vinyard for over a decade, talking to nobody, and feeling deeply disappointed by Starfleet, gives an impassioned speech to a bunch of young people about how Starfleet is the only family you'll ever need.

That's a type of discontinuity/soft retcon I don't particularly enjoy, but if it were just that, I wouldn't be writing this way too long screed.

It's not even just the implicit "we will do it right this time" on display e.g. when Picard "flies" the Titan out of the labouring nebula. In that scene, Picard walks up to the captain's chair to take the conn, the TNG theme swells, he sits down, the music becomes bombastic, and he gets to be the Heroic Captain We All Remember. That scene is, in my opinion, something of a parallel to the season 1 scene where Picard tries to hijack La Sirena to take Soji to her people. In the season 1 scene, he sits in the captain's chair, the TNG-inspired music swells, he is about to be the Heroic Captain We All Remember -- except then the music fizzles out and the moment deflates because Picard has been retired for a decade and a half and has no idea what he's doing (and is certainly not the most qualified to do it on an unfamiliar ship).

That parallel in season 3 rubbed me the wrong way, because it felt too close to a refutation of season 1. Too close to "See? This is how that scene should have played out!" But that is a me problem. If the writers were remotely aware of the parallel (and I honestly doubt it, because I'm not sure they know season 1 well enough), it's just as likely they wrote it as a tongue-in-cheek reference, more than a rebuttal. Assuming the worst would have been on me and my unwillingness to give this season a fair shake. And if that sort of scene were the worst of it, I wouldn't be happy about it, but I wouldn't make it everybody else's problem.

Except the writers didn't stop there.

I would (eventually) be okay with it if the writers had just quietly abandoned, ignored, or even outright retconned some characters, history, themes, and plots from season 1 and 2 they disliked. But instead, they repeatedly acknowledge the existence of these elements only to then dismiss them in frankly viscious ways.

It's not enough to ignore the Jurati-Borg in all their Eggness glory and how they would be incredibly relevant to this story season 3 is trying to tell. It's not enough to pretend that storyline never happened and move on. Instead, the writers acknowledge the existence of the new collective, but the only sentence where it's mentioned is a character talking about "That weird shit on the Stargazer."

Yes, Shaw is a dick, yes it fits his character, yes Watsonian reasons. But it was still an active choice by the writers to only bring up one of the major plot developments of season 2 in the most derisive way possible.

Another example: The writers apparently felt that the Troi-Rikers didn't belong on Nepenthe. But it's not enough to have them move somewhere else between seasons, or even to let them have a discussion about how Nepenthe is steeped in loss and grief and they want to move somewhere else and start over.

Instead, the writers have to take time out of their already shoddily paced season to have these two characters extensively shit-talk one of the brightest momenst of season 1 (figuratively and literally). It's not just "they don't like it on Nepenthe anymore", it's "they never liked it, everything about it is terrible, everything season 1 showed you about their life there is a lie, and it has always been shitty and cringey and stupid, and you were stupid to like it!"

It's not just "we dumped our diverse characters, challenging themes, and relatively fresh view on the Trek universe from outside Starfleet for starship porn, great (white) men, and more Starfleet nostalgia than you can even comprehend". It's not just "we're going to ignore the existence of season 1 (and to a degree season 2), because it's not doing the things we want to do." It's not just "we're making this show, knowing (and not caring) that it will alienate a large chunk of the people who enjoyed season 1".

It's "we see what previous seasons were trying to do, and we need you to understand, really understand, how much contempt we have for these seasons and the people who enjoyed them."

I know some people felt this way about season 1 and the way it deconstructed Picard's image as the Great Heroic Captain and laid open his flaws and the flaws of the Federation. And I now empathize with them more than I ever thought I would. But I think there is a big qualitative difference in there.

In season 1, Picard gets put in his place. He has women people telling him when he's wrong, where he has failed, where he should have stepped up and needed to do better. But the show is still deeply sympathetic towards him. By the end of the season, Elnor has forgiven him, Raffi has forgiven him (without ever getting an apology), and he gets to save the day [whether the end to this particular arc is well done (it's not) is a rant for another day].

The failures Picard is being reproached for in season 1 pretty much exclusively happen between TNG and PIC. They tie in to patterns and tendencies the character has always had and attempt to deconstruct some of them. But there's no direct evisceration of specific things that happened on TNG.

At no point does Picard get out his Ressikan flute to make a glib comment about what a useless trinket it is, and how he should have thrown it out years ago. At no point does he turn to Riker and say: "Man, do you remember that Darmok and Jalad shit? What a waste of time! I wish we'd blown up that ship when we encountered it."

Season 1 is critical of Picard's character, yes, and it might feel crass or unfair at times (not least because we're still not used to seeing Great (White) Heroic Men Of Our Childhood get deconstructed that way). But any reproach the season 1 writers levelled at Picard pales in comparison to the petty contempt the season 3 writers regularly display towards the show they've ostensibly taken stewardship of.

Season 1 might have been a bit glib or inconsiderate of the legacy they inherited. Season 3 is viscious. And I am so, so tired of it.

[criticalpraisefilm]

Alien: Romulus - first impressions

There are, off the top of my head, two major sci-fi franchises where the first movie was a straight up horror, and the second skewed more towards action, in which the popular opinion is that the action sequel is the better movie. In the case of both Alien and Terminator, people in my experience generally prefer the action heavy sequels. I, however, in both cases, prefer the original. This opinion is not heretical, but is not often agreed upon, but it does mean that I will never complain about Alien going back to straight horror, and oh boy does Romulus go for horror.

The movie presents three sets of orphaned siblings: Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is a miner who looks after her adopted brother Andy (David Jonsson), a reprogrammed synthetic; Tyler (Archie Renaux), Rain's ex-boyfriend and his sister Kay (Isabela Merced); and finally Tyler and Kay's cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and his adopted sister Navarro (Aileen Wu). After Rain's attempts to get herself and Andy away from the miserable world they live on are thwarted by a forcibly extended work contract, she teams up with the others to raid a decommisioned space station and steal cyrosleep pods to get them to paradise. Unfortunately the space station was decommisioned after it retrieved remains from the wreck of the Nostromo from the first movie, so naturally there are deadly aliens aboard and things go south, leading to the team having to find a way to escape with the help of the station's half-dead medical officer Rook (Daniel Betts), while being hunted by facehuggers and Xenomorphs.

Okay I'm getting this out of the way now: deepfaked Ian Holm as the physical presence of Rook is weird and distracting and pointless and dystopian. Not even death can get movie studios to stop you reprising your role time and time again for nostalgia's sake. I hate it. Moving on.

While we're on the negativity train, let's start with the biggest problem, which is that while Rain and Andy get plenty of development and scenes to make us feel for them and build tension when they're threatened, nobody else really gets that. They get moments to show that they're people with lives, but it's mostly just small things: praying while taking off into space, or doing silly tricks with gravity while taking off into space, or getting sick while taking off into space because they're secretly pregnant. In fact, the takeoff into space scene does quite a lot to show us that these people have rich inner lives and personalities. It's really the only scene that does that.

There is an attempt at banter between the characters, but it's mostly quite shallow. One character is consistently unpleasant to Andy because he doesn't like synthetics, and another character tells us it's because a synthetic made a decision that killed his parents. He doesn't really get any other character traits, and any horror movie needs an unpleasant character we don't like to be the first victim and establish the stakes and the scares, but nobody else gets much after the first couple scenes either. Truth be told, I didn't realise that Rain and Tyler were supposed to be ex-partners while watching the movie, because I missed the dialogue in the very noisy beginning establishing that and nothing about their businesslike and perfunctory interactions throughout the rest of the movie gave me that impression. We care about the people because they're people, but we're given no reason to connect to one character besides the fact that she's pregnant, and she has little personality outside of that.

Rain, Tyler and Andy get the best of it, but Tyler is mostly practical besides a few moments, and Andy spends much of the movie with his personality being overwritten by a module that grants him power, but forces him to prioritise the interests of the company over his friends and family. A good indication of the company valuing profit and property over people's lives and safety, and a rather effective exploration of the theme of capitalism ruining everything, certainly, but not something that endears you to the character.

When Rain puts herself in danger to save her brother, despite having spent much of the movie hiding a pretty major secret from him, and her brother having spent much of the movie putting her friends in danger for profit (granted against his will) the decision seems noble, but not built up to, since the movie has gone out of its way to show us how unpleasant Andy is now. I don't disagree with the decision, but maybe more indications on how her brother is still in there throughout the movie would have worked better than the likeable character being completely subsumed by the character we hate would have worked better.

Okay, negativity over, and despite my ranting I did really like the movie because it does a good job with the tension and the scares and really does a great job at selling how deadly and terrifying the xenomorphs are. Quickly establishing how many extremely prepared people on the space station were annihilated by a single xenomorph, the movie, once in the dangerous situation, does a wonderful job in rapid escalation, putting characters in danger, tearing the group dynamic apart due to the stress and different priorities, only to then make everything fall apart by tearing someone's chest open because, well, that's what these aliens do, and it's terrifying. The effects work is spectacular and the character/creature work on the creatures is gorgeously scary. I spent half of the movie with my hand over my mouth, both because of the tension (and there are a few cheap jumpscares, I'll say, but most of the scares are well earned and very effective) and because of the horrifying imagery.

While everyone else is just sort of there, our main protagonist is likeable, reacts in interesting and believable and mostly intelligent ways to the bad situation she's in, and we want to see her do well, which makes it very tense when she's about to get got by one of the multiple horrifying creatures stalking her and her friends throughout the setting, and Cailee Spaeny sells every moment. She really is the standout here, and her slow evolution comes across less as arbitrary action heroine-fication and more like desensitisation: by the end of the movie she's seen enough horrors that the thing she's staring down now seems less scary, but no less threatening, and you never lose the sense that this character you want to succeed is in just so much danger at all times, which makes her decision to put herself in more danger to help her friends make her even more noble and makes you want to see her succeed, especially juxtaposed with the somewhat selfish place she started from.

I'll admit I've spent more time on the negative than the positive here. It's strange that the criticisms are somewhat more interesting to talk about. The praise is perhaps generic praise for a good Alien movie, but this is a really good Alien movie with some characterisation issues sprinkled throughout. Basic, perhaps, but if you're going into an Alien movie looking for sci-fi horror, it gives you what you want.

Oh and the turn the movie takes in the third act is gross and I love it so much. Extremely good and distressing imagery on display here, it's awful and it's amazing.

[kooki914]

I know this may sound like a silly question, but specifically for the undertale version of Asgore: what coud a partner do to help him become more assertive? Asking because I'm planning to ship him with an OC and I still despise how basically in the ending Toriel gets to verbally tear intro him and he doesn't bother to defend himself (specially with the "just get one soul and leave to kill 6 more ppl to break the barrier" wich she coud have done herself but refused to while living inside her own little bubble ignoring the suffering of her fellos monsters, I undestand she was grieving but I feel it coud have been done without making her seem on the right and nobody speaking agaist her). I also know that by doing this he may appear out of character or that "he changed just for his partner", but knowing that a partner can help you to change for the better while highliting you best personality traits, and I was wondering wich coud be the most coherent way (my plan is for them to spend at least 5 years together, and that Asgore also helps his parter change for the better since they arrive having strong biases agaist monsters).

I don't think this is a silly question at all! It's something I've tackled somewhat in my Spadesgore fics, the idea that someone's habits rub off on Asgore and what can seem like a negative change to outsiders (him being more closed off and assertive) is actually a positive one in the long run because he actually, y'know, gets a spine and stops putting other people's needs above his own.

With Undertale specifically it's a VERY complicated question because I feel like step 1 of any Asgore development in Undertale is that he needs to fully face the brunt of his actions. I'm actually somewhat of the opposite opinion to you about the "confrontation" between him and Toriel, I think the narrative very clearly spells out that his "violence when you're faced with violence" response was the INCORRECT one (while Toriel choosing pacifism in the face of a bloodthirsty nation was, arguably, the least morally dubious choice any character could've made), but Asgore never... confronted the root of that problem? He essentially got a slap on the wrist for the murder of 6 children, and while that WAS narratively satisfying for a game about forgiveness and letting go of the past, I think a bit of self-discipline is in order for Asgore, post the events of the game. Him confronting HIMSELF rather than relying on someone else to do it for him is kind of pivotal to that, in my opinion, because this isn't something a relationship can mend FOR him. Let me elaborate.

WARNING - since this post is analyzing Asgore, there's implications of suicidal ideation, but it's not discussed at length. And, fair warning, this post is less "proper character analysis" and more "wayward speculation based on narrative beats for the sake of shipping" <3

While Asgore is the type of person to feel borderline incomplete when not in a relationship with someone (see: all of his behavior in Deltarune; and in Undertale the way he just Stops Speaking once it's clear Toriel wants nothing to do with him, it's like he's just entirely shut himself out of the conversation as if he has nothing to offer anymore, only ever speaking in vague platitudes until the final boss is defeated and he's osmosed into the friend group), contrary to what he thinks a relationship Won't Fix Him NOR his issues around self-worth. It's something he has to tackle on his own because, if he enters another relationship without doing so, he's gonna end up in the same cycle of trying to impress his partner, exhausting himself, and putting his partner between a rock and a hard place because he's both extremely emotionally needy while NEVER communicating his needs properly, closing himself off while desperate for intimacy.

It's borderline masochistic, his tendencies to just passively wait for outsiders to judge, reward, punish, and practically command his every action. It's why he's kind of a bad leader? He's community oriented, but in that way where he wants to please everyone instead of enacting lasting change, because (I think) he can't really envision a greater good because he's got anxiety up the ass. He's REactive rather than ACTIVE, and while that's typically not THAT big of a deal (again, his Deltarune self as an example of how you can have a normal-ish life even with that weird mentality), when you're put in the position of a leader and then refuse to make conscious choices out of a fear of hurting someone, you're inevitably going to hurt Everyone, which is exactly what happened in Undertale. I guess an easy way to make Asgore a little more self-assured is, paradoxically, give him less power. This may seem antithetical, but if he's allowed to, like, sit and breathe for a minute without everything resting on his shoulders, and small, inconsequential decisions are up to him without the title of "King" looming over him, it might make him feel more confident in THOSE choices, specifically. This doesn't fix the core issue, though, more just gives him a safety net where he can hide from his royal problems with someone who sees him as more than just his title and duty, which is valid (and honestly really cozy and cute), but I'm here to break people and put them back together, so strap in.

You mentioned your OC is a human who has a lot of bias against monsters initially, so allow me to run (a mile) with that for a minute. You probably already have a meetcute in mind for them, but it's honestly a really good setup, I can't help but throw my two (or three) cents into it. It forces our POV character (the OC) to go through considerable change throughout the events of the narrative (whether you fic this or not you've already implemented character development into your romance plot and I Adore that), and in turn a changing perspective on Asgore himself. Try to think of things a human might hold him accountable for, justly or otherwise, someone who heard of mythical monsters and a terrible king who slays children. Your OC might start off somewhat siding with Toriel at first (as she was the only monster who attempted to SAVE humans rather than kill them), but gradually grow to sympathise with Asgore once they get to know him, not just because he's a walking pity party but because that human and Asgore might have more in common than they first thought. (This is where I run out of info on your OC and can't really fill in the blanks LMAO go wild with this part. It can be something as simple as gardening or something as deep rooted and psychological as "the need to please other people in order to feel like you're worth anyone's time". Bonus points if it's both and the gardening is symbolic of the psychological issues.)

From Asgore's perspective, though, this would be utterly baffling. To this day, I don't doubt he somewhat idolises Toriel, he clearly still longs to be close with her, so to see someone (a HUMAN no less) stop empathising with her feelings and instead side with his own? He'd think they're nuts! ... But also, it'd be deeply validating in that guilty-pleasure kind of way (guilty because he doesn't think he deserves redemption). It actually starts turning gears in his head, though... If someone in a position like that, someone belonging to a nation he's hurt so badly, can see the GOOD in him and try to nurture a bond with him despite it all... doesn't it mean he's genuinely worth something? Even if he himself can't see it yet?

(This is, you may note, similar to what happens with Frisk in most fan-plots, but also highlights where I think Asgore's "redemption" in Undertale falls a bit short on the character level. Frisk never really gets to spend time with Asgore, since it's narratively irrelevant whether they like the guy or not, because the point of their conflict is that Frisk refuses to kill him, and refuses to be killed BY him. It's a conflict that re-states the core moral of the game, while also partly dismissing a genuine bond between the characters because it's necessary for it to stay vague for them to properly represent the narrative forces that they do (humanity and monster-kind). The popular fanon is that Asgore adopts Frisk similarly to the way Toriel does, but, in the game there's literally nothing to support that. The equally valid interpretation is that Frisk sees Asgore as just Some Guy they're lukewarm with for the sake of not kickstarting another monster-human war, even if they genuinely don't like him on a personal level, just like Toriel doesn't anymore. Because, again, there's nothing in the game to support Frisk being besties with literally EVERYONE, they just hang out with monsters sometimes and Don't Kill Them, it's not a high bar.)

IF you don't want to take the angle of your OC siding with Toriel (if the monster bias is THAT bad in the beginning), I'd instead propose really hammering home the monster hatred. Just by existing, by being someone hostile to Asgore over something he DIDN'T expect to get hostility over (the fact that he's a monster, and not the fact that he's a murderer) would maybe make him question why he WANTED to be told he was irredeemable, and why it's so strange to receive that input for the wrong reasons. Maybe he tries convincing the human that, actually, monsters are good and HE'S the one who's to blame for everything bad, and when he's brushed off with "no all monsters suck" it just baffles him more. Bonus points if later on it hits him like a truck that your OC developing feelings for HIM specifically made them get over their monster hatred. He thinks it's a case of "if you learn to love the worst of something you'll love the best too" but then has to come face to face with the idea that he ISN'T the worst of monster kind! That they actually prefer HIS company over other monsters! And not even for superficial reasons! And maybe there's still prejudices to overcome with the human, but they're trying FOR him, not in spite of him, and it's yet another little sign from the heavens to Asgore that maybe, just maybe, he's not as irredeemable as he thought.

Another potential avenue, that's less directly correlated with shipping, is to give him a kid that is his responsibility alone to take care of. Whether that be a literal adopted child, or a kid he has to impromptu take care of for a while, I feel like having someone (anyone, really) other than himself to provide for sort of nudges his priorities back in place (even if it doesn't really dismantle the core of his issues). (My reasoning for this being a potential avenue is how much Asgore's let himself go in Deltarune when no-one lives with him, juxtaposed to his well-maintained house in Undertale where he's constantly taking visitors and patiently waiting for his wife to come back.) Something small and defenseless that depends on him for support and protection is something that could really make him realise how much his well-being actually means in the grand scheme of things, that even if it isn't pleasant he has to stand his ground if only for the sake of this child that depends on him for literally everything (which was, incidentally, also his motivation for starting the war in the first place - avenging the children he failed to protect with a fiery vengeance as the only concrete decision he made in his time as king (that we know of)).

Maybe the point of contact/conflict between your OC and Asgore in this scenario is someone who doesn't believe he should be allowed to take care of a child (what with the 6 dead in his basement), and while the feud may start as mild, it might get more and more out of hand and forces Asgore to actually put his foot down and Demand custody rather than ask politely, maybe because the kid in question trusts him and nobody else for backstory reasons, or because they're literally His Kid (Chara slots in really well into this role IMO but you don't have to go with that route if you don't want to tackle revival shenaniganery). This is, imo, much harder to execute in literary form? (If you're not gonna fic this, ignore this part) It bumps up the conflict from slowburn to full on enemies-to-lovers, even if it speedruns the process of Asgore getting a spine, and if you can pull that off hats off to you but I always struggle with proper enemies to lovers with no intermediary of "friends" in between.

IN ANY CASE, past the "will they - won't they" phase, once they're actually together, I'd suggest your OC lightly nudge Asgore into that self-assuredness he's desperately missing, and moreover I suggest it not be on purpose. While it's probably the healthier option to talk to your partner if they're having self-esteem issues, this is fiction and I love drama, if you expected anything else you came to the wrong person, and ALSO this is Asgore we're talking about. He's the king of "never talk about my emotions, ever" so even if something is brought to the forefront he'd probably just apologise and privately cry about it without fixing literally anything. It would be more impactful (imo) if Asgore chose to adopt some of the habits of his partner without him being prodded over it, or pushed into it. At first, small things, like actually asking for the pickles in his order himself (/ref, meme), but slowly it might evolve into him realising just how much he's been neglecting himself. Scenario example of what I mean - his partner has actual self-preservation instincts and can help themself when in a tough spot, and Asgore is caught off guard when that same kindness is offered to him (as the king of monsters, his subjects revered him so heavily they kind of forgot he can actually get hurt or might need help with otherwise ordinary things, and Asgore stopped helping himself along the way because of it).

A different scenario might be something benign, like an insult or backhanded compliment Asgore brushes off, but his partner doesn't. Asgore might hold the (correct) position that, as a political figure, there's literally no point in trying to stave off every insult or mean opinion, and (incorrectly) asserts it doesn't have an effect on him overall. Because, in reality, it DOES stick. He has a hard time shaking off disapproval and hatred when he's carrying around so much guilt (juxtaposed to how genuinely confident he seems in Gerson's stories of Asgore before his children fell down and before Toriel left, when Asgore could ACTUALLY roll with the punches and not mind public embarrassment because the opinion of the masses didn't matter to him as much as it does now), and maybe his partner can point out to him that he seems weirdly more fixated on the actual Contents of the insult than they do. Where they just didn't like someone's tone or intent, Asgore's actually focusing on What they said, and it's a clear indication of the way he compartmentalises and somewhat takes in every criticism he's ever received. Because depression and low self esteem just does that to a motherfucker sometimes.

Overall there's also a sort of... tricky line to tread when trying to write around/through one of the character's defining flaws. Asgore was always described as a pushover, so what are you really left with when trying to override that fatal flaw that makes him what he is? This sort of trope, "your strongest attribute is your biggest weakness", stems all the way back from ancient Greece because its a GOLDEN trope, and when making fan content I think there's an interesting line that can be drawn. Asgore's best quality is his friendliness and approachable-ness, so how do we NOT diminish that while actually diminishing the FLAW part of that core character trait? Maybe Asgore's more confident and self-assured now that he has a partner that supports him basically unconditionally, but ALSO he still cracks under pressure easily and gives into demands if pressed enough. Maybe he stands his ground more and can actually tell people off without being a total pushover, but ALSO he ends up feeling a lot of guilt over doing so and maybe regresses back into old habits soon after.

Because, again, a relationship won't fix him, and to me that's part of the appeal. Instead of finding someone to "make him whole", it's more about finding someone that's gonna be there for him during the good and the bad days, someone who maybe fills in for some of the traits he lacks, but never overrides what makes him who he is. Because, let's be honest, him being a pushover is probably what allows him to properly consider a relationship with someone who started off so heavily biased against him. Having little self esteem paved the way for him to not dismiss this person outright, opening his arms to someone who started off with genuine hatred towards him, and it's not a good habit(!!), but it's woven into his vary nature as a character, and I always find it interesting to see that push and pull between progress and loving even the bad parts of someone's personality. Again, especially because it's fiction, there's a lot to explore when it comes to that line of thinking, "do I want to make you better or am I trying to change a fundamental part of you"? I don't think Asgore would be abandoning his nature by having a spine and not taking shit from literally everyone, BUT it might be a line of thinking HE falls back on, because he's had literally hundreds of years of this habit built up, it's gonna be hard to make any progress without immediately taking two steps back again. Especially because it's Asgore, he's basically a smiling boulder that refuses to move or change (and I say that affectionately).

TL;DR:

I think finding a way to instill a sense of Inherent Worth in Asgore is a good way to shake him into being a little more assertive. It's what I did in my own fics (and a lot of this post was me re-treading the same ideas with different characters to pair Asgore with), and the premise of someone who dislikes him from the get-go but learns to love him in time is (in my opinion) the best vessel to do that through. Because, if this person, who means a lot to him, can get over their biases and love him, (like ACTUALLY love him, not the way his subjects love their king, but the way a person loves another person) doesn't that mean there's worth to him being himself, and not just what people expect of him? Is the fact that he's beloved by someone he loves not reason enough to try and survive another day, and thrive in the long run?

It's difficult to instill worth in a character that's had hundreds of years of literal and figurative dehumanization on his hands, but it has to start with small things. Him being more than just a king. Then, him being more than just a friend, more than just a person you're eventually going to grow tired of or disgusted with, and eventually someone who doesn't need constant approval to feel like he's allowed to breathe. Small kindnesses go a long way, and if he starts to see himself in someone he wants to protect, or ends up in a position where he's being provided for by someone he loves, it can build up those ideas of worth and (ironically) independence, because it's less about pleasing a crowd and more about Not Dying because he's actually not that bad to have around in the first place.

[martianbugsbunny]

Personally i doubt thor knows loki loves him

U know what I'm gonna take the challenge on this one. Now, this post will only discuss their relationship in the movies before Ragnarok, because I don't really like that movie and I think it did a great disservice to both the characters and their relationship; the brightest and best of them comes from Thor, Avengers, and Dark World in my opinion, so I will be talking about what I love rather than what I have at best apathy for. Sticking it under the cut (it got looooong because I love to think about their dynamic), so if you want my opinion, read on, and if you've seen enough opinions for a lifetime and don't want any more, scrumble away and have a lovely day

Okay so let's start with Thor. In the beginning of that movie, there is absolutely no doubt in Thor's heart that Loki loves him, and here's why: Thor is an arrogant man who is largely blind to the things he doesn't agree with or understand. He has this mentality of other people just being made to love and adore him, because he's the future warrior king of Asgard, he's the golden boy, and because Asgard's people really do love and adore him, so his arrogance is only being confirmed by other people's actions. And of course, there's nobody who should love and adore Thor more than his brother, right?

Now, here's where I want to digress for a minute to talk about how incredibly unhealthy their relationship is. Thor kind of has the same outlook that Loki expresses in Avengers, that people are beneath him, and that's why they should all be looking up to him with awe and praise, and that extends even to his own brother. He tells Loki to mind his place and kind of brushes off his advice, because even though they're brothers and that's the closest anyone could get to being his equal, it's still not enough. Thor views Loki as another person who is beneath him, but who ultimately can't do anything but look up to him and love him.

This is an illusion.

Loki does love Thor. Their relationship, with how complicated and messy it is, only works if they truly love each other, and they do. But it's not the blind, adulating love that Thor expects. It's a jealous, aching love. Loki craves being equal to Thor, a problem that's only exacerbated by the way Thor denies him that position. He craves to be loved as he's assumed to love. And the problem with a love like that is how quickly it can turn. If Thor won't give Loki the affection he needs, then Loki isn't going to show Thor affection the way Thor wants him to, either.

That first movie is in multiple ways a brutal awakening for Thor. He's not the man his father wants him to be. His entire life he's been training to be king and then that future seems like it's been ripped away from him. He has his power and then it's all gone. And his brother, this person around whom he's constructed a narrative of almost reverent adoration, suddenly turns against him, tries to keep him in exile and then to kill him, tries to take the life that was promised to Thor. That looks absolutely nothing like the love Thor has believed Loki feels for him.

I would feel some doubt at that point. I think anyone would. My sibling tried to kill me. Does he still love me? Did he ever love me?

And to add to that natural doubt, Thor doesn't understand Loki. He never really has. He doesn't know what it's like to be, as Loki says later, living in the shade of someone else's greatness, the trickster brother who's never really trusted, let alone lauded. And correct me if I'm wrong, but even by the end of Thor, he doesn't know what really tipped Loki off the deep end. He doesn't know that Loki's just found out he's a Jotun in a land of Asgardians, that he's the very thing he's been brought up to hate and fear, so Thor doesn't understand why Loki is acting so erratically, which must compound the doubt for him. From his point of view it's like a light switch flicked and now Loki's trying to kill him, which increases the did he ever? question. Was it always a facade? And I don't think Thor ever quite realizes the illusion he built around Loki, the difference between his expectations and reality to begin with, so he also wouldn't be seeing that it's not quite instantaneous, that there were years of building resentment and longing that contributed to the tipping point of Loki's changed behavior.

So by the end of Thor, yes, he's got to be wondering if Loki loved him.

But when Thor appears in Avengers, do you remember what plea he makes? He says I grieved for you, I want you to come home. That's not the kind of thing you say to someone you think doesn't care about you. That's a plea to the heart. That's Thor trying to get to the love he knows is in there somewhere, behind everything else that's built up around Loki's heart; that's Thor saying I know you still love me, I don't know what changed, but please let our bond be enough to fix it. Whatever he's been thinking about between the events of those two movies, he's moved past that doubt enough to think maybe Loki's love for him will be enough to bring him home, even if some part of him expects Loki to say no anyway. We know that in the interim he learned of Loki's status as a Jotun, so maybe Thor's even begun to try to understand. Maybe he's been thinking about the fact that life got very hard and very confusing for Loki very suddenly, and he wonders if now that some time has passed, there's a chance Loki wants to come back and work through it with him and their parents. When he says "we were raised together, we played together, we fought together," he's not just trying to convince Loki that he's loved, he's trying to remind Loki of his own love.

Again, during the Battle of New York itself, Thor makes a similar plea. He offers that he and Loki stop the fight together, and his eyes are so incredibly soft when he says it, you know he believes it can still work. That belief comes from knowing there's something in Loki that wants to say yes, something that loves Thor enough to give up his dream of kingdom and stop the invasion. His use of together is interesting not just because he's offering Loki a way out, putting it on the table that Loki can exercise his heart and choose a better path, but also because he's finally putting Loki on the same level he is. We can do this, we can return home, you just have to find some part of you that loves me enough to choose equality with me in this fight over equality with me in having thrones. He also holds back when he's dueling Loki, which is a horrible idea if you actually believe a person has the capacity to kill you, but if you don't believe that, it's an ultimate show of trust. Thor kind of puts his life in Loki's hands by not using his full strength, and only after Loki rejects his offer and stabs him does he finally use more brute force, although it's still not enough to kill Loki or even knock him out. Thor really believes, not just wants to believe, that Loki will not kill him given the chance, that there is something in him that wants to go home, and it's all because Thor, after all his shattered illusions, still believes there is love for him in Loki's heart, even if it has been touched and twisted by anger and pain.

In Dark World, Thor is much more pessimistic when he breaks Loki out of jail. He basically says that his brother is no longer in there, that he won't hesitate to kill Loki if he steps out of line. I think this is important to note because Thor isn't saying I don't believe you love me anymore, he's saying the person who loved me is dead and this shell is all that remains. Thor says he no longer has hope, but he's still clinging to that belief that Loki did love him, in his own way, and he would rather view Loki as dead than let go of it.

But beyond that, there's the fact that he not only lets Loki out of the handcuffs, he gives Loki a knife. Once again, you don't give a weapon to someone you wouldn't trust not to kill you, and you don't trust someone you've had so much tension with not to kill you unless you believe they love you. Loki says "trust my rage" re: Frigga being killed, but I would argue that actually wouldn't go in his favor. Thor has seen what Loki resorts to when he's not processing his emotions in any way other than rage: he attacks Thor, he falls into perfidy, he just lashes out at the closest target. And even despite that, despite having fought Loki in Thor and in Avengers, having witnessed firsthand what destruction Loki was willing to either cause or help facilitate, Thor still gives him a weapon and trusts that Loki isn't going to kill him. There is clearly still a part of Thor that is saying he loves me, he's not going to kill me.

Of course, by the end of that movie, Thor is rewarded in his faith. Loki stabs Kurse to save Thor, and it appears to cost him his life, and as he's dying, what does Thor say? Stay with me. In essence, loving me so much you'll die for me isn't enough, love me so much you'll stay alive for me. It's not a rational thing to say to someone who appears to be bleeding out; a person can't generally stave off death on willpower alone when they've been stabbed in the gut. Thor always ends up speaking to Loki's heart, because he knows that heart is bitter and full of rage and grief but also love, even though Loki is absolutely horrible at expressing it most of the time. I want to talk about why Loki might've faked his death and taken Odin's place at the end of that movie in another post, but part of me really thinks he chose that specific way to fake his death because he wanted Thor to see that Loki did love him, and that was the only way he could think of to reach out without actually having to confront his own pain and the enormity of the breach between them. Now, the "I didn't do it for him" could be taken one of two ways: it was actually for Frigga, or it was actually for Thor. I'm very much inclined to believe the latter, as Thor is the one present in the scene. Also, the expression on Thor's face when Loki says that is so frozen, like yes, I wanted more than anything to be told that you still care, but not like this. And it feels like Loki is doing his best to communicate that he does love Thor, but his communication skills, especially with Thor, are severely distorted, partially by that unhealthy relationship they had early on where he most likely never felt entirely welcome to speak his true feelings, and partially by the chasm that opened between them when Loki went into his downward spiral of destruction, both of himself and of others. I genuinely think Loki doesn't know how to just say it. To quote myself from an earlier post I made about Loki, he feels like "there’s no way he can possibly repair the relationships he’s broken," so he doesn't try to apologize and make up for it. Like someone else (I forget who) has already said, sacrifice is the way Loki makes up for things. So he gives Thor this image of a sacrifice, the ultimate expression of love and devotion, because he doesn't know how else to say it.

What's the point of all this? Thor knew Loki loved him. That's the whole point of their story. Their love for each other is the cornerstone on which that immense cosmic narrative is built. Even with doubt, anger, bitterness, frustration, grief, pain all complicating their relationship and getting in the way of actually expressing love to each other, the fundamental truth of Thor and Loki is love. Is faith. Is hope. Is saying maybe you don't know how to say it, maybe you're trying to shut it down, but I know there is something in you that loves me and that's the part I choose to believe in.

Thor knew Loki loved him.

[irkendogma]

Would Tak herself be into selfcest?

i don't think she'd have any particular opinion on the topic of selfcest itself, honestly! for me, the idea of tak/takship has always been less of a relationship formed on active desire than a relationship formed by the highly specific context in which it occurs

it's not that she's into getting with herself, it's that the only one she trusts not to work against her, to view her for the ability and ambition she's cultivated rather than the height and social station she can't help, is herself. her entire life's been a solitary endeavor out of necessity, and her ego is flagrant enough that she doesn't see a problem with this - it's fine if nobody can be trusted to assist her, because she's certain her own efforts will not just suffice but excel - but all the ego in the world won't prevent loneliness even if you leave it to develop quiet and unacknowledged in the back of your head

that's the crux of her relationship with takship: she's made to see herself, whether that's in how she appears to others, how she would be in a more "perfect" state, or just how she, in her own body and her own mind, feels when she's unable to ignore it or push it aside any longer

takship stemming so fully from her own psyche means that she's able to offer a kind of stripped-raw, unsteady support that she recognizes from what was never offered to herself, and it means that when that support is reciprocated she knows the exact nature and intention of it - she doesn't have to worry about being patronized or manipulated. she doesn't have to worry about takship secretly thinking of her as just a delusional runt keeping up a useless struggle, because for the first time in her life, she has someone else fighting that exact same struggle alongside her

[themattress]

Re:Maki Roll

So when it comes to Danganronpa V3's story, Maki is one of my least favorite characters. But I recently thought about it and I feel the need to offer something of a correction: I actually don't have that much of a problem with Maki herself. While I feel like making her the Ultimate Assassin was a mistake on Kodaka's part, her characterization is perfectly sensible for that talent and the upbringing that gave it to her. Looking at her in a bubble, she's fine. My actual problem is with the narrative framing of her and the other character's reactions to her.

Usually, Danganronpa is good at not trying to force a point of view down your throat so far as certain characters are concerned. It presents them in all their flaws and indefensible actions, and lets you form you own opinion. But with Maki, the narrative seems weirdly obsessed with making you like and sympathize with her, delving way more into her past and feelings than most other characters, and casting such a flattering light on her that it's easy to ignore the fact that as the Ultimate Assassin she is a mass murderer and displays little remorse for it.

This segues into how the other characters react to her and treat her. So Kokichi exposes that she's the Ultimate Assassin; in other words a professional killer trapped in a game where the objective is to kill people. And instead of being concerned about that...nobody cares. Well actually, that's not entirely true: they do care for a while, but then Kaito says "Leave it to me, she's not that bad and I'll prove it!" and then everyone just accepts this and the issue doesn't come up again. Maki doesn't suffer much ostracization all because Kaito decides for no solid reason that she has to be a good person, despite her attitude usually being not so good, which persists as she casually throws out her "Do you want to die?" catchphrase at others.

But of course, Chapter 5 is the real lowlight. Maki deliberately chooses to lie to her friends by promising not to go off on her own to kill Kokichi, steals poison from Shuichi's lab so that Kokichi can suffer as he dies, screws up and seemingly kills Kaito, and as a result tries to get her friends killed in the class trial so that (who she thinks is) Kokichi can be executed along with them. In short, she deceived people so that she could attempt lethal revenge, it backfired on her, and rather than learn anything responded by deceiving the same people so that she could attempt lethal revenge again, only this time she knew it would cost those people their lives. In Chapter 6, she again promises against lethal revenge and again goes back on it. with the only improvement made being that she's willing to sacrifice her own life for it instead of sacrificing others' lives. And I don't mind any of this! It makes Maki an interesting character.

What I mind is everyone else forgiving her and giving her a free pass for all of it. At no point does anyone else say "What the fuck, Maki!? That is messed up!" They forgive her for her multiple betrayals instantaneously, with Shuichi even later throwing a Kaito line at Maki that calls her "the hero", as if she's some kind of noble paragon. Whenever Maki's actions are brought up, it's in the context of claiming that the Mastermind "controlled her" to do it through fake memories of Kokichi being a Remnant of Despair, with nobody pointing out that everyone else got those same fake memories and nobody but Maki chose to act upon them the way she did; a way she explicitly promised them she would not. Maybe Kodaka thought he was doing the same thing he did with Hina in the original Danganropa, but those situations were completely different. Hina was a regular girl pushed to an emotional/mental breaking point by Sakura being physically assaulted and then killing herself plus a suicide note that Monokuma fabricated, and her actions very specifically included her own death along with everyone else's. Maki is a professional assassin who was cool-headed to the point where she's the one who pulled everyone else out of a depressive funk, Kaito was not dead until she seemingly killed him while trying to kill Kokichi, and she wanted to get everyone else but herself killed. Hina being instantly forgiven for what she did while having a total breakdown makes sense, Maki being instantly forgiven for conscious, cold-blooded betrayal does not.

I, however, will forgive Maki, and instead declare Kodaka guilty! It's punishment time!

[review-anon]

Chiba plz!

Never become Bubbles's favourite or else you will die/j

Either way opinions are under the cut.

In most Danganronpa games, whenever it be canon or fangan you always have one character who's wwaayyy shorter then the others, to the point they are child sized. Most of the time this character is female as while we have had short males in the past, they don't often get the same treatment from the fandom. In Goodbye Despair this is Hiyoko, in Killing Harmony this is Himiko, in Danganronpa Another this is Kanata, in SDRA2 its kinda tied between Iroha and the Otonokoji Twins and in Tetro Pink; its Chiba.

However I say Chiba is a rather darker take on the trope because while with the others its explained they haven't hit their growth spurt yet and at some point they do and become more "normal sized" in Chiba's case, I feel her small size is due to malnurutation. And this stunted growth I believe was done on purpose since we know Chiba has been acting since she was 8, so her mother, who I'm getting heavy Stage Mum vibes from, probably underfed Chiba on purpose so that she would remain small and be ready for the child roles. The fact she also has heavy makeup on to make herself look younger then she really is; means despite being the same age as the rest of the cast; she looks younger.

And this actually plays a big part into a character because part of Chiba's character arc in Chapter 2 is twofold, firstly she is tired that nobody takes her seriously and looks down on her like she is a child, when she isn't. And the second is even though Sasaki is dead and with that the absolutely moronic vent plan should be put to rest now, she still insists on climbing up the vent, even though its very clear she's struggling big time to do so. You think its a case of sunk cost fallacy, but I feel its more like stubborness then anything.

She forms a friendship trio with Hama and Harada quite early on, with Harada I think at first its because she likes the fact he has a tiger cub and enjoys playing with Sawa. But later on, when Harada opens up about the fact he used to be a bully due to the fear of nobody taking him seriously, I feel this deepened their bond as its the exact same problem Chiba herself faces, that she isn't taken seriously due to how cute and small she looks.

Its interesting she seeks advice from Mai about how to be taken more seriously, and while she gives honest advice that Chiba needs to act more mature and tell people she means business, Chiba obviously misinterepted it as "act like Hiyoko Sainoji" which as others such as Hama and Harada pointed out, is gonna make Chiba more of a target then anything.

Chiba and Hama is more interesting because I feel Hama was drawn to Chiba because she reminds him of his younger sister, who as we later find out has chronic illnesses and so he has to be mindful of her, but of course while the friendship is nice Chiba doesn't like the fact Hama treats her like a child at times, telling her to not do stuff she can obviously do. This I felt was a case of poor communication between the two, but and this is a absolute peak of Tetro Pink's writing, while in most situations this would lead to tragedy, eventually both Chiba and Hama realise where they dungoofed and do make it up in the end. I'm glad this happened before Chiba was killed or else that would have been so much guilt on Hama's conecious.

Now I know people are gonna be concerned that Chiba had Okazaki's reward and was packing heat this whole time, bringing mind those sprite edits many have done of Hibiki and Kanata with a gun, you know who you are, but I'm more concerned about the fact Chiba actually knew how to use a gun. My best guess she played as a child gangster or something in one of her acting roles and as such learnt to use firearms then, as some actors and actresses do like to do their own stunts. Still worrying that Chiba was carrying the gun at all times though.

Of course it seems being decleared as Bubbles's favourite character is the kiss of death since Chiba wound up as victim number two, to the point Timeline Anon decleared open session on whoever killed her. Naturally this was backpedaled when the truth came out about the case but the real tragedy was while Sawa would have always gone crazy and attacked someone, Chiba was probably the only person who could have been killed by her, as if Sawa attacked any of the others, they would have suffered injuries, probably really bad ones but wouldn't have died. But since Chiba was so small, she could be killed a tiger cub.

I also liked it that she had a interaction with Hiroaki and he actually gave her his number when he found out she doesn't have many friends prior to the Killing Game and has a busy worklife like he does. Again this is proof that none of the characters here are heartless and they have their moments of empathy. I know I give Okazaki some slack but the fact she kept herself so composed is probably a realisation that her moral code isn't compatable with everyone else's and is trying to keep the peace that way.

Overall Chiba is a very sweet character who tries to address some of the common tropes her type of character tends to have and has a very heartbreaking death. Nobody liked her death at all.

[nelyos-right-hand]

Re: fandom disagreements about Elwing/Fëanorians/whoever - what irks me here is that none of this was a problem for years when it was a common practice to piss on Elwing and various other female characters, but when people start defending them and acting in the same way against their rivals, people are suddenly amazed at how much it sucks to have your faves hated even in their tags. I don't think it's in itself a sign of misogyny to dislike Elwing or someone else, but when the fandom comes up with completely unfounded ideas in order to villainize these women while woobifying and explaining away the actual canon crimes of male characters, one can't help but draw some conclusions. So let's talk more when this fandom learns to respect women.

Hey Anon, thanks for writing me!

One thing I should probably say in advance: When I talk about "fans should be nice to each other in the kidnap fam/Elwing corner" I meant both Elwing and kidnap fam fans, I hope it didn't sound like I was only criticising the Elwing side, because that really wasn't my intention. I also only mean a small minority of people, and I don't know you, but since you came here to talk civilly about it and explain your issues, I assume you're not one of them, so I hope you didn't feel offended.

I absolutely understand your frustration, and I know that it's not easy for Elwing fans in the fandom; liking Elwing isn't a hot take anymore, but it's also far from mainstream. Nobody likes it when a person they love is portrayed negatively, and you have every right to defend her.

On the topic of disliking Elwing and misogyny - There might very well be misogynistic people in the fandom. It's actually rather likely. There're probably also racists in the fandom. This is the internet, and it's never completely free of idiots. And even though we can't change that, that's of course still not a good thing. But I don't think it's possible to identify those people based on their opinions on characters. The reason for that is that the characters we like don't mirror our moral compass. If Maedhros was a real person, he should go to prison for the rest of his life, and I would never even come close to defending him, but as a fictional character I can like him. It's like dark romance: No one would actually date their murderous stalker, but it's nice to read about it in a book.

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't any fans who dislike Elwing out of misogynistic reasons, only that I'm not in the position to judge that. And while I don't actually know any of the people in this fandom personally, I have met many very nice people, for example my beloved mutals, and some of them like and others dislike Elwing, and I do feel the need to defend them; There might be bad people in this fandom, but most of those I have interacted with are absolutely wonderful.

But I'm getting off topic and sappy. I think whether or not we have the right to draw conclusions based on these kind of things is a rather philosophical and complex question, so I get it if you disagree. The problem I addressed in my post also wasn't really about whether some people out there are misogynistic, but that some people say "Everyone who likes/dislikes Elwing is a bad person" and that's wrong and hurtful.

Now, this post has gotten way longer and chaotic than I was planning (I'm so sorry for rambling, I have to get that under control), so maybe a short summary: You're right that Elwing has been hated for many years and that it's good that her fans are standing up for her, you're also right that it sucks to only hear negative things about the characters you love. I don't think we can draw conclusions on people's moral compass based on their opinions on characters, but that's a rather complex question. What's important to me is that we treat each other with respect, don't insult others because they like/dislike a character we don't, and accept it when someone has different views on something.

I hope this helped/adressed your issues/answered your question. If not, or if I maybe misunderstood you, or something else, feel free to contact me again, I found it very interesting to hear your opinion on this and it helped me understand some things!

[thatgirl4815]

Hi! I'm the anon who sent the ask about the fight in Sand's apartment. In light of the ask you just got about Ray hate, I want to clarify that I do not hate Ray! He is my pookie and I love him, just as Sand is my pookie and I love him. I have all the empathy in the world for Ray finally getting his chance to be with Mew in the worst possible way, and I expect that he knows deep down that this isn't going to work out the way he wants it to - but he had to take the chance anyway. It honestly feels like a form of self-harm for him (or at least accepting the love he thinks he deserves). And I will still have all the empathy in the world when it inevitably blows up in his face. Honestly, I hope he gets the chance to see for himself that a relationship with Mew isn't what he's been imagining it to be because of the ways Mew himself is flawed, and that he gets a chance to feel dissatisfied with it in his own right rather than Mew just throwing him over for Top. Honestly, I don't think his behaviour toward Sand up to this point has been anything to criticise overmuch - they're both guilty of letting the lines blur, and touting the "we're just friends with benefits" party line when that lines up less and less with how they were acting. Sand saying they weren't friends isn't entirely fair - I do think their friendship was honest, even if there was more romantic interest than either was admitting to. Still, it's good that he finally drew the line and admitted it isn't what he wants. And Ray admitting to romantic interest of his own is also good, even if the I can have feelings for as many people as I want, but don't you dare make out with anyone else display was not it. I want the jealousy from Ray not to punish him, but because I think it's important to their relationship progression that he either develops or acknowledges the strength of that romantic interest (especially in contrast to his Mew feels) if they're going to have a hope of being endgame. And I want Sand to remember he's a catch and deserves someone who wants him wholeheartedly. (And if that's Ray, apologises for calling him a whore.) Anyway, sorry if you felt like I wanted Ray punished by the narrative - I wanted to give you a better explanation of where I'm coming from in case my ask was upsetting!

Hi! No need to apologize at all! :) As I said before, I think everybody's opinion on this is valid because it's ultimately such a messy situation. I think my biggest point is that having empathy for both Sand and Ray makes the viewing experience that much more rich and complex. Nobody is 100% good or 100% bad.

For the record, I also want Ray to feel jealousy. I want Ray to hurt for all the hurt that he has caused Sand (and as the catalyst for showing him just how much he cares about Sand). And I agree that up until this point, Ray hasn't really done too much bad to Sand aside from calling him a whore. He hasn't been super upfront with Sand about his feelings for Mew, but he didn't owe him that in the beginning, and even recently he tried to open a dialogue about it, but Sand is the one who shut it down.

Where things get messy is in what is said besides what is implicitly understood. I agree that Sand and Ray's friendship is honest, and I also think that their romantic pull to each other has been a dominant force in that relationship; they might not have vocalized it, but I don't believe for a moment that either of them ever thought this was purely a friendship (besides maybe episode 2?). The problem is denial. Ray is denying because of Mew. And he knows it. I'd argue that Ray is very aware of his affection for Sand, but he isn't allowing himself to consider it too deeply lest it take away from his feelings for Mew.

It's like when you develop a hyperfixation, and while in that hyperfixation you start getting interested in something else, and the thought of liking anything more than your hyperfixation starts to freak you out so you immediately start to shut down the new interest. (Does that make sense? Maybe that's a bad analogy, but I have that experience a lot haha).