#rather than just be a mistreated plot device all the time

[ravenya003]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Welcome to the Hellmouth, S01E01

My 2024 Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch starts NOW!

Before I jump in, here’s some quick housekeeping:

I’ll endeavour to do this on a weekly basis; watching an episode on Saturday night and writing up a post on Sunday.

I’m not going to worry about spoilers. This show was as good as it was because of how interconnected the themes and storylines were, so if something in season one reminds me of something in season seven, I’m going to mention it.

This is the first time I’ve watched this show (probably) since high school, and it’s almost certainly the first time I’ve watched it from start to finish. It’s actually rather dizzying in this age of eight episode shows that get cancelled after two seasons to consider there are one hundred and forty-four episodes of Buffy that span seven years.

Obviously I am not unaware of Joss Whedon’s mistreatment of others on the set of Buffy, and where it seems relevant I’ll bring it up. But I also don’t think it’s fair to the rest of the cast and crew to throw the entire show under the bus because of one person, especially when it had such a huge (positive) impact on so many lives.

For the record, my favourite ships are Willow/Oz, Giles/Jenny and Spike/Drusilla. My purpose in pointing this out is to make clear that I don’t watch this show to see what true love looks like, but to watch a close-knit band of social misfits fight the forces of evil together. To me, the heart of this show is the friendship between Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles. The show is always at its strongest when it’s focusing on the four of them, and most of the love stories just don’t interest me that much.

Once season three is over, I’ll start alternating between Buffy and Angel episodes.

Okay, let’s get to it.

First of all, I was not prepared for how dated everything looks and sounds. Naturally my most recent memories of Buffy are watching the later seasons, when there’s cellphones and internet access and fashion choices that wouldn’t seem out of place today – but season one looks like a different era entirely.

There are some references that have dated amusingly (Cordelia and Buffy bond over their shared appreciation for James Spader), some that I didn’t get at all (who’s John Tesh? What’s Debarge?) and a few synthesized musical cues that are straight out of the nineties.

I had forgotten that the Cold Open involves Julie Benz as Darla, and that show-defining twist when it turns out that she’s the vampire and not her predatory date. Ah, Red Shirt #1 played by Carmine Giovinazzo – you have the distinction of being this show’s first victim. I salute you.

Also, it’s amusing to think that we had no idea just how important Darla would end up being to the franchise’s lore. She’s just a standard vampire minion at this early stage, though I do like the fact that she was presumably cast to look a bit like Buffy.

And of course, it all starts at good old Sunnydale High.

Our first glimpse of Buffy Summers begins with her in the middle of a nightmare, which... girl, get used to this plot device. This one is a bit more muddled than her later dreams, made up of a bunch of clips that’ll be used in later episodes that culminate in the Master, the season’s Big Bad.

I had to smile at the sight of those yellow school buses pulling up at the front of Sunnydale High. Buffy may not arrive at school in one of these things, but seven years later, she’s sure as hell going to leave in one.

Joyce – and later on, Angel – are both perfect examples of Characterization Marches On regarding the fact the writers’ room hasn’t quite settled on their personalities yet. In Joyce’s case, she comes across as a lot more flaky than in later appearances.

Oh, and here’s Xander, riding in on a skateboard that we’ll never see him use again across the entire run of the series. I get that he’s a very contentious character in the annals of the show, and though I’m certainly not going to let him off the hook for his occasional (frequent?) shitty behaviour, I also think I’m fonder of him than the average fan.

Honestly, I think Joss Whedon doomed him a little when he stated that Xander was the character most based on him in high school. Suddenly all his entitled, chauvinist behaviour was re-evaluated through the lens of knowing that Whedon was a pretty awful person – but I hope we can all agree that even at his worst, Xander is a MUCH better human being than Whedon.

We’ll see how we go.

Interesting that Willow’s history with Xander is established well before she meets Buffy. Not surprising, since they’ve known each other since early childhood, but interesting. Buffy is the protagonist, but Xander/Willow’s relationship with each other takes precedence when it comes to introducing the gang’s dynamics.

And hey, it’s Eric Balfour as Jesse! Oh man, they really dropped the ball on this character, didn’t they. It’s the one aspect of this two-part premiere that really doesn’t work... but I’ll get to that in good time.

Principle Flutie! Something else I’d totally forgotten; I honestly thought this show started with Snyder.

Also, that initial on his desk plaque is B. Does that mean his name is actually Bob (which is what he tells Buffy to call him)? Not Robert? Weird.

Buffy and Xander’s meetcute involves him helping her pick up some of the spilled contents of her bag, and accidentally saying: “can I have you?” instead of “can I help you?” Oof. Yeah, that’s not an auspicious start.

Buffy meets Cordelia before she meets Willow, and Cordelia comes across as surprisingly nice when she shares her textbook with Buffy and invites her into Sunnydale's popular clique. Then of course, the second relatively big twist of the episode occurs: Cordelia reverts into absolute bitchiness when they come across Willow at the drinking fountain.

Willow scarpers and Buffy looks deeply uncomfortable. There’s a nice subtext across this episode that suggests Buffy was once just like Cordelia, only for her calling to make her more sympathetic to social “losers” like Xander and Willow.

Cordelia also describes the Bronze as being in “the bad part of town”. Huh? I’m going to chalk that one down to more Early Instalment Weirdness, since I don’t think it ever comes up again. (Later Sunnydale is described as a “one Starbucks town”, which is also funny since it’s later revealed to contain a zoo, a shopping mall, several lakes and parks, a military base, and a university).

Buffy enters the library for the first time, and the first thing she sees is a newspaper with an article titled “local boys still missing” outlined in red. The plurality of “boys” means that this isn’t referring to Darla’s kill, which probably only happened the night before anyway. Instead, it’s an indication that there are ongoing problems of a supernatural nature in Sunnydale.

And here’s Giles! The most interesting thing about this interaction is that Giles has clearly been waiting for Buffy. As in, he knows that the Slayer is scheduled to appear in Sunnydale, and that she’s going to be enrolled in its local high school. As Willow says later on, he’s also a newcomer, having only recently taken the position of school librarian.

The show never goes into any more detail than this, but I have so many questions. Clearly Buffy was under surveillance from the Watchers Council, who knew she was coming and made sure Giles had a cover story and a position to fill at Sunnydale High so that he could more easily sidle himself into her life, but a part of me wonders they pulled similar strings for Joyce to get her that job at the art gallery in order to bring Buffy to Sunnydale in the first place.

Evidence for this is that Giles already knows it’s a hotbed for supernatural activity in his discussions with her, though I suppose his dialogue suggests it’s more fate (or the Powers That Be?) rather than the Watchers Council that had a hand in Buffy’s arrival at the Hellmouth (“there’s a reason you’re here and a reason why it’s now”). Still, it’s an interesting theory to ponder, and I always felt it was a shame that the show never delved too deeply into Buffy’s life after she became a Slayer but before she moved to Sunnydale.

(Though I suppose that had to do with the spectre of the 1992 Buffy movie, who’s relationship with this show is a bit tenuous. But now I’m getting off-track).

Buffy flees from Giles and strikes up a conversation with Willow instead. Willow’s eagerness and earnestness is very cute, and though she probably has the most profound development of any other character on this show, I’ll always miss this early dorky version of her.

In describing the library, Buffy says it gives her “the wiggins”. HAH! Remember that word? Remember how it didn’t exist anywhere except this show? Remember how it was essentially Whedon’s attempt to make fetch happen? Aw, man. What a delightful throwback.

On hearing that a body has been found stuffed in a locker, Buffy naturally cannot help but investigate – though I suppose we can chalk it down just as much to her wanting confirmation on whether or not vampires are in town than to any personal sense of responsibility.

Our first glimpse of her super strength comes when she busts through the locked door into the changing room, and she gives a weary “oh great” on seeing the bitemarks in the victim’s neck.

But then of course, she follows this up by sharing her discovery with Giles, who is quick to point out that she’s doing something about it. I have a soft spot for heroes who simply cannot walk away from danger and/or a situation that needs their intervention, regardless of how loudly they grumble about it.

Turns out Xander has heard their entire conversation about vampires and Watchers and Slayers from behind the stacks... which is an elegant not-coincidence since it was established earlier in the episode (in his conversation with Willow) that he was going to the library for a trigonometry book.

Giles is still jabbering about how Sunnydale is a centre of mystical energy that attracts all kinds of supernatural beings, and Buffy’s skepticism naturally gives way to a panning shot of an underground cave where a formidable-looking vampire is intoning “the Sleeper will wake” over a pool of blood.

As villains go, the Master is obviously not particularly inspired, especially since he spends most of this season as a quintessential Orcus on His Throne, but it was also way too early in the game to have a complex or personal Big Bad. You can’t come out the gate with a Glory or an Angelus, and I think he serves his purpose just fine as a Nosferatu-esque spectre that a sixteen-year-old girl would understandably be intimidated by.

Ditto Luke as the show’s Starter Villain: a physical threat to Buffy without being all that interesting.

On Buffy’s way to the Bronze we get our first Angel sighting, and much like Joyce, his characterization is a bit off. He’s way too smarmy and negging, but also... kind of upbeat? It’s amusing to reflect that the writers room knew very little about him at this point, including the fact that he was a vampire (making his “I don’t bite” comment deeply ironic) so it’s lucky that they never filmed any of his scenes in daylight before the truth comes out six episodes later.

In any case, his role in this episode is to namedrop things like “the Mouth of Hell” and “the Harvest” (which Giles will start researching as soon as Buffy passes them on to him) and give Buffy the silver crucifix which... becomes important at some stage? I remember the claddagh ring in season three, but have no recollection of this necklace.

Also intriguing is this dialogue between them: Angel – “I’m a friend.” Buffy – “Maybe I don’t want a friend.” Angel – “I didn’t say I was yours.”

I mean, I know it’s just meaningless banter, but Buffy assumes the “friend” he’s talking about is Giles, who soon confirms that he’s never met him before. So was Angel actually referring to The Powers That Be? Whistler, maybe? Again, I know that this was just filler dialogue with no established context, but I’d be interested to see if it fits in with season two’s flashbacks where he’s introduced to Buffy from a distance.

There’s a very sweet interaction between Buffy and Willow at the Bronze, in which the former gives the latter some advice (“seize the day, because tomorrow you might be dead”) and assures her she’s coming back – despite Willow’s expectation that she won’t – when she spots Giles on an overhead balcony.

The staging of the scene between her and Giles is a bit sus – did he really have to stand behind her and lean over her like that? – but at his insistence she spots a vampire in the crowd, though not because of her preternatural senses, but because of his dated fashion sense. And uh-oh, he’s chatting up Willow, who is unfortunately taking Buffy’s “seize the day” advice.

A throwaway line from Cordelia down on the dance floor is telling: apparently her mother never gets out of bed. Our resident Alpha Bitch clearly doesn’t have a great home life.

Poor Jesse gets the brush-off from Cordelia and runs straight into Darla instead. The reveal is wonderfully corny, in which she swivels around in her hanging basket chair with a smile that wouldn’t melt butter.

We’re heading into the third act cliff-hanger now: Willow is being ushered through a graveyard by her vampiric date, Jesse is clearly also in danger, the Master has risen and sent out his minions to bring him fresh blood, and Xander’s skepticism over Buffy’s Slayer status quickly turns to concern when he learns that Willow is in trouble.

They all converge in a graveyard crypt, and – bless her – Buffy is bantering right off the bat. It’s actually a pretty good tactic, as the vampires are caught off-guard by her confidence. Though... shouldn’t Darla clock the fact that she’s a Slayer? We learn later that she’s familiar with the concept, though this is obviously another case of not having figured out the character’s background at this early stage.

A point in Xander’s favour: Buffy tells him to “go” and instead he enters the crypt to help Jesse and Willow. You have to admit, that’s classic Xander.

And we end with Xander/Willow/Jesse being threatened by more vampires outside, as Luke lowers himself onto Buffy after he’s thrown her into an open tomb. To be continued...

Miscellaneous Observations:

Do we ever get an explanation for the force field that’s keeping the Master trapped underground? It’s obviously magic, so who put it in place?

How did Angel know about the Harvest? Who sent him? I know the answers are still to come, but the question is deliberately left dangling in this episode.

Giles mentions incubus and succubus in his litany of monsters that are attracted to Sunnydale, but I think they’re the only two creatures that never actually appear in the show.

I love the little glimpses of non-main characters going about their business in Sunnydale, namely Aphrodesia and Aura gossiping about Buffy before the dead guy falls out of the latter’s locker. I wonder if those girls made it to Graduation Day...

Watching this episode, the most eye-opening character is Cordelia, who has quite the epic journey ahead of her. It’s almost funny to see her in a role that requires her to be little more than Buffy’s antagonist and foil – essentially what Buffy would have been without her calling. I’m taking a moment to think about where all these characters end up, and it’s pretty dizzying.

Giles gives the famous Slayer mantra: “Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a Chosen One. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.” This is repeated in the show’s very final episode, and not only forms the crux of Buffy’s entire identity crisis, but also serves as the inspiration for her solution to it. Damn, I love this show.

But who the heck is the guy who speaks these lines in the opening introduction?? It’s later taken over by Anthony Stewart Head, but in season one at least we get a completely unfamiliar narrator.

As excited as I am to embark on this rewatch, I know that after the third season the show loses its centre a bit as the main trio form relationships that are ostensibly more important than the one they have with each other. I love these early seasons because their friendship is clearly the focus of the show – the thing not only protecting them against the forces of evil, but getting them through the hell that is high school.

The show loses its lustre when it loses sight of their bond, but I have three whole seasons to enjoy before that happens. Let’s do this.

Best Line: Cordelia (after Buffy has accidentally slammed her against a wall, thinking she’s a vampire): “Excuse me, I have to call EVERYONE I have EVER met, RIGHT NOW.”

Best Scene: The climatic fight in the crypt, not for the fight itself, but for the shock on Xander and Willow’s faces as the world (and their lives) irrevocably change.

Best Subversion: Obviously when the vulnerable and demure little blonde in the Cold Open reveals herself to be the real danger in the room.

Death Toll: Darla's date in the cold open. Thomas, the vampire that Buffy dusts in the crypt. Also, the newspaper in the library mentioned "local boys still missing" but since we never see them on-screen, the toll stands at TWO.

Grand Total: One civilian, one villain.

[causetheturtle]

One of the characters I’m really sad seems to have been completely dropped from Stranger Things is Terry Ives - like the way she hasn’t been mentioned at all since season 2 really rubs me the wrong way.

I see this sentiment a lot of the time with people saying that “Hopper and Joyce are El’s REAL parents” and yeah they’re the ones who’ve had the most positive impact on her life, they deserve praise for that (although Hopper wasn’t the best parent to her more than a few times and Joyce has her flaws as well, not in the way she’s treated El but in her relationship with Jonathan however that’s mostly due to extenuating circumstances and is a complex situation AND is a conversation for another day) and I’m all for Brenner slander but Terry didn’t mistreat her daughter or cruelly abandon her, she had her child ripped away from her. Terry didn’t choose to not have a part in her daughter’s life, in fact she did EVERYTHING she could to get her daughter back and suffered for it terribly.

And I’m not saying that El should’ve stayed with Terry and her sister or that Hopper and Joyce aren’t incredibly important influences on her life and she shouldn’t have chosen to stay with them but the fact Terry has never so much as been mentioned since season 2 is really disappointing. It’s another case of a disabled or mentally ill character being used as nothing more than a plot device.

It also sadly reminds me of real life disabled or mentally ill parents who love their children and want be part of their lives, and COULD HAVE been a part of their children’s lives but have been failed by every possible service or authority to the point where their mental and physical health or their financial situation means that they can’t be in their children’s lives. Maybe I’m just reading too much into things but it’s where my mind went with that storyline.

I guess you could make the argument that, narratively, El could blame herself for what happened to her mother and it hurts too much to be around her - but we don’t know that because, again, Terry has not been mentioned in years.

And I think a person would struggle to convince me that a character and kind, loving and empathetic as El would have zero interest in seeing Terry again - especially after learning that her mother didn’t abandon her, she fought as hard as she could to get her back and didn’t stop fighting until she was physically and mentally incapable of doing so.

But we never even get a mention of El visiting her mother and aunt or of anyone keeping in touch with them in any other way.

Again, it’s another example of a disabled and/or mentally ill person being used as a plot device rather than character which is really disappointing to see

[anxiousprocrastinator]

WHY MODDING UPHOLD GAMING CULTURE

This week, I'd like to go into game modding, which is the process of changing a computer game by bringing new artefacts into the game environment, provided by a member of the general public (Bilińska-Reformat, Dewalska-Opitek & Hofman-Kohlmeyer 2020). What is the appeal of alternating a perfectly great game that the designers have spent a long time developing?

Not a new tale

I had many worries regarding the legality and ethics of these activities before realising that this is not a mistreatment that arose out of nowhere during the online gaming culture, but rather a matter of preference and the necessity for modification to fit into the milieu that individuals who play games inhabit. For example, the well-known board game UNO is popular for this type of interaction on Twitter.

From this, we may conclude that game modification is not motivated by animosity, but rather by people's instinct to improve gaming experiences for their players. That is also why, even though game creators have been noticed of these actions for so long, they have never overtly banned or disabled gamers' ability to put up their mods, and some even promote such efforts (Pereira & Silva Bernardes 2021).

Games such as Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and Resident Evil are well-known for being much better with mods. Modding is an excellent outlet for creative individuals. They can create new characters, weaponry, plots, and even entirely new game types. With individual creations and preferences, a game's life is now extended as mods give complexity to either the storyline or visual, causing users to want to spend more time on their device, which is ultimately what the developer wants.

The Sims 4 experience

The Sims is one of the strongest modding communities I've ever seen in gaming. The Sims games are essentially sandbox games, meaning they lack specified goals. The player creates virtual people known as "Sims", sets them in residences, and assists in directing their moods and satisfying their wishes. Players can either place their Sims in pre-built homes or build their own. Each expansion pack and game in the series expanded the player's capabilities with their Sims (WikiWand n.d.). Even though the premise of the game appears easy and just another option for players to "play God", it has 24 years of running, four series, and is one of the best-selling game of all time.

As I explored this extremely dull game, I decided to immerse myself in the experience by playing Sims 4 for a week. The first 20 hours were exhausting; the graphics in the game are not realistic or aesthetically beautiful, and the gameplay experience has nothing unique to offer, so I was perplexed. However, on the third day, a friend had introduced me to their modding system, and everything changed.

Game modification for the Sims is more than just making minor changes; there are other elements to consider. You can have various haircuts, costumes, and other personality traits coded by fellow Sims gamers with distinct aesthetics, mods that produced complete interactivity, new environments, activities, and species put into the game's release packs to make it more interesting. There were also cheat codes to make designing, gaming, and making money in the game more appealing. This expansion piqued my interest in installing and being more involved because I now have the ability to customise my game, and seeing such an active and large community made me feel less out of place.

Mods enable users to customise the game to their preferences. This could range from little cosmetic alterations to entire overhauls of gameplay mechanics, transforming a regular day-to-day game into horror, romance, drama, or whatever tale you like. For modders, this technique provides them with sentiment links.

Modding has elevated the game and doubled earnings; it's a win-win scenario. The firm understands how important a healthy modding community can be for any game. It provides a platform for people to interact, discuss ideas, and work together on new mods. This can help to keep the game going and build anticipation for future installments. Mods may introduce popular features or gameplay mechanics (Reisinho, Raposo, & Zagalo 2023). The Sims developers can take note of these and include them in future official versions.

To summarise, game modding serves as a pillar of gaming culture by encouraging creativity, extending the life of beloved titles, and empowering players to become active participants in the environment they live in. It exemplifies gamers' collaborative attitude, since individuals who are passionate about their favourite pastime may constantly reinvent and revitalise the experiences they value. Modding transforms gaming culture from one of consumption to one of invention, pushing the boundaries of what a game can be and assuring the long-term viability of this ever-changing medium.

REFERENCE LIST

1, Bilińska-Reformat, K, Dewalska-Opitek, A & Hofman-Kohlmeyer, M 2020, ‘To Mod or Not to Mod—An Empirical Study on Game Modding as Customer Value Co-Creation’, Sustainability, vol. 12, no. 21, p. 9014.

2, Pereira, LS & Silva Bernardes, MME 2021, ‘Modding as game development: Investigating the influences over how mods are made’, Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 151–172.

3, Reisinho, P, Raposo, R & Zagalo, N 2023, ‘The ethical dilemma of modding digital games: A literature review of the creation and distribution of mods’, Convergence, SAGE Publishing.

4, WikiWand n.d., ‘Wikiwand - The Sims’, Wikiwand, viewed 24 March 2024, <https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mod_The_Sims>.

[bthump]

I find Elaine aesthetically and thematically accurate to Berserk, especially during the condemn arc. I also love the character development Farnese has because of her, their relationship is cute. But I found myself not seeing her as Casca, her “mother instincts” aren’t credible (that she’s a woman doesn’t mean she wont have complicated feelings about the baby, at least after “regaining her mind”)

Her character lost a lot because for most part of the story she’s not Casca as a character but a plot device (during the golden age arc she’s treated as a plot device too) Guts did unforgivable things to her and I can’t view them as a couple anymore. I almost wished she had died along with the rest of the band of the hawk during the eclipse, it’d be far better than what we got.

I enjoyed the whole dreamscape mini arc (mostly because I love Farnese), but it’s not fair for Casca to be mistreated like this. What do you think would be the ideal development of Casca after the GA arc?

P.S: love your griffguts meta ❤️

Thank you!

Yeah the direction Miura went with Casca is such a shame.

Hmm, if she doesn't die during the Eclipse, then maybe the best thing would've been for her to survive sans rape, but leave Guts and essentially bow out of the story, perhaps to occasionally appear as a side character rather than one of the central characters, for instance if they run into each other at the Tower of Conviction for the sake of the mock eclipse. But with no sexual tension lol.

Even if I can't re-write the Golden Age to remove their hookup, I feel like it was quite unromantic and noncommital (they called it licking wounds after all), and it would make perfect sense for Guts and Casca to go their separate ways after the Eclipse. There's the fact that 2 brands in the same area is bad, but also like, maybe they give it a shot during their time recovering in Godo's cave and realize they just can't be in a relationship after everything that's happened. Maybe they disagree on what they want to do now and have a big fight about Guts' suicidal revenge mission and properly break up. Idk, it'd be pretty easy to come up with something imo.

And the idea of Casca occasionally crossing paths with Guts while doing her own thing just seems fun to me.

Guts can go on a sidequest for literally anything, Casca was a plot contrivance there and you could come up with anything to replace it. Maybe he's accidentally responsible for someone needing magic Elfhlem healing so he decides to take them there partly bc he feels bad and partly bc he needs a distraction after NGriff ditched him. Maybe it's an entirely different sidequest since Elfhelm didn't turn out to be that important after all lol.

Anyway yeah, I don't have anything solid here, but it's an idea. Thanks for asking!

[nagirambles]

is there anything you ever wish we learned more about celestial magic? or at least anyway you’d want to change it considering how it work now, because it had so much potential but as you’ve stated it now basically works as celestial spirt take over (which honestly if take literally could be even cooler like lucy and her sprits merging sure as hell is a concept)

Oh dear here I go. I love this topic.

I definitely wish we learned more about the spirits themselves, their powers, and their dynamics between each other and people around them.

We explored this in the Angel fight, but that's really the most we ever get. I liked when we sawCapricorn's loyalty in Tenrou (and how Loke knew it), but again, we just never get anything like it ever again. I was looking forward to Libra the whole show (because it's my sign) and she ended up being a plot device to show off how cool Kagura is.

I genuinely believe that spirits should never be undermined in their own main magic, because they're just pointless then. At least make them equal like Juvia vs Aquarius, geez. Horologium is one of the most useful spirits Lucy has, and he's irreplaceable, unlike her fighting spirits. No other spirit can do ultimate defense like him, (eg Loke can be interchanged with Virgo or Taurus, because if you just want raw power, they can all do it similarly).

This ramble got really long so here's a read more.

Most of them are now just convenient weapons to be summoned when the author realizes they've lacked screen time recently. Gemini, one of the better-handled ones, are just the cool trick Lucy has for jokes or fake-outs/deceit, and she summons them to use Urano Metria I guess. And no, I'm not saying that's bad, that's really good actually, but that's the thing-- Gemini is just a cool power. We never explore Gemini's viewpoints or Aries' former mistreatment ever again, even though it's apparently a prevailing problem among CSM. Lucy being a mage that actually loves her spirits is the whole crux of Lucy's magic, and yet it's like everyone's forgotten it was ever an issue in the world.

Understandably, it's because we have zero points of comparison. It would have been cool if we found another CSM like Karen again, just to see how the spirits react due to Lucy's influence on them.

I truly believe this problem exists because Lucy got too many keys too quickly. It just got too difficult to balance screentime, and so they just stopped showing up altogether for any meaningful reason than battle. I know it's necessary for the plot and it's sparsely explained away in Key of Starry Heavens and the Eclipse gate yada yada, but it just doesn't make sense that there are only two Celestial Spirit mages in the entire damn world when gold keys are so rare. It's never explained why this is like this except for us to think 'oh, she's the main character, of course'. I really think the series could have benefited from more one-off characters that are CSM, like-- god forbid I say this, Everlue.

Heck, we should have had some mages that just specialize in Silver Keys. You're not telling me such a versatile old magic isn't researched to hell and back with a cult following and some die-hard collectors. Money and rarity isn't really a valid concern, Shiny hunters exist in the Pokemon fandom. if people want something, they will do anything legal and illegal to get it.

I feel it's a shame that we have to continue enforcing the 'ohh, I'm using your magic by being here, I gotta go and let you fight by yourself' thing, since there's so much potential in tag teaming.

I want to see them fight together, rather than Lucy just taking their powers and using them like Digimon fusion. Actually that's a terrible comparison, Digimon fusions are better because the Digimon is still there conjoined like armor, speaking to each other, and they're actually fighting together with their Tamers as one. Okay now I like this idea better. I want something like that for Lucy if she's going to be a magical girl, not the Requip: Celestial Spirit Powers that we got. Yeah what we got is cool but I like the spirits as characters too, not just as one of Lucy's many power varieties.

I do like that Virgo gave Lucy a whip in Edolas. We hardly see her use it effectively and at some point it's just gone, but I feel that's a great start in going from summoning spirits to fighting with their powers. We should have expanded on that before the Star Dresses, honestly. Maybe Taurus gives her a lesser version of his axe or gauntlets that grant her some super strength, Loke gives her a ring that can use a holder-type Regulus, Aquarius gives her a water jug and Lucy can use some Water Magic as long as she's using the water from it. Imagine if she only got these weapons after a while of bonding with them, like a statement of trust and love from spirit to owner.

Sure she'll find weapons she's ill-fitted for, but isn't that the point? Imagine Lucy asking for advice from the rest of her teammates or even her spirits themselves, because one of them gave her a rapier and she needs to learn a bit of how to use it? The training arc before GMG would have been perfect for these things.

I'd also like if they continued a Holder-type theming with those, because Lucy's the only Holder-type in Team Natsu and I wish she stayed like that so she continued to remain unique. We literally have-- so many magical-girl type female mages, form Requip to Takeover to Star Dresses. Mashima uses all of them as an excuse for fanservice, and he's so blatant about it ugh. Couldn't he at least make the designs look good?

Alright! That's about it I have for now. I have a tag called 'the menace celestials' if anyone ever wants to read all the rambles I've had about Celestial Spirit magic. Thank you for the ask!

[landonkirbyappreciation]

Has the way they’ve been mistreating Landon/Aria been feeling like the elephant in the room to anyone else or is it just me? It’s still crazy to me how they’ve openly been treating the character and the actor terribly.

The fact that Aria rightfully earned the male lead role of this show and they’ve been treating him as nothing more than an extra/plot device, having him absent for the majority of the season, only giving him a few minutes of screen time in the episodes he does appear in. The only thing that would make this somewhat okay is if it’s been Aria’s choice to be less involved in the show. But even if that’s the case, they’re still giving him awful material to work with and have been excluding him from basically everything else going on in the show. They’ve been unnecessarily treating his character horribly and giving him no storyline when they could be doing so much more with Landon even in the small amount of screen time they’ve given him. And the poor treatment of Landon has of course been going on for much longer than just this season.

It’s so messed up how they’ve taken an actor/character who is a POC, who is Middle Eastern, a character who is also a former foster child who was unloved and unwanted growing up, and have made a point of showing how unwanted and uncared for he is by every character on the show besides Hope (and Raf who is no longer there). When he was assumed to be dead and was actually dead, both times, he got no funeral and no one was shown caring or mourning him at all except for Hope. And Hope has been criticized for caring about him, called obsessed and reckless for grieving him and wanting to save him. They’ve created a whole narrative where Landon being saved or prioritized (even when he’s the one in real danger) is continuously painted as wrong. They’ve repeatedly created circumstances so that they can emphasize that something horrible will happen if Landon is ever put first or chosen to be saved. And have portrayed him being sacrificed, him dying, as the right thing. Him being left behind and forgotten is encouraged over and over again by other characters while saving him is discouraged, he’s constantly treated as disposable.

And then they’ll take him being sacrificed, his death, and try and romanticize it. To the point where Landon’s own brother, who had always fought for Landon’s life no matter what, was written to be passive about Landon being sacrificed. And made it seem like Landon dying and going to peace was some kind of reward for Landon rather than a tragedy. And what makes this all even worse is the fact that they’ve been doing this to a character who grew up abused and bullied, and had also been su*cidal at one point. They kill him a dozen times, put him through one violent death after another. And have him being okay with it, sometimes volunteering to be killed. And of course we know he willingly sacrificed himself to save everyone else.

And then when he does die once again, them justifying his death by saying he’ll get to find peace becomes moot since he ends up trapped in limbo where he is prevented from finding peace because he has to atone for sins that he didn’t commit?? For things that his father did with his body while Landon was the one who truly suffered and had his body and free will stolen from him? And then if that wasn’t bad enough, they continue to keep Landon trapped and instead, free Alaric, while Landon becomes enslaved and they make him a servant?? But then they try and romanticize all this as well because it means that Landon gets to help people. :’) And all the while, of course, they completely ignore all the trauma Landon would inevitably have after they put him through hell for an entire season. Plus his mental state while being stuck in another dimension again, for the third time in less than 2 seasons.

Also the fact that they had Landon spending basically a whole season trapped and alone, and he’s still trapped after all this time. And the only time he hasn’t been trapped in another dimension since the start of season 3, he was trapped inside his own mind instead. They did this to someone who grew up alone and with no one for most of his life. And who has struggled with being alone in the past (like in the start of season 2 when he’d been su*cidal, “being alone is hopeless”) and who was also locked in a closet as a child who knows how many times. And they decided to lock him away in other dimensions, as well as inside his mind (where he was also forced to relive the trauma of being locked in a closet), and isolate him even further for 2 seasons straight. Where he’s also basically been without a home or any sort of solace, after he’s gone the majority of his life without a real home and struggled with that growing up too. And this isn’t including all the other trauma he went through in the prison world and while being possessed, which we still don’t even know the specifics of because they had that whole storyline of Landon’s, which was crucial for his character, happening offscreen.

But with all of this, they still have Landon acting fine as if it never happened, and ignore his pain like it’s nothing, as if Landon has no feelings and is immune to trauma. And make his whole character and storyline about helping other people, and at his own expense, and nothing about him individually. Then have him acting unaffected and accepting of the terrible things that have happened to him and how badly he’s treated. Again, they’ve done all this to a POC, and to a character who was a foster child as well, and who brings that kind of representation to the show. Like... idk what kind of messages they’re trying to send with all this but it’s been real unsettling to watch.

And this doesn’t include the way they’ve also insulted Landon countless times throughout the show. When he’d been severely bullied and they have him continuing to be bullied/insulted by certain characters. There have been plenty of insults about his appearance, which end up being insulting to Aria. And they’ve also taken the kind of insults and hatred you see from antis and have put them into the show too. Such as “bird boy” (which is a classic amongst Landon haters). Or false lines like “you gave up on Hope twice,” or things like Landon being called weak and useless and that he waits to be saved, etc. when none of these things are true and there’s nothing to back it up, but all this stuff comes straight from Landon antis. These are the kinds of things that are said in the fandom to hate on him. And there are lots of other examples that I won’t go on listing here, but the writers inserting this stuff into the show has just validated the hatred and helped perpetuate it and the negativity surrounding Landon’s character even further. Rather than trying to discourage the hatred towards him, they’ve helped fuel the fire instead.

And I know there’s probably stuff I’ve not mentioned because of how much there is, but it’s just insane to think of it all and that the way they treat Landon never gets any better. And it seems he could still be trapped in limbo till the end of the season too, if he even gets out at all. I just... I’ve really never seen anything like this in a show before where a male lead has been treated this badly. And in such a short period of time as well. And it also sucks because you know that if so many people didn’t hate Landon and there were more Landon fans, more people would be speaking up about it. But because such a large part of the fanbase doesn’t care about Landon, there’s a lot of silence surrounding it. And then the writers just continue to use Landon as their punching bag, which also affects Aria. I just hope that if the show does get renewed and Aria is still in it, that there are some serious changes because this really isn’t normal or okay at all.

[juliabohemian]

oh dear

I have noticed a number of posts circulating which imply that ANY character being mean to Loki EVER and for ANY reason = abuse.

I will admit that I initially felt mostly irritation at what appeared, on the surface, to constitute such a complete and utter lack of critical thinking. What I’ve realized, though, is that people who make such posts definitely believe what they are saying. And like everything people do and say, there’s a deeper reason for it. The fact is, traumatized characters attract traumatized fans. And not all of those fans are in a good place, emotionally. And those people are perfectly valid, even if the conclusions they draw are not.

When it comes to fiction, good characters are complex. That means they are conflicted and flawed. They make mistakes. They lash out when they are afraid or hurting. They sometimes hurt other characters. Loki fits that bill very well. It’s one of the reasons he is so popular. Not just with traumatized people, but with people in general. He’s relatable.

The problem comes when fans relate to fictional characters, but really aren’t conscious of why, because they aren’t all that conscious of themselves. They haven’t done a whole lot of self-reflection. Maybe because they aren’t ready, because their trauma is too fresh. Or maybe they are still living in crisis and don’t have the freedom to self-reflect. Those possibilities are all valid.

But very often, when a person goes through trauma and doesn’t have the luxury (and yes, it is a luxury) of working through it, their reasoning skills can become flawed as a result. Trauma, especially childhood trauma, tends to have a negative effect on our ability to socialize and form intimate relationships, because it damages our ability to interpret the intentions of others. We call this hostile attribution bias.

The problem with hostile attribution bias, is that it makes it difficult to tell when people genuinely mean you harm. If a person’s words, actions, or facial expressions are ambiguous in any way, they will be interpreted as being hostile in nature. This keeps one on the offensive, constantly, always anticipating the next blow. Very often, no such blow is coming. But it doesn’t matter. Fear is real, and the experience of it is real.

It stands to reason that someone who struggles to interpret the intentions of real-life people would also experience the same difficulty with fictional characters. For instance, fans who identify with Loki because they perceive him as being a victim will have a hard time seeing him as anything else. Thus, anyone who harms Loki in any way is just further proof that the universe is against him and always will be.

This is referred to as an external locus of control. It means that a person sees life as something that is happening TO them, and that they are powerless to affect the outcome. It’s also important to note that people with this mentality struggle deeply to heal from their trauma. They are stuck in a sort of Groundhog Day scenario, living the same thing out over and over again. Because of their flawed perception, everything that happens to them feels like an extension of that initial trauma.

So, it would make perfect sense that a person with a history of trauma, who suffers from attribution bias, and who has an external locus of control, would be extremely uncomfortable watching anything bad happen to Loki. In fact, it would probably be traumatic for them.

And while their feelings and their experience of those feelings are 100% real, their perception of reality is not entirely accurate. In other words, what they think is happening is not necessarily what is happening.

Loki’s initial trauma, believe it or not, was just being abandoned as an infant. Even though he can’t remember it, that experience alone can result in lifelong emotional struggles. In real life, we refer to this as an attachment disorder. A person with an attachment disorder usually develops major issues with abandonment. They also suffer from (wait for it) attribution bias. And that bias absolutely affects their perception.

Loki’s next trauma was being raised in a dysfunctional family. Not only were they dysfunctional, but they weren’t a very good fit for Loki. Loki was a quiet, contemplative person. He was a thinker, an intellectual. He would rather read or do magic. So, not a good fit for Asgardian society. The combination of Loki’s initial trauma, with his inherent temperament, and his dysfunctional family is what led to the inevitable breakdown that is regarded as Loki’s “villain” arc. I’d like to point out that, in reality, such a person would have probably suffered a breakdown much sooner than that. Typically, prior to reaching adulthood.

Loki’s next trauma was encountering Thanos. Now, we have no idea exactly what happened between Loki and Thanos. We know only that it wasn’t good and that it resulted in Loki being absolutely terrified of him. Other than that, details are fuzzy. I think it’s fair to assume that whatever mistreatment Loki endured probably qualified as torture. Whether it was physical or psychological, we cannot know for sure.

While Loki’s Thanos-related trauma was NOT an extension of his family-related trauma, his decision to entangle himself with Thanos was a product of that trauma. By which I mean that his willingness to align himself with someone like Thanos came from a place of desperation, and a desire to prove himself to someone who he perceived as being qualified to validate him.

So, fast forward to the LOKI show. Our version of Loki never returned to Asgard in chains, was never told that it was his birthright to die, nor endured any gaslighting from Ragnarok-Thor. He never got his neck broken by Thanos. He never went through any of that. He arrived at the TVA, fresh off his failed attempt to take over planet Earth. He was all fired up and defensive, as anyone in his situation would probably be.

Now, here’s where we need to put our critical thinking caps on. Because, I hate to tell you this, folks...but unlike most of the Loki content we’ve gotten prior, this content is actually well written. It’s VERY well written. And while it might be tempting to respond to it with pure emotion, it is imperative that we don’t abandon all logic and reason. This show is not an extension of the gauntlet of trauma we’ve watched Loki endure since he first appeared on screen. The creative minds involved in this venture ALL care deeply about Loki’s character and want to see him succeed (whatever that means for him).

Enter Mobius. He’s a cog in a very big machine. He likes to think of himself as being more than that. He establishes a rapport with his boss in the hopes of distinguishing himself from his peers. His interest in his work is personal. He likes what he does.

From Mobius’ point of view, Loki is an asset. He has information that could help solve the bigger puzzle. But Mobius exists in a world that affords him access to multiple realities. He has probably met dozens of Lokis. And he has probably seen hundreds of people casually pruned or executed or reset. It’s just part of the world he happens to be in. And he doesn’t question it, because he has been brainwashed.

So, does Mobius attempt to manipulate Loki? Absolutely. Just another day at the office. And it works, because he knows Loki better than Loki knows himself, has studied him and other Lokis. And it’s hard not to be mad at Mobius for causing Loki pain. Especially when that is followed up by Loki eagerly taking Mobius up on his offer to help track down the other Loki variant.

I think some people might find Loki’s enthusiasm disconcerting. And there are certainly aspects of it that can be considered such. Loki, at his core, just wants to be told that he is doing a good job, that his contributions matter. That part of him is definitely a product of trauma. But is Loki motivated entirely by his trauma? Not really. Despite his manipulations, Mobius offers Loki the closest thing to warmth and compassion that he has seen for a while. Some of that is genuine and some of that is not. And faced with the reality that everything he knows is gone, Loki does what most people in his situation would do, he tries to be productive. He gets busy. He distracts himself. Because at the moment, little else is under his control.

Despite all of that, you simply cannot have compassion for Loki and none for Mobius. Because Mobius is a victim too. He was abducted from his own reality. He is living a lie. He is part of something that, upon deeper reflection, he realizes he doesn’t agree with. He is so very much like the Loki we first met in 2011. He is such a well-written and multi-faceted character, I thoroughly enjoy his on screen time with Loki.

But I understand that there are people who are not in a place, emotionally, where they can overlook such plot devices. And I sincerely hope that those eventually people find healing. In the meantime, let’s try to remember that this is a work of fiction. And unlike real-life trauma, when it becomes upsetting, we can turn it off and walk away.

[taetaespeaches]

“Just relax. This will change your life.”

hoseok x reader (oc) genre: fluff word count: 1.8K

a/n: Happy Hobi Day!!!!! Doesn’t the world just feel a little bit brighter today? I wrote this in about an hour last night and it’s really all I had time for... it’s not my best and there’s no real consistent plot, it’s just a glimpse into Hobi and Petals/reader’s relationship a bit earlier on in their timeline. Idk, I just really love the meaningfulness Hobi and Petal find in the seemingly meaningless moments. I hope you all enjoy and thanks for reading! :))

and happy birthday to our sunshine <3 

With textbooks and notes spread across your bed, you tapped your pen on top of the notebook as you read over the article displayed on your laptop screen. Squinting at the document, you sighed as you realized the academic journal was doing very little to support your paper’s thesis.

“Fuck,” you mumbled to yourself as you continued tapping the pen just as a door opening sounded from down the hallway. Looking toward the sound, staring at your open bedroom door, you waited for further noise to confirm you weren’t hearing things. When the sound of someone humming resounded through your apartment, a small smile curved on your lips. “Sunshine?” You called out.

“Hi Petal,” your boyfriend greeted you from the living room.

“Hey,” you smiled at the knowledge that your boyfriend was there. “I’ll be out in a second,” you shouted to him as you finished reading the paragraph that was definitely turning out to be useless to you.  “Fuck it,” you huffed, closing the laptop and pushing the device into the pile of books and notes, tossing the pen into the mess. The paper could wait another night, because in that moment, Hoseok was all that was on your mind.

As you made your way across the bedroom, you paused in front of the mirror that was a few feet away, inspecting your disheveled appearance. After a day of coursework and a week of stress, you were looking a bit tired and unkempt; not that Hoseok would mind, but things were still slightly new with him and he hadn’t yet seen you looking much less than perfect. It had been a few days since you last saw the man, and you found yourself wishing you were spruced up just a bit more. However, it was Hoseok, and you knew he saw only the best in you at all times. Sighing at your reflection, you fluffed your hair just slightly before leaving the room.

Stepping into the living area, you found Hoseok facing you as he folded the recently dried laundry that you hadn’t had a chance to do anything with yet. “Hobi, you don’t have to do that,” you told him just as he finished folding one of your sweaters and set it onto the couch cushion.

His eyes snapping to you, they brightened upon meeting your frame, a stunning smile overtaking his features as he looked up and down your body. “You look stunning,” he complimented genuinely, your eyebrows raising in surprise.

“What?” You said in slight shock, looking down at your oversized t-shirt that you’d had since high school, your bottom half covered by a pair of shorts that stopped mid-thigh, and your feet shrouded in thick ankle socks.

“Come here, Petal,” he beamed at you, moving the recently folded laundry to the coffee table as you began walking closer to him. You watched as he moved a pile of your underwear to the table, a smirk overtaking his features. “Trust me,” he nodded to the stack of panties in his hands. “I don’t mind folding these.”

“Stop,” you whined, making your way to him more quickly as he chuckled at you.

Hoseok set the undergarments down just as you appeared next to him, his form straightening just in time for you to wrap your arms around the back of his neck. Digging your fingers into the strands at the back of his head, you pulled his face to yours just as his arms folded over your waist, tugging you closer as your lips met.

Humming contently against his lips, Hoseok smiled, breaking the kiss as he grinned at you. “How’s the paper going?” He questioned, only for you to groan, burying your face into his chest, the man chuckling lightly as his hands gently ran along your lower back. “That good, huh?”

“I’m beginning to think my entire argument is fucked, it’s so hard to find support for it,” you complained, your voice muffled by his sweatshirt.

Sighing against you, he lowered himself into a sitting position on the couch, tugging you onto the cushions with him, Hoseok’s stunning eyes scanning your features carefully.

“Have you been resting?” He questioned, noticing the discoloration beneath your eyes that indicated your lack of pillow time.  

Shrugging, you stretched your neck. “I’ve been trying,” you informed him nonchalantly.  

“Mmm,” he hummed thoughtfully, a smile forming on his lips when you yawned.

Your mouth curved upward in response to his grin as you reached forward to poke his abdomen teasingly. “I’ve just been having trouble falling asleep the past few days,” you clarified. “Once I’m asleep I’m ok.”

Wrapping his hand around yours that sat in his lap, he tugged on you. “Lay down,” he told you.

“What are you doing?” You questioned, holding back a smile.

Patting his thigh, he ignored your question. “Put your head on my lap.”

“Hobi,” you whined, the man chuckling in response.

“You can’t fall asleep,” he shrugged. “I happen to have a fix for that.”

Breathing out in realization, you giggled at him. “Sunshine, you really don’t have to,” you told him tentatively, only for your boyfriend to pull you into his lap, you both laughing as he shushed you. There had been several times since dating him that you’d coaxed him to slumber by soothing your fingers across his frame, patting him gently into relaxation. However, you had never even thought of him returning the act to lull you to sleep.

“Just relax,” he insisted, you rolling your eyes, earning a scoff from the man. “This will change your life,” he spoke through a smile, a single laugh slipping from your lips, utterly and fondly amused by him. “You’ll love it, it’ll feel really good.”

“This really isn’t necess-” you started to protest, only to be cut off by his shushing as his fingers started dragging across the top of your chest soothingly. “Oh,” you let out in surprise, Hoseok bursting into giggles at your vocalization.

“Don’t laugh at me, that feels nice,” you smiled, holding back your own laughter.

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head, “you’re just so cute,” he complimented. “And not to say I told you so but, I did tell you it would feel good,” he noted, you glaring at him as you brought your hand toward his lips, pushing your finger against them to silence him.

As his chuckles died down, he focused back on dragging his hands across your chest, trailing them down your arms before bringing them back to your sternum. Your eyes fluttered shut at the sensation, your body relaxing under Hoseok’s gentle touch.

At some point you dozed off, unsure of how long you had been asleep when you lazily peeled your eyes open. Upon waking up, the first thing you noticed was the absence of your boyfriend’s presence, realizing you were alone on the couch. The second thing you discovered was the disappearance of your laundry basket, as well as the clothes your boyfriend had previously folded. Recognizing the sound of your kitchen sink turning on and off, you lifted yourself from the sofa to peer into the kitchen. There, you spotted Hoseok with his back to you as he washed your dishes from earlier in the day.

He looked so good doing anything domestic, you couldn’t help but admire him for a moment. The sweatshirt he sported hung off his sturdy shoulders so attractively, and his forearms were exposed, the sleeves of his top rolled up. His baggy sweatpants looked perfectly cozy, enticing you to cuddle him.

Shuffling into the kitchen, you wrapped your arms around him from behind, the man jumping slightly before relaxing in your hold.

“Hi Petal,” he welcomed you cheerfully, turning the tap off before wiping his hands on the towel. “How are you feeling?”

“Rested,” you mumbled against his shoulder blade, just before Hoseok turned in your arms, greeting your sleepy face with his bright smiley one. Draping his arms over your shoulders, he leaned toward you, pressing a sweet kiss to your forehead. “You didn’t have to do these,” you nodded to the dish drainer, Hoseok simply beaming at you.

“I know,” he assured you simply, placing another kiss to your forehead. Pressing yet another one to your temple, you leaned into the touch.

“Remind me to spoil you later,” you told him grumpily, the man chuckling as you nuzzled your face against his neck and began trailing kisses along his skin.

“Only you would have an attitude because I helped you out a little bit,” he pointed out fondly, you letting out a breathy giggle against his jaw. Pulling your face from his slightly, you both stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, Hoseok studying you as you simply appreciated the warmth his gaze emitted. “You don’t owe me anything, you know that right? I’m just helping out because I love you.”

With your lips hovering over his, you nodded. “I’m just still getting used to that,” you whispered before placing a soft kiss to his mouth.

“What? Me loving you?” He questioned, his lips touching yours just barely as he spoke.

“How you love me,” you admitted. “It’s still weird receiving so much kindness from someone. And just accepting it.” It wasn’t as though you were mistreated in past relationships, but rather, you were simply never given, by anyone, near as much consideration and thoughtfulness as Hoseok gave to you.

Bringing his hands to firmly but gently hold the sides of your face, Hoseok pulled you into a passionate kiss that stole your breath for a moment, your own hands gripping the sides of his abdomen. Your lips worked together perfectly, as if his mouth always longed for yours, and vise versa.

Pulling his face from yours, he locked his eyes with your gaze, his stare intense and full of feeling. “I love you,” he told you sincerely, with intent, the words hitting you with the fervor in which he spoke them; and meant them.

“I love you,” you replied in an earnest whisper, meaning the words just as much as he did, a sigh of content leaving you as he pulled you against his frame in a tight, comforting hug.

You and Hoseok found the strength of your love for one another in the simplest moments. It bloomed in the domesticity of your union, the ease of your connection, the consideration you endowed upon one another. Sparks didn’t fly the moment you met Hoseok. It wasn’t love at first sight, or even second or fifth sight. Love instead rooted itself in the small moments, budding and blossoming overtime until it was the only thing you knew and felt when looking at him, speaking to him, being within his presence.

And now his arms felt like home, his scent familiar and comforting. You weren’t sure you’d ever truly get used to receiving his love, but you’d gladly accept it for as long as he gifted it to you. And you’d forever match it with your own love. Happily.

[hellsbellschime]

Ok, so I’ve always noticed some of the racism on TVD , most notably the treatment of Marcel and Emily, and the founders day parade episode (which, as a Virginian I have to say that the episode made me low-key ashamed when I re-watched it years later). But it took me a while to catch onto the racism on Bonnie‘s character. I was wondering if you have done a meta about it and could link me to it, or if you could do one?

Well it only took me like a year but here ya go!

Despite the fact that The Vampire Diaries is a show that was ostensibly created for girls and young women, the show undeniably seems to lack a certain level of respect or basic interest in its female characters. And while every single significant female character demonstrates that misogynistic point of view in one way or another, one of the most unique, distinct, and apparent instances of The Vampire Diaries' sexism is on peak display with one of it's leading female characters, Bonnie Bennett.

Bonnie obviously occupies a particularly interesting role in the series because she's the only black leading character, and it's also hard to miss that The Vampire Diaries universe has a pretty apparent issue with it's non-white characters as well.

The race problem on TVD expresses itself in a few different, extremely blatant ways. The most obvious issue with people of color on The Vampire Diaries is that those who are actually PoC within the narrative itself are typically pushed to the sidelines and relegated to supporting players at best, but there is also an issue with presenting PoC performers who are white-passing as white characters.

None of the PoC characters in The Vampire Diaries get very good treatment, but the series seems to be exceptionally problematic when it comes to its presentation of black characters. While black people arguably get more representation than any other non-white characters in this fictional world, they are almost all outrageously attractive, extremely light-skinned, and conveniently lacking in any emotional needs or inner life that needs to be addressed within the narrative, seemingly designed to show up, perform whatever service is necessary, and once again fade into the background if not just be killed off entirely.

This is an issue with every black character in the series, but given that Bonnie is the most significant and prominent in the series, it comes as no surprise that she was affected the most intensely by these biases. It's one thing to be a black character, it's one thing to be a female character, but being a black female character in the TVD universe is exceptionally crippling. But how exactly did the misogynoir of The Vampire Diaries completely neutralize Bonnie Bennett as a character?

Bonnie was mistreated, dismissed, and outright ignored in many big and small ways throughout the course of the show. But, a lot of that treatment can be pretty easily sorted into a few categorizations. The Vampire Diaries went through a pretty seismic shift from the start of the show to the end, but it has always been a series that falls primarily into two genres, the supernatural thriller genre and the romance genre.

The show pretty clearly transformed from a show that was firstly a supernatural story with a romantic subgenre into an almost entirely romantic story with a supernatural backdrop, but it's safe to say that the vast majority of the plotlines were either focused on magic or love. And, it's not particularly difficult to see how Bonnie was forcibly excluded from a predominant storyline in each genre, even when it made absolutely no sense.

Bonnie was a completely inexperienced witch at the start of TVD, so her cluelessness and powerlessness made a certain amount of sense at that point. But by the end of season 2 at the very latest, it seems fully established that she is one of the most powerful living witches in the world, and for the bulk of the series it is plainly acknowledged that she is one of the most powerful witches who ever lived. Which is exactly why Bonnie's position in the narrative is baffling.

In quite a few instances, Bonnie's magical abilities seem to be somewhat inconsistent, at least in the sense that, if she can solve some of the biggest problems that the Mystic Falls gang is confronted with, then it's very odd that she can't solve the others. And while plenty of characters in TVD are occasionally used as plot devices rather than characters, Bonnie seems to be the one who is specifically designed to show up, fix what needs fixing, and then become set dressing once she's no longer necessary as the mystical solution to every unsolvable issue.

And this is actually a significant problem with the witches at large, but of course is most recognizable with Bonnie because she is the most prominent witch. While not all witches are women of color, it seems like they are far more represented in that faction of the magical world than in any other. So then, it's interesting that the witches are presented as servants of nature who are meant to selflessly restore order to the world without actually using their abilities for their own personal gain.

Of course there are plenty of witches who appear to use their powers for themselves, but still, it's incredibly meaningful that the lone black main character in the series is constantly sacrificing herself for the sake of the otherwise entirely white cast of characters. It's even more meaningful that she seems to willingly put herself in the line of fire every time, and it's also extremely telling that she suffers and even dies without complaint for the sake of other people.

And while TVD has never been the kind of show to linger on emotional moments for too long, Bonnie seems to stick out like a sore thumb in this circumstance as well. Most of the main and even supporting characters have moments where their pain is acknowledged and at least has a second to breathe, but there are quite a few situations where Bonnie should be upset but isn't, or where her emotional journey as a character literally takes place off screen.

This lack of acknowledgment and nearly complete omission of an internal emotional life that doesn't involve sacrificing herself for her friends only further makes Bonnie feel like a plot device instead of a character. And, while no character needs a romantic relationship to make their character complete, it is incredibly relevant that, on a series that was built largely on a foundation of romance and arguably became a completely romantically driven show by its end, only one of the female leads was pretty much never presented as a viable love interest.

Nearly every character is either threatened or charmed into doing what someone else wants them to at some point during The Vampire Diaries, however, Bonnie's charm-to-threaten ratio seems to lean very heavily in favor of threatening. That in itself wouldn't necessarily be a huge issue, but it seems to punish Bonnie in a way that is so severe that it's completely illogical.

Trying to intimidate Elena or Caroline, people who at best have the strength of a baby vampire and at worst are as powerful as a normal human, makes sense. But trying to strongarm the most powerful witch in the world instead of just convincing her to do what you ask seems like an incredibly dangerous and completely baffling decision.

And yet, that is how Bonnie is forced to do nearly everything that she doesn't want to do in eight seasons of the series. By the end of season 2, TVD has canonically confirmed that Bonnie is powerful enough to destroy Klaus Mikaelson, and yet people like Klaus, Katherine, and even vampires as young as Damon get Bonnie to do things by simply bullying or even assaulting her into doing it. And what does Bonnie typically do in response? Absolutely nothing.

At a certain point, the consistent contrast between Bonnie's mystical strength and the way that people treat her in order to use that strength becomes a pretty gaping plot hole. And while it's not unheard of for someone to try to sweet talk Bonnie into joining their team, it is almost always done by a character who is far less powerful than she is and who is completely irrelevant to the narrative at large.

In contrast to characters like Elena and Caroline, the distinction between them becomes even more obvious. Perhaps a thin argument could be made that because Elena is a doppelganger that makes her a tad more unique, but when one of the most powerful creatures on the planet was wrapped around Caroline's finger, it really begs the question, why wasn't anyone ever as invested or even obsessed with Bonnie as they were with the other two female leads on the series?

After all, Elena's love was consistently treated as if it was the greatest prize that anyone could possibly win, and the two male leads were completely obsessed with her and willing to do anything they could to try to win her over. And despite the fact that Elena was at the center of the love triangle that was a significant driving force behind the story for the entire series, she still managed to score a few love interests that weren't Salvatores throughout the show's eight seasons as well.

And, while Caroline was actually treated as more of the reject love interest in comparison to the unattainable Elena, her record with romance is also incredibly varied. Even though she was portrayed at best as the consolation prize and at worst the abuse victim, she did have some sort of romantic relationship with the two male leads in the show. Or at least, that is how The Vampire Diaries chose to portray it.

In addition to her horrorshow with Damon and her incredibly brief marriage with Stefan, Caroline is also a love interest for Klaus, Matt, Tyler, and disgustingly, Alaric. Arguably the only main male character who doesn't serve as Caroline's love interest or potential love interest at any point is Jeremy.

Although this laundry list of love interests can be partially excused by the fact that Caroline is characterized as someone who wants to date a lot, the contrast bet0ween characters like Caroline and Elena and characters like Bonnie is astonishing.

Over a nearly decade-long run, Bonnie's only legitimate leading men are Jeremy, Elena's kid brother who Bonnie will willingly die for but who also prefers a literal dead person over her at one point, and Enzo, her epic love romance that comes about at the very end of the series in a relationship that almost entirely develops off-screen.

Of course, female characters do not need love interests to validate their characterization or very existence, however in an environment where every single barely significant supporting character seems to get at least two love interests, it's incredibly telling that Bonnie Bennett gets two important love stories in eight seasons of storytelling.

It seems even more relevant that the show seemingly went out of its way to sidestep almost any and all opportunities for romance in Bonnie's character arc. Whether it was Kol, Kai, or Damon Salvatore, there were quite a few instances where there was a clear and easy route to develop a love interest for Bonnie in a way that made sense and had a pretty solid amount of audience support, and yet the series always went out of its way to avoid it.

In stark contrast, Caroline is still seen as a viable option for a burgeoning love story when she's pregnant, and Elena is an acceptable love interest when she's literally unconscious. And yet, in a series that began with romance as its secondary genre and that evolved into a romance series with a supernatural backdrop, Bonnie is supposedly not as appealing of a love interest as Elena and Caroline regardless of any circumstances, no matter how insane.

If these issues existed in a vacuum then they might be excusable, but considering how poorly The Vampire Diaries treated its female characters and black characters, it's pretty much impossible to avoid the reality that Bonnie Bennett's entire character arc was likely hamstrung by the fact that she was a black girl.

In any reasonable circumstances, Bonnie would have arguably been at the center of every single supernatural storyline, and she logically would have been a far more appealing love interest to any powerful characters in the series. But instead she spent the vast majority of her screentime with her inner characterization ignored, her personal development unexplored, and serving as little more than a glorified deus ex machina who didn't even want her friends to bother mourning her when she literally sacrificed her life for them.

Representation was always an issue in The Vampire Diaries universe, and unfortunately it seems like Bonnie was the definition of their token black character. Although the series had eight entire years to course correct and had many seasons where they were desperate for new ideas and decent character development, the racism and misogyny of the series seemingly prevented them from ever tapping into the enormous untapped potential of someone who should have been one of their flagship lead characters.

[whatudottu]

Coming from the Ben 10 Breakdowns, Zs’Skayr really had no true explained motivations on taking over the Earth. In fact, his canon motivations for WILLINGLY (i.e. possessing a Florauna) being sampled for the Omnitrix is completely unexplained, too!

Like… you’re literally the Ectolord?

…Why are you like… shirking your responsibilities???

ANYWAY! I’m here to talk about Zs’Skayr and how he’s motivated in the Area 51 au. Zs’Skayr 51 if you will.

Now, let’s first talk about why Zs’Skayr is out of town and now stuck in the watch instead of running shop as High Ectolord. You could say that he’s flunking, something f-ed happened on planet or responsibility isn’t his thing, but I think culturally Ectonurites probably have a… hrmm. Maybe not an innate sense of community, but perhaps are better at working together than apart, which reflects their own biology.

Sure, Humans work better when our bodies aren’t strewn about the room, but Ectonurites seem to commonly face being split apart. At least enough to the point where a single strand of DNA continues to carry a consciousness.

I’m not even going to begin to explain how that works, for I get too confused when actively thinking about it.

But the point here is, Zs’Skayr is still probably a committed Ectolord, though something seems to have pushed him out. Out so far as he’s not in Kansas The Anur System anymore. Pushed out so far because the local system can’t provide what Ectonurites need.

Now, the specifics are blurry, but I’d like to say that there’s some sort of uh… death plague striking Ectonurites. Could be a disease or virus type thing, or maybe some widespread genetic damage that’s tearing them apart from the inside out.

The sense of community within the Anur System did make reaching out a whole lot easier, Zs’Skayr knew this from the liberation of the Transylians, but even with direct sources on Ectonurite biology, inside help wasn’t doing much. In fact, the best the Anur System was at working together was facing against a common foe, and since there’s nothing to fight well…

Zs’Skayr was a little desperate.

It probably wasn’t his best decision going at it himself, but he did anoint people he trusted to take care of his civilians. He went at it alone to be ‘the sacrifice’ instead of sending others to die, but that didn’t stop his closest allies (Viktor and the unnamed Loboan and Thep Khufan) from trying to keep in contact.

When contacted ceased, needless to say things grew tense.

Over on Zs’Skayr’s perspective, he in his journeys heard rumours of the Omnitrix, but in concept only. The rumours talked about a ‘Noah’s Ark’ (obviously not the same phrase because aliens aren’t Christians) device, and that DNA from across the galaxy is being collected. Typically, the High Ectolord would be sceptical to the idea, but he’s already outside of the Anur System, so he’ll take any lead he can.

Maybe the Anur System is closed off for a reason, xenophobia and general mistreatment of its people and culture from the rest of the universe. Doesn’t help that a lot of accidents have happened from the universe alone, Luna Lobo probably still ended up in the Null Void for a bit and some random tears here and there sent people across the galaxy. So Zs’Skayr still possess a Florauna (or some other species ready to be sampled) to get his DNA in the Codon Stream.

Uh… maybe because he possessed a sample instead of being himself, that might have caused something buggy to happen with the scan. Whether his consciousness was whisked away with his sampled DNA or his actual body got fried in the process? Don’t know. Regardless, now his mission to save the Ectonurites lay unfinished, and many believe he died.

So, that’s how he’s gotten himself involved with the Omnitrix, but let’s see what’s his deal with Earth.

Now, being High Ectolord, it makes absolutely no dang sense as to why he wants Earth under his control. Well, unless he’s into conquering planets that is, but forcing your way into the Omnitrix does NOT seem like warlord behaviour and don’t come at me with gax and vil, prime villy is the warlord i’m referencing not this scary expert on the omnitrix.

But that doesn’t mean that the second he’s out the Omnitrix and freed from Area 51, he’s immediately off Earth.

No, he stays.

He stays because the Humans now have a sudden buttload of information on Ectonurites.

And he needs a little backup to get in there.

It’s a little difficult to scrounge up the tech needed for a communicator and perhaps even an ID mask when trying to hide, but being a ghost without some level 20 watch strapped to his wrist, Zs’Skayr manages. It’s also a lot helpful that Earth tech has also levelled up, which provides an abundance of space-age machines.

He’s no genius, but he whips up something crude and manages to send a message to his allies, probably most likely Viktor since he’s probably still looking out for a message. Obviously, he’s been gone a bit, probably not too long but certainly enough that a lot of Ectonurites have decided to live on the other Anur planets, primarily due to the lack of stable leadership on (or is it in?) Anur Phaetos.

Many have staved off extinction, but unfortunately none have gotten any better. The positive? The death toll hasn’t worsened.

“Where have you been!? All of Anur believed you dead!”

“It’s not far from the truth…” A pause, “I need you to assist me.”

“What system are you in? What planet!?”

“…”

“Zs’Skayr?”

“I’m on Earth…”

“WHAT!?”

Many rumours have spread about Earth, mainly disappearances but there’s the occasional ship crew that regale their experience. The planet’s more advanced, sure, but there’re still not on the level of uh… typical sci-fi spaceships. But they have used rocket technology to develop a defensive weapons system. Not only are there Ground to Atmosphere missiles, but some high altitude jets also have Air to Atmosphere weapons.

And with the previous rips and errors in the Anur System, a lot of folks have heard of Earth and try to keep track of it.

Earth is rather infamous, but resource wise, not worth the risk.

So essentially Zs’Skayr is being perceivably super crazy and also super impressive, seeming to have slipped through the atmosphere undetected. That’s not… entirely true, but the High Ectolord does explain that Earth has a high priority target on its surface, so interplanetary ‘threats’ may be left forgotten. He also requests help from the Yenaldooshi and the Mummy, who are probably separate from Crüjo and Kuphulu.

And yes, their mission is to raid Area 51.

No, they’re probably not going to go on Facebook and actually start our Area 51 raid.

It does take some time to gather, space travel and everything (like getting official ID masks along the way), and it takes a bit more to successfully pass as Human. Especially if they’re trying to get access to Area 51 without outing themselves as extraterrestrials, Zs’Skayr didn’t see everything but it was certainly a lot.

But he’ll see a lot more when they access the records, whether they get authorisation or just hack the institute from the inside.

A LOT of medical data, including images of… dissections and x-rays wherever relevant. A lot of physical data too, simple strengths and weaknesses.

Uh… not very pretty.

The plan?

Get the data (not enough time to dig for specifics), scrub the files (more than just alien data), and maybe pull a ‘Prisoner Number 775 is Missing’ and open up the cells and begin a REAL raid.

This turned from motivations into a plot, which is currently disconnected from the larger ‘story’ of Ben 51. It probably holds more significance in the au because of the ‘friends-but-not-really-in-contact-no-i-won’t-admit-it’ relationship between Ben and Zs’Skayr.

Also the Anur aliens, wanted them in here.

[gentlelassjack]

OK so I'm conflicted about the Bradley Laura Cory situation in TMS. As a lesbian, who grew up in the 90s when queer baiting was becoming a thing, and we struggled for any representation at all, I craved wlw visibility of any kind, and it's still somewhat of a novelty for me that mainstream shows have it. Like, we're always the supporting characters hardly ever the main character (the vast majority of the time) or else the relationship is short lived, ends badly or one of them dies or goes back to men. For all of these reasons, I REALLY want #TMS not to fall foul of those tropes, and hsve that relationship not just be a plot device in the long windy road leading to endgame CoryxBradley. It's classic queer baiting and I really hope Apple have enough sense to avoid it. HOWEVER, I would be lying if I said Cory wasn't one of my favourite characters and his ever increasing depths and nebulous motivations are intriguing. I get the impression he has personal reasons for doing right by Hannah possibly the same ones that made him so mercilessly try to bring UBA to its knees. We shall see. But Bradley is his heart, and, were Laura a man, I'd be shipping Cory/Bradley all the way. So, I really don't know how to square those two ideals. And let me stress, I don't think Bradley's relationship with Laura is has less depth, on the whole, although it's newer so it's still growing roots, but I'm concerned it will be a device to add an extra dimension to Bradley, rather than, as TV shows should hold themselves to these days, a legit relationship in its own right, treating with respect the often mistreated minority it's representing. Thoughts?

[squidproquoclarice]

How do you feel about the way Eagle Flies was treated by the story in game?

There’s good and bad to it. On the one hand, yes, we have to admit Eagle Flies is a bit of a plot device.  His story is meant for Arthur to strongly make the connection to his own manipulation, grooming, and abuse by Dutch, and continue Arthur’s growing awareness of exactly who and what Dutch is.  In that sense, Eagle Flies’ purpose mostly revolves around how his trauma can help a white man.  Which is...really not great for a POC, and it’s in the same vein as the criticism I have of how Chapter 6 Charles was a man who exercised independent agency and pretty much said he was done with this shit and pursuing his own life, but Epilogue Charles is backpedaled hard to a deus ex machina whose entire existence revolves around fulfilling Arthur and John’s stories. On the other hand, I really like Eagle Flies as a character.  I like the emotional range he’s allowed.  I like how he comes across as genuinely a child of a changing world even more so than white men like Arthur and John.  Eagle Flies appears to be about 30--he has some weathering on his features--so let’s assume an 1869 or 1870 birthdate.  The Wapiti seem to draw most heavily on the culture of Northern Plains horse tribes (Rains Fall speaks Lakota, the use of tipis, etc.).  So Eagle Flies was born in the last years of a free tribe, when Rains Fall fought.  Little Bighorn would have taken place when he was a little boy.   The Lakota and their allies were formally forced to surrender in 1877, and sent to reservations.   This means Eagle Flies is the first “reservation” generation, the first generation growing up Native American after the brutal pacification of his people, and struggling with questions of identity, resistance, and with the neglectful-to-brutal oversight of the government.  He’ll have grown up hearing stories from Rains Fall and other older men about a destroyed way of life.  His generation is probably struggling with what it means to be Wapiti in this new world, what their marks of honor and adulthood and everything are when their traditional culture has been almost entirely taken from them.  Men can’t fight.  Men can’t hunt. He’ll have seen the Ghost Dance religious movement spreading like wildfire in 1889 and 1890, and may have joined it himself.  He probably heard about the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 to suppress that movement.  His older brother may well have been killed during the violence of that time.  He carries a lot of anger, and justifiably so.  His future and cultural identity’s been taken from him.  His father and Rains Fall’s peers could fight as warriors and find their honor that way.  Given he’s referred to by his father as a “prince”, that implies it may be a hereditary chiefdom.  So there’s possibly the pressure to lead this tribe into a very murky, very bleak looking future.  What hope does he have?  Like Arthur and John say, this life chose Eagle Flies. It makes sense that he’s angry.  It makes sense that he desperately wants to fight, and feel like he’s able to fight his oppressors and display his courage.  It makes sense he’s contemptuous of Arthur initially given Arthur blatantly acts like a ruthless mercenary, given that between the Army, the men who have signed treaties with Rains Fall and broken them, and the too-often crooked government Indian agents, Eagle Flies has probably already seen far too many white men driven by relentless greed and no honor. So while I have to acknowledge the framework of his story is intended for Arthur’s emotional enlightenment rather than being his own story, I do feel like Eagle Flies and the Wapiti are given the respect of showing honestly how their reality is.  What they’ve lost, what they struggle with, how deeply vulnerable they still are to mistreatment and exploitation.  It’s sympathetic, and more time is clearly taken on their situation and story than just what’s pertinent to the gang’s situation at the moment.   It’s a lot more thoughtful presentation than RDR1.  The people on the reservation in Cochinay whose young men are exploited by Dutch aren’t even given a tribal identity or any kind of story, they’re just ambiguous “Indians” recruited by Dutch that John kills.  Nastas all too often he was written mostly as The Helpful Native Guide.  RDR2 really helps recontextualize some of this by showing via the Wapiti exactly what Dutch does with the people of Cochinay, how he preys upon their vulnerability and manipulates their young men into fighting for his purposes, so there’s definitely been progress made.

[highspringtide]

So over the course of the time jump between CoB and KoC, Nahri starts to identify much more strongly as a Daeva. For a number of reasons--her longing for a home and family, her isolation, Nisreen’s influence. But I also think a potential factor is Ghassan, and how he manipulates the court in general and Nahri in particular. I think he may actively encourage Nahri to think like this to more easily control her as a potential political threat.

Ghassan’s motto is that Daevabad comes first. What he means by that is stability comes first, order comes first, preventing chaos is more important than anything else and is worth whatever atrocities it takes. His goal, more than anything else, is to maintain the status quo. As a result, his lofty rhetoric about uniting the tribes is, at best, a side project. And in reality, he’s more than willing to exploit tribal tensions to maintain power. He may not be actively sowing discord among the tribes, as Kaveh does, but he uses the Daeva’s fear of the shafit to control them, and the djinn tribes’ resentment of Daeva prosperity and fear of Daeva nationalism to keep the other tribes in line. (And the other five tribes’ resentment of Ayaanle meddling, and probably other tensions that don’t come up in the books.) The illusion that Ghassan is a relatively neutral party, maybe less than ideal but better than any tribes’ personal enemies being in power, is what keeps him on the throne.

Then Nahri arrives, possibly the biggest threat to the status quo Ghassan’s ever faced, and he has to decide what to do about her.

Nahri was always going to be a political player with the support of the Daevas. She’s a Nahid who returns to Daevabad twenty years after everyone thought the Nahids were gone. Spontaneous street parties break out to celebrate her arrival. And while Ghassan may have optimistically tried to divide her from the Daeva elites, after their show of support at the end of City of Brass he realizes that that will not work.

Still, Ghassan is willing to accept this, because it’s a fairly limited role relative to how powerful Nahri could be. Nahri, when she arrives in Daevabad, has the potential to be a political player with a much broader base of support and a unifier of the tribes. The Daeva are surely not the only people happy that a Nahid has miraculously returned--in an early chapter, Ali mentions how many people there are suffering from illnesses that can only be healed by a Nahid. And Nahri isn’t just any Nahid--she’s a Nahid from a Muslim country, and thus shares more cultural similarities with the djinn than with the Daeva. (Side note: Nahri doesn’t seem particularly religious in CoB, but if she had been it would have been an interesting plot point that she’s expected not only to suddenly take up and lead the Daeva faith, but to convert to it.) Her close connections to the human world could have been a point of commonality helping her build connections with the Geziri (or other Geziri besides Ali), and could also potentially reassure shafit alarmed by increasing Nahid power in the city. 

And Nahri, unlike every other Nahid since the Qahtani conquest, didn’t grow up resenting the djinn. When she arrives in Daevabad, she has nothing of the Daeva’s prejudices against the other tribes--she’s actually initially less open to them than the djinn because of their treatment of the shafit. And she’s a woman raised in poverty who’s been thrust into a magical city full of marvels, and she’s deeply curious about all aspects of the djinn/daeva world. There’s no reason why, left to her own devices, she might not have sought as many friends and allies among the djinn as among the Daeva.

This is a major problem for Ghassan. He doesn’t want a Nahid building her own coalition of political allies in his city. And he especially doesn’t want a Nahid to be seen as an open-minded leader bringing the tribes together. Being the only one fair enough to keep balance and unite the tribes is a role crucial to how Ghassan presents himself. It’s how he gets well-meaning people to overlook his acts of tyranny. So it’s crucial that Ghassan limit Nahri’s allies and support to fellow Daevas, both mathematically--one tribe is fewer than six--and because perceived willingness to reach out across tribal lines is a source of power on its own. 

In order to achieve this, Ghassan isolates Nahri as much as possible. It’s difficult for Nahri to make connections at court when she doesn’t know who might be spying for Ghassan. After Zaynab’s attempt to humiliate her upon her arrival, she’s not likely to accept overtures of kindness from the other ladies of the court anyway. We don’t really find out Zaynab’s motives in that scene, but Ghassan certainly doesn’t seem to have asked Zaynab to attempt to befriend Nahri, as he does Ali, even though it would probably make more sense to have his daughter befriend Nahri than his son.

Regardless of her inclinations, Nahri also has little time to make friends and allies at court, again thanks to Ghassan, who pressures her to begin treating as many patients as possible as soon as possible. So she spends her days in the infirmary with only Nisreen as friend and mentor--Nisreen, who predictably immediately begins to tell Nahri about the Nahids, about Daeva traditions, about how the Daeva are marginalized and mistreated. The only excursions into the city Nahri is allowed are to the Grand Temple, where Ghassan cannot reasonably prevent her from going and where she will encounter only other Daevas, and interact meaningfully with only Daeva nobles. Of course, Ghassan also asks Ali to befriend Nahri, but Ali has no connections at court himself, so Nahri is unlikely to make friends among the other tribes through him.  

The effect of Nahri’s isolation on her prejudices is apparent in KoC. While she once saw Daevas as a threat, she now identifies with them implicitly. She still wants to bring about peace, but now her first instinct is to see conflicts from the Daeva point of view. And this nearly does cost her allies. We see this happening with Subha--while Nahri still wants to help the shafit, she describes to Subha the conflict between the shafit as one with violence on both sides. She implies the blame and the power balance is equal when she knows full well that the Daeva had barely refrained from trying to exterminate the shafit when they were in power, and that while now under Qahtani rule, both groups are at the mercy of the djinn tribes, the Daeva are wealthy and free to come and go as they like, while the shafit are confined to Daevabad, live in squalor, and are denied jobs, health care, and education. And Subha very nearly refuses to help her with the hospital.

Separating Nahri from the other tribes not only benefits Ghassan by making it harder for Nahri for make allies, it also benefits Ghassan directly by giving him a foil. Before here arrival, he was the first Qahtani ruler to have to rule in the absence of any Nahids at court. In some ways, that’s an advantage--not having to constantly keep Manizheh in check--but I suspect it would be a disadvantage in others. When the other djinn tribes chafe at Geziri authority, Ghassan can now once again say he’s the man standing between them and a return of Nahid rule. He’s probably dying for Nahri to show obvious partisanship so he can paint her as a threat he’s protecting the djinn from.

Side note: In addition to exploiting tensions among the tribes to rule the city, Ghassan also maintains his authority by creating personal divisions among people whose power could challenge his. He does this all the time with his children: he turns his sons against each other, convincing each that Ghassan favors the other despite his own hard work and sacrifices. He tries to turn Zaynab against Ali by blaming Ali for Hatset’s banishment. Doing so dilutes their power: as Ali realizes at the end of KoC, he might have military support, but Muntadhir has a broad base of allies at court, and Zaynab has financial power in the support of the Ayaanle.

Likewise, I think it actually rather suits Ghassan that Nahri and Muntadhir never become close. He wants them to produce an heir, yes, because he wants to continue the illusion that he, Ghassan, is uniting the tribes. But he doesn’t want them to confide in each other. He doesn’t want them to become friends. Because Muntadhir knows how court works, has powerful allies, and Nahri is the Banu Nahida, and together they could create an independent power base at court. If Muntadhir, after a lifetime being manipulated by Ghassan, is too beaten down to challenge his father, Nahri certainly is not. She has the defiance and the ambition, and Muntadhir has the connections and the diplomatic ability. If the Daeva nobility started to bring their grievances not to Ghassan, who at least keeps the shafit in line, but to Muntadhir, who speaks Divasti and loves Daeva art, and his wife the last of the Nahids, that could signal a real problem for Ghassan.

{ @alizaydfuckingalqahtani I finally finished writing this like three months later, mostly because I wanted to get it down before I read Empire of Gold }

[vanityloves]

Slick or Marvus for the ask game? 💘

clown time...

-What made me like them

The Ultimate Child saw that I was looking for himbos to f/o and they humbly offered me Marvus, so after like… 3 days i decided to watch his route bc i will not pay money for things I guess and I was like UH...👁👄👁 he's disgusting, I want him. His route was a trip and it sent me into fight or flight mode tbh.

Something I really like ab Marvus is that, despite him being a celebrity, I feel that he genuinely cared for the players safety? Pulling them up on stage and telling them to play dead, which I'm sure was mostly to entertain the audience but he could've just, killed them and continued as usual so 😃 plus the whole 'dubiously canon, time paradox' ending kinda fucked me up? Bc with no cameras around and nothing to gain, he risked his life to keep the player safe, which again, may not even count as canon but im takin it bitch. 

In that ending he's shown to have understanding of different timelines and breaks the fourthwall and everything, but lmao the range… he said i have galaxybrain ab music and time and thats it, no further questions please ❤

-My favorite thing about them

Pretty much what I stated above! He's shown to care about the player whether cameras were on him or not, and I'm one of those dummies that like to believe be really does care about the mistreatment of the lower castes and wanted some change, deep down (which is Wrong, considering how many are culled at his performances that are probably influenced by chucklevoodoo and yadda yadda. but its my f/o and I chose the Plot Device). I talked to a friend about the idea of Marvus, helping out unfortunate lowbloods escape whatever situation they were in by faking their deaths and getting help from outside sources (yeehaw s/i time) since the show must go on. 

I digress, the fact he's just a weird fuckboi is funny to me too but it's kinda upsetting thinking abiut how much security he has to hire in order to get around safety without being bombarded by raging, horny fans.

-Nicknames we have for each other

@ Marvus: Bubby/Bubba, Bud/dy, Tiny, Smalls, Stinky, Baby, Superstar

@ Midori: Mimi, Babe/baby, Ma, Sugar, Buttercup, Oatmeal

-A headcanon of our relationship/friendship

He's kinda self centered, not on purpose, but he's used to getting all the attention and having things go his way that sometimes he gets, fussy(?) When I don't automatically agree - although thats definitely a reason why he likes me, since I'm not really afraid to disagree and share my own opinions on something. He'll his hum and nod, kinda brushing it off at first but over time, he gets used to disagreements or comments and tries to listen rather than ignore it, simply because he realizes I'm definitely not against him; rather, I'm trying to help him and he begins to recognize there's a give and take in a relationship.

Even if he is self centered, he still tries to keep my feelings in mind. Although, I'm fairly easy going, as is he, so there's not too much to disagree with when we're just chillin - dates are easy, as I go along with whatever he suggests and he surprisingly, doesnt mind helping me out when its time to wrangle up restless grubs and laughs at the lil guys. He sometimes comes off as uncaring bc of relaxed and indifferent he is and it's definitely bc he's conditioned to remain calm for the cameras that is kinda hard go break him out ofbthat habit - despite that, without the act up, he's still fairly relaxes but he more prone to laughing and smiles a lot more which is contiguous and I Am Not Immune To BF Smiles

-My favorite image of them

no explanation 😃

-Anything else!

Marvus is the instagram bf that still acts that way when cameras are off like "baby look at me..... ur so pretty" like for no reason, I have to stan.

he highkey looks like a walrus i wanna cry

[him-e]

Did you watch the joker movie? thoughts?

Yes I did last week!

(spoilers below) 

It’s a great movie, but it’s depressing, gutting. definitely not an easy watch and at times made me deeply uncomfortable because it hits very close to home in many ways. It’s about feeling invisible and unable to experience things like the rest of the world does, let alone fit in; with the struggle to perform normalcy every day while not being in control of your body and mind 100%. Arthur’s uncontrollable laughter response when he’s in distress was more than a trademark or a plot device to connect his pre-Joker self to his villain self, he’s deeply ashamed of it and suffers for not being able to contain it, because it’s twice as humiliating: for himself, and for the people who inevitably think he’s laughing at them and hate him for that (see the scene with the mother & child on the bus)—it isolates him, makes him pitiful at best and a target of vitriolic, barbaric hatred at worst. He’s invisible all the time except when his laughter erupts and makes him visible in the worst possible way—like in the scene in the subway. 

Something I found interesting was Arthur’s relative lack of guilt/remorse after his first kill (which begins as an act of self defense, but then he deliberately stalks and murders in cold blood the third guy who attacked him). He feels liberated, empowered, intoxicated, but he doesn’t necessarily stop feeling empathy after that. He isn’t irreparably corrupted by this act; rather, interestingly, begins to make himself whole. It’s where he starts believing he can finally become a functional human being, and where his elaborate romantic fantasy with the girl next door begins. I know that part is controversial, but I think it’s less of a *Nice Guy becomes fixated on girl and when he realizes she won’t fuck him goes apeshit*, and more of a fantasy of being accepted and understood intellectually and intimately by a kindred soul—note how he fantasies about her coming to his debut as a comedian, laughing at his jokes, comforting him when his mother is in the hospital, and also voicing his own hatred towards the rich white uptown boys who look down on him every day and contribute to his misery (the only cutting edge in an otherwise completely tame, almost childish self delusion).

It’s a hatred that clashes with his fantasy of fitting in, becoming a functioning part of a deeply ill patriarchal society. Arthur is obsessed with powerful father figures. First he romanticizes Robert De Niro’s character (in a super sad daydream where De Niro/Murray and everyone else praise him for being what he is, rather than violently mocking him as they would in real life), then, when he’s already halfway towards the Joker, he finds his mother’s letters and goes on a hail mary to try to make Thomas Wayne admit that he’s his father. Which he isn’t. (probably.) The whole secret parentage red herring is Arthur’s fantasy of being accepted and loved by these patriarchal, capitalist monsters getting torn apart, layer by layer, and finally annihilated. (he kills all his parental figures—his mother, whom he was in a not-so-vaguely Oedipal relationship with, who was mentally ill as well but also abused him and emotionally and physically stunted him; he kills her because he hates her for what he did to him and because he hates that she, just like him, spent her entire life in a romantic fantasy as a coping mechanism to avoid reality—he kills Murray, and then he ideally kills Wayne too, through a proxy with a clown mask. He does very deliberately, as his adult self, the one he chose to be and painted his face accordingly. And then when all the monstrous mommies and daddies are dead he’s finally free, and so are the people, free to go in the streets and set the system on fire; it’s the dawn of a new era where children kill their fathers and the poor get the upper hand against the rich and the “natural” order is destroyed—or restored, maybe)

The anti-capitalist theme imo is what makes the difference between THIS and your average “Nice GuyTM is unjustly and repeatedly mistreated until he finally snaps” villain origin story, and why I think it’s extremely reductive and myopic to condemn this film for “making a mass murder sympathetic” or whatever the discourse is at again. It’s probably the most explicitly political superhero movie I’ve seen, and not in your usual toothless mcu-style way. Arthur (like his mother before him)is a mentally ill person who was failed by society as a whole in unforgivable ways more than he was failed by individuals. In a world where Thomas Wayne can go on tv and call poor people “clowns” for not being productive, successful adults, Arthur’s best chance at receiving treatment was a condescending, uninspired therapist forced to work with minimal resources (herself another victim of capitalism). And yet, he made that work for him, until the entire therapy project was shut down and even those crumbs were taken away from him, leaving him alone and exposed, with no access to meds and not a single soul to talk to. It’s society’s selfishness, blind greed, middle-class hypocrisy, hatred of poor and disabled people—in short, all those lovely american values—that created the Joker, not mental illness. And not just the Joker, but the riots in the streets, the rebellion against uptown Gotham. 

tl;dr; I know people are upset that Joker makes you want to empathize with a murderer—well maybe for once they fucking should, lol.

[britneyshakespeare]

friend: i don't know if i could watch the vampire diaries from what you tell me. it just seems like caroline forbes is too perfect of a character and that sounds kinda boring.

me, a bisexual woman who came to the vampire diaries for the men and stayed for the women, who loves caroline forbes w all her heart, who has never, and would never, speak an ill word of Caroline Elizabeth Forbes-Salvatore in her entire pathetic life, who mainly sat through 8 seasons of a show she felt overall lukewarm towards–too many conflicting feelings as the seasons progressed–for Candice Rene King née Accola's performance as one of my favorite fictional characters of all time: [scoffs] now what could i possibly have said that would give you the impression that she's fucking perfect??