#she looked at this idealistic little guy struggling against the system and was like time to alter him irrevocably and inevitably doom him :)

[2impostors]

my absolute favourite FAVOURITE thing about john/alecto is that they are both each other's fucked up little science project that got Very out of hand.

they are both simultaneously victor and the creature to each other at all times. they love each other they ARE each other, they are divorced and married at the same time. they (literally) can’t live without each other and each will be the other’s end. they still love each other despite this.

[fanyeline]

maybe i just have f@tt exhaustion & need a break but most of palisade has been incredibly bleak & idk if this post credits ending is going to fix that. let's take a look at where the characters started and "ended" this season

Kalvin Brnine: started unable to talk abt their feelings & with hope that millenium break could change lives. ended unable to talk abt their feelings, estranged 3 important relationships & with a death wish.

Thisbe: started w the idea that they have no freedom. ended with the realization that they have freedom, but also they have an energy thing in them that prevents them from relaxing

The Figure in Bismuth: started w wanting to break free from slavery. Ended up dead.

Phrygian: started w wanting to fight the good fight & end the war. Ended up dead.

Coriolis Sunset: started idealistic & naive. ended up grizzled, chased from planet to planet & having forcibly lost their girlfriend to a contract with a God

from my point of view, if the idea was that they wanted to make a corny, hopeful season, they picked the wrong game from the start. armor astir's pillars are practically undefeatable, that is part of the game.

secondly, the cause VS principality gameplay where the team was split into two groups didn't really work for me. it felt like it created aggression between groups, where both groups wanted to win instead of creating a collaborative story. you can hear austin struggling with this in early episodes of the game against jack & art, and eventually it felt like they just leaned into the opposition between the two groups. This is maybe "fun", but in the end it creates this feeling that there's always a losing side.

secondly part 2, the inclusion of the stellar combuster arc towards the beginning of the season felt super weird, pacing wise. i know we can't always control these things, but overall that whole arc only felt stressful, never fun or rewarding. even when brnine killed the princept, i was just kind of stressed out!

third, i'm not sure the final questlandia game was a great ending game, especially when so many of the character beats couldn't really explored in a system that's talking about kingdom level activities. Besides that, I found the choice of characters to be a little disappointing. Bringing in Levi after figure's death didn't feel like a breath of fresh air, it just felt like 'well who is this guy?'. I felt the same way about Jack's character, August Righteousness. I think either could have played a character we already had a strong connection with. What about Gucci? What about Jesset? How about Mustard Red? Keith bringing back Leap was the right choice, not only bc leap is someone we already cared about but because he's like this incredible force as a character. He is someone who generates change.

fourth, I felt the treatment of Clem as a character was absolutely ridiculous. the immediate dislike and rejection by the cast of an extremely popular character after art brought up playing her felt like it was both disrespecting art as a player and his ability to do a villain justice, and towards the listeners who have been invested in Clem's story since she was a player character in Partizan. It felt like after a certain point, Art had to give up caring about what Clem did or face backlash from the other players! In the last few kingdom episodes, art was going "I mean, whatever, I don't really care" half the time they asked him about what he felt clem would do. And I also found it to be a huge bummer to listen to the players have discourse over Clem.

There's a big difference to me over fandom discourse and players taking part in that discourse. First and foremost, Clem is a character in a story, and while their "what should we do about Clem" discussion should have revolved around how to give her a satisfying character arc, it felt more like they were trying to figure out how to wash their hands of her. I don't really understand how or why the friends soured on Clem so much, and you know what? I get being sick of a character. But having a public discussion about it was really weird, & as a fan, a total bummer to hear.

So yeah, over all I feel really burned out by this season and the decisions they've made. I think it's been a sad time. I don't think it's been fun or goofy for awhile.

Obviously as creators they have a right to do whatever they want with their art, but I can't help but find it disappointing. It feels really different to what they've put out before & I'm having a hard time enjoying this gritty, sad and stressful season.

[greensaplinggrace]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[linkspooky]

A meta on Emma maybe?? I like seeing how she was so similar to Mama and how the series never really condemns or dissuades her from her optimism!!

So what makes Emma such a great character is that her ideals are what make the central ideology of the story, and also the world in The Promised Neverland basically exists to challenge Emma’s ideals at every single moment. Emma’s ideals are what bring her in conflict with the entire world, because the world she exists in denies her right to live as anything but cattle, but also her right to see the value in the lives of others, and both things are important to Emma’s character. 

So, while Emma has ideals that sound like they are basically every other shonen protagonists ideals ever “I want to save everyone”, and “I fight for my family and friends” what makes them unique in this case is that Emma’s ideals  are not built off of her being some weirdly pure empathy magnet, who loves their friends unconditionally, never struggles, seems too stupid to actually understand the complexity of the world. etc. etc. the kind of characterization shown in most shonen protagonists to make their personalities accomodate their ideals with little conflict. 

The fact is Emma is as smart as the other two boys, even to the point of being book smart and a cunning strategist, even if not as much as Norman and Ray she can at least always keep up with them. What is unique about Emma is she sees how unrealistic her expectations of the world are, how her ideals aren’t practical with a world at all that is trying to kill them, and Emma wants to stick to her ideals anyway. What is also unique is that she’s the fastest learning of the two, which means that Emma is the one most open to change and most adaptable which is useful not only for going into an outside world they knew nothing about with their sheltered upbringing, but also when it comes to people Emma tends to be the most understanding of others. She’s the one who always tries to encourage others to open up to her, and tries diplomacy first and reasoning rather than just fighting for survival right away. 

Emma is yet another shonen protagonist whose ideals boil down to “never give up” but her determination isn’t just to be really good at fighting, or to be the best like no one ever was. Emma’s determination specifically applies to refusing to stop caring about others in a world that pressures her to only care about her own survival. 

So from the start of the manga we’re introduced to Emma’s primary character trait. That she cares deeply about her family, she always thinks of others. The first chapter of the series, Emma realizes she’s going to die in less than two months and she has no allies other than Norman, and even Norman who is a decent guy has already suggested that just the three of them try to escape and fend for themselves, but Emma never even considered that as an option. What hurt the most to her was not her own life being in danger, but the rest of her family disappearing like Connie did. 

This is the inciting incident in which Emma’s focus and goal for the entire manga becomes the unrealistic goal of letting everyone survive, in a fight where children will be fighting against not only adults, but unknowable horrors of demons and escaping into a world they know little about. 

Every single antagonist in the manga has given up to some extent. Especially the human adults who are for the most part cattle children who became a part of the system. In the themes of the manga the most morally wrong thing to do, is to give up thinking of others and only think of your own survival. Even if the circumstances are stacked against you, even if you have sympathetic reasons for doing so, it’s still a moral wrong to sacrifice others especially innocents like children in order for you to survive as a cog in the system. The first antagonist even declares this, this is the motivation of both Krone and Isabella, they just wanted to fight back with their own survival.

When the trio first confront each other about their escape plan, it’s Emma who sets the ideals for the other two boys to follow. Even if it seems impossible, they should plan with the intention of everybody escaping. 

If the world is against their entire existence and denying their personhood, rather than conform to the world, they need to change the entire world. That’s been the overarching goal of the manga. Notice Emma’s wording, she refuses to bend on her primary ideal of saving everyone but she also thanks Ray for challenging her because it made her realize what she wanted to do. 

Emma isn’t just an idealistic idiot who only understands her own way of thinking and doesn’t accept others, she actively understands the circumstances of others, considers it, challenges it against her own and even then refuses to let go of her ideals. This is what Emma shows time and time again in the manga, because the world exists to challenge Emma’s ideals. The first real test of this is the spy, who Emma wants to save even after learning they betrayed them to mama. 

At that point Emma reconfirms her ideals again, even if they betrayed them at one point if they’re not completely evil at heart they deserve a chance to be won over to their side, and that’s the ending that Emma wants to shoot for. That’s where the key in Emma’s empathy lies, she gives others second chances believing they’re deserving of it. Her insistence is not that things like betrayal and deceipt do not exist in this world, but rather what she’s saying on a more baseline is even after that person betrays them she wants them to live so the best thing to do is try to escape with them still. Emma’s central message is live, and she continually offers others second chances to live. 

Which is why because Emma’s so accepting of others, she’s the one that inspires others to be like her, and aspire to their morals even if they believe it’s impossible to abide by those morals with the harsh reality. The reason all the other characters move and throw themselves into conflict is because they become centered around Emma’s ideals. 

When Ray confronts Emma, we get more of Emma’s idealism reinforced. Just as she said she’s willing to forgive the spy for what they did in the past as long as they never do it in the future.

Emma’s not stupid, she’s also not unaware of the circumstances, she knows that Ray had to make tough sacrifices when building for his escape plan in the future. So looking at the reality of that she decides to forgive him again, giving him a second chance. Emma is aware people lie and deceive but believes in people’s capacity to be better and therefore decides to give others a chanceand trust them again. Of course with the framing of this scene it also shows Emma as the reckless idealist again, its all on the unstable premise that Ray will never try to sacrifice someone again for the sake of the greater good, or one of their family members so escape will be easier. THe recklessness comes from the fact that sometimes when things go off track for Emma she’ll try to force it.

The next major challenge for her ideals (i’m going in broad strokes here forgive me for not recapping the entire manga) is when she has to willingly accept Norman’s sacrifice. Something that neither her nor Ray are in favor of, and try to plot around him because while Ray insists they have to sacrifice some of the siblings to escape he cannot bring himself to let Norman or Emma sacrifice themselves, whereas Emma did not want to accept any sacrifices. 

The big challenge in this moment is Emma accepting that even if she pulls things off perfectly, uses everything in her ability and intelligence, and gets everyone to cooperate people will still die. Knowing that living without losing any of their family members is impossible, will Emma continue to hold her ideals. Is Emma capable of striving or a scenario where they save everyone, if she’s forced to accept sacrifices time and time again, can her heart withstand that and still hope for the best?

We see once again Emma shows her recklessness. The same as the time with Ray, when scenarios fall far off of her ideals, like when Ray turned out to be the spy, when Norman decided to sacrifice himself, Emma gets really mad at the world and the others around her and experiences pure emotion. In a childish way she has a hard time accepting the circumstances that in her front of her and the actions of others when it doesn’t go along perfectly with her ideals, and sometimes she tries to force it by acting emotinoally, yelling, with intidimation, throwing a tantrum, Emma is just eleven after all. She’s not a perfect angel, she’s a person who continually gets frustrated that the world won’t go her way, and is out to get her loved ones. What she has the most trouble with is accepting the actions of others especially when it conflicts with her ideals, and accepting that not everybody can think the way she can. While it’s her refusal to accept sitautions that makes her so determined to change the world in the first place because she is rejecting the whole world, and the social order that dictates she’s cattle with no value, at the same time she’s also sometimes so reckless and gets frustrated the world and people around her won’t adapt to her ideals quick enough when she seees how things can be better. 

That’s her recklessness, when the chips are down she’ll always resort to what she thinks is right before anybody else, the world’s logic, or even her own safety. She nearly threw away the entire escape just to save Norman, even though Emma would never accept sacrificing the other children just so the three of them could escape alone. 

That wasn’t even her intention though, her intention was of course to save Norman, and then save the others, and insist there must have been a way out that they just hadn’t grasped yet and needed to take a risk to try to achieve. Except this time there was not one, and was not one they could think of in time, so Emma just gambled and only got away with it because Norman calmed her back down. For the first arc of the manga Norman is the one who comes up with the means to bring Emma’s ideals back to life, but after that Emma and Ray the pragmatist have to work it out between the two of them.

Without Norman it seems even more impossible, and then once again Emma is reminded of the basic moral dilmena of the manga. The fact that she’s suffering so much and struggling so hard is because she’s trying to make an impossible wish come true for the sake of everybody else around her, but she could just give up and save herself.

The world is trying to rid her of those qualities, and will punish her for every second she has them, because those unrealistic expecations and her recklessness makes survival even harder for her in a world where it was hard to survive to begin with. 

However, in the face of that Emma’s solution is to not give up. She doesn’t give up on other people, she continually gives them a chance even when they threaten her, disappoint her, or betray her, and she also doesn’t give up on the idea that she can save everyone with the mans she has as long as she uses them in the best way possible.

Emma is a high idealist, but not only does the story challenge those ideals again and again, she also puts them into practice. The story doesn’t say that Emma’s optimism is wrong, in fact the themes of the story are made by Emma’s belief, however the story does continually challenge Emma’s optimism. The central theme of the story is this, the world will do everything it can to destroy your childlike innonce, your love for your family, your value for life, your care for others, and that’s why you need to never give up on those things or throw them away willingly because the world will try to pry them away from you regardless. 

Even more cynical characters like Ray are saved by Emma’s idealism, and then become necessary to Emma’s survival. However thy would not have been saved if Emma did not reach out to them in the first place so their cynicism would have been no use. Ray literally wanted to Roast himself alive because he did not see a future where he could escape and grow up and saw that his only escape was to burn himself before he could be eaten as cattle before Emma showed him he still had a future.  

The next challenge to Emma’s ideals is Yugo who is an adult, and an escaped cattle child like them but rather than wanting to cooperate he only cares about his own survival. That time too, even though Emma is taken hostage the first time they meet, Emma insists on negotiating with him and trying to understand him, even though in her typical Emma way she doesn’t mean an entirely peaceful negotiation and is completely willing to use threats to get him to go her way. 

Yugo as somebody who started out as an idealistic kid like Emma who escaped with his whole family believing in William Minerva’s words brings up what I mentioned earlier as the way of challenging Emma’s methodology. Does she really believe in those lofty ideals, or will she give them up when she’s lost too much to continue beliving in them. For example if half of her family died from the escape attempt would she continue with the other half still aiming for trying to protect what she had left or would her heart be too broken? 

And Emma’s answer is pretty clear. Yes, her ideology is to save everyone and that naturally conflicts with the idea of losing others. Once she loses one person she’s failed to save everybody so what then, what becomes her reason for fighting? However, her answer is clear cut, that in every situation you have to keep trying to save everybody you can.

Even when you lose others, you keep going for the people that remain. So once again, Emma is not a precious baby girl with soft feelings, she’ll get angry and frustrated with people when they refuse to go her way the way she sees as best and doesn’t alway sunderstand why people don’t just shoot for the best to begin with. She doesn’t accept all the negativity in the world with a smile, she fights back, she gets angry. She refuses to bend to others and insists they bend to her instead just like her first fight with Ray. 

Not only that but Emma is extremely confrontational and always tries to talk things out as fast as possible even when it’s easier to avoid things, or to just not deal with people. Yugo was unconscious and they could have just killed him in his sleep especially since he was an adult that took her hostage the first time, and she does the much riskier thing of trying to talk it out with him and understand what he’s feeling after he’s made multiple attempts on her life.

Empathy means acknowledging the feelings of others. Emma isn’t saying she would never give up like Yugo did in the past after suffering his loss, what Emma is saying is that she cares about her family so much that she understands how it must feel to lose that precious family. She’s acknowledging his emotions, and the possibility that she could have ended up like him if left all alone and tormented by her regrets. She’s using the feelings they have in common to reach him, but at the same time imagining a situation that is wildly different from her own current one to sympathize with a person who has been hostile to her in the past while acknowledging the danger and that she might just get hurt again. That is radical, true empathy.

Empathy means you have to try to understand the circumstances of others, even when those other people are coming into conflict with you. 

Not only that but she points out that refusing to confront his pain is not only bad for them because they’ll get killed, but bad for him as well because he’ll suffer. There’s an ending where they can both come out of this for the better so that’s the ending Emma wants to shoot for. The way she finally gets through to him is relating her own circumstances. Even though she’s only talking about the loss of one person, not her entire family and having to deal with that loss for years she’s able to tell Yuugo the resolution she reached with her ideals. How she was able to believe she was saving everyone even after having to accept the sacrifice of Norman who was a part of her everyone.

And that too comes from the realization that even if other people died while she lived, they would not want her to die, and instead she has to carry on those hopes and dreams especially for those dead people who wished just as much as she did to reach the human world. She has to respect the wishes of those dead people even over her own emotions of grieving and move forward, because even if she wasn’t able to save them, she was still saved by them and they wouldn’t want somebody who they saved, who they loved and cared for to die.

The next challenge to Emma’s ideals is in the goldy pond arc, where she’s thrown into a situation where she basically has no familiarity around her at all, none of her family, no resources, where she’s basically powerless. These people aren’t her family, they’re complete strangers, and yet she feels their losses just as much. 

Once agani, the scope of Emma’s ideals have to widen as she realizes there are more people to worry about than just her own family, and her own plantation escaping free to the human world. Not only does she have to accept that there are people she wants to save outside of her family and rapidly confront that relaity in front of her, but she also grapples directly with her own powerlessness again. As she went from a position of relative security haing escaped gracefield with relatively bloodless tactics to an all out war. This chapter basically spells it out, there are situations where there’s nothing you can do no matter how hard you try and your only real option is to get through them and try to do better next time. 

This is the arc where Emma transforms from someone who just runs away, or escapes, or survives to realizing she also has to go on the offensive from time to time in order to help others survive. It also is an arc where she vastly expands her definition of family and realizes she wants to save more than just the ones from gracefield house. 

Even when pushed to her edge though and motivated to fight back. Emma still considers that the best ending possible is the one where everyone gets to live. She even tries talking this out with the hunter, even if it’s only a strategy to buy time she offers that chance and tries the tactic of diplomacy. It’s something Emma never forgets no matter how many weird demons or maladjusted adults try to kill her. 

Remember, the key in Emma’s philosophy lies in never giving up and always trying, and making sure not to waste anything you had to achieve the best ending possible. Of course it’s an inhuman standard but they’re twelve year olds with machine guns, they’re already enduring some pretty inhuman situations already.

IN this arc as well Emma’s recklessness also has a consequence. She’s injured when she takes a risk to attack the demon hunting her. They decide to go on an all or nothing shoot him until he stops moving strategy.

And just like this arc insists over and over again there are times when strategies don’t pay out, there are times when you can do nothing, and when the demon finally starts to recover, it stabs straight into Emma first. At that point they weren’t able to make it in time and the demon went for the obvious leader everybody was rallying behind and almost finished her in one blow.

So, as I’ve said so far, Emma’s naivete and ideals exist however she’s not unaware of the world around her. She’s not immune to danger or consequences from her actions either. Emma’s ideals aren’t there because she exists in a little bubble that never gets popped by the world around her. The world is as equally as harsh to Emma as it is everybody else, Emma also has to accept sacrifices, accept losses, accept times when she’s powerless.

What makes Emma’s ideals even stronger is that even after surviving those cirucmstances she doesn’t stop believing in her ideals.

Which is what makes her ideals so simple and powerful, because Emma herself struggles with them and realizes that they’re totally incompatible with the world around her. And her reconciliation with that is, this world is harsh and unfair and I refuse to accept that so I’m going to change it by giving it everything I have. That’s her recklessness, take the most risk and go for the best result.

The net big challenge to their ideals comes when their shelter is destroyed, and they’re hunted this time by humans rather than demons. We see once again, Emma tries to explain herself and attempts diplomacy even when two people are dead at her feet.

And once again she’s met with the fact that not only does the world not care about Emma’s ideas it’s denying even her basic personhood and her right to have those ideas. 

So yes Emma’s dreams are unrealistic but once again she’s dreaming in a world that was never going to allow her to dream in the first place. That’s why it’s so mportant that it’s Emma who makes the world bend to her, rather than bending to the world. Emma doesn’t see her dreams as unrealistic, because for her all dreams or ideas to having a right to life of her own are unrealistic in the first place, and the world will tell her it over and over again.

And once again Emma’s reckless but she doesn’t ignore the consequences to her actions, or the dangers she faces in the world. She faces all of those things and chooses to continue hoping and working for better, and continue valuing life and living which in itself is a direct act of defiance and rebellion against the world that named them cattle. 

The series is called The Promised Neverland and the main character Emma is Childish, Naive, but that is her strongpoint as well as her weakness. As a child she’s unaware of the world around her, separated from it, not a part of that system but because she is not a part of it she’s also able to think in ways no adult that’s associated with the broken system of that world ever could and imagine a new and better world and fight for that. The traits of a child she retains, forgiveness, empathy, believing in the best for yourself and others are traits that you should never give up on even as an adult. 

[julystorms]

🔥 fma/fmab

man that post about how fandom ignores the whole ishvalan genocide/massacre/tRAGEDY--and oftentimes the guilt that characters like roy and riza and hell, maes, feel over having contributed to it--really wormed into my head. like i’ve kind of low key thought that for a long time but ya know deep down you kind of just...want to hope people aren’t nasty and horrible and just wanna focus on other things.

but then you see all kinds of cutesy hurt/comfort stories and headcanons and it’s like, especially with roy/riza/maes this isn’t...about them? i mean, it is to the extent that they didn’t go against orders the way that alex did. they followed orders. they killed people. yeah, including maes. you don’t think he didn’t go home to his fiancée and feel shitty about it? struggled to communicate his issues with her? look, he’s a lovely guy and his love for his wife and daughter is incredible, but you KNOW he’s pouring his heart into those relationships to put the horrors behind him the best way he knows how while also not shirking responsibility for the awful things he did. i mean, shit, it’s not like after all those evils he weNT AND QUIT THE MILITARY, YA KNOW?

but look, i’m not stupid and single-minded, here. i know maes stayed for job security, to take care of his family, and for the same reason roy did; because it was a way to infiltrate the system--probably the only way. the military does lead the country, after all.

but all those cutesy little roy-has-ptsd-flashback fanfics is 1) pretty insulting oftentimes to people who, you know, do have ptsd, and 2) kind of misses the core of roy and riza’s characters. they know this isn’t about them, they’re not the victims, at least not in the way the innocent ishvalan citizens were. you know, the hundreds and thousands that roy burnt to a crisp ALIVE and riza sniped from a distance. like, these two have SO many sins on their hands and throughout the entire story they never try to pretend they don’t.

they work with alex who ran the hell away from battle and like...why didn’t they do that? especially roy, who would still be a valuable asset to the military and may avoid penalty of death for disobeying orders or desertion? 

they know they made choices that got a whole population all but wiped off the map. and why? for what reason was this done? for god’s sake, people loove to focus on poor widdle riza and roy, sad babies... but roy and riza never once made themselves out to be victims. this is why they, and maes, wanted roy to get into power: so they could change the laws and retroactively get themselves put on trial for war crimes.

i’m not saying it doesn’t suck to be roy or riza. i’m not saying they weren’t victims in the sense of circumstance (Riza’s father being shitty, nobody sharing what they knew), either. But their misfortune mostly sits with being too idealistic when they were too young and uninformed to know what they were getting themselves into--while the ishvalans, you know, were massacred by dogs of a military they had no hope of protecting themselves from.

so yeah, more of the tragic narrative in fmab should be focused on the war crimes that roy and riza canonically committed, not on them dealing with the nightmares it brings on. like there is NO WAY they have the capability to comfort one another anyway. it’s not some fearful nightmare shit. it’s stuff they ACTUALLY DID. it was REAL. roy especially committed genocide. so it’s like, if he has some awful fucking dream, you really think he’s gonna call riza in the middle of the night looking for comfort? i’d be surprised if he even thinks he deserves it. and anyway, what’s she gonna say to ease his mind except, we can’t do anything about it now except change the future. but lots of stories have him getting cuddles or kisses or sex like that’s gonna do anything. he’s not that stupid. he knows it’s not about him. he committed terrible acts and now he has to live with that. riza too, but roy has the added guilt of feeling as if he got her into that mess into the first place, so not only did he directly murder tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people, but he recruited riza to do it too. so her crimes are his.

like i said, it sucks to be them, but they weren’t the people getting murdered en masse, so maybe the narrative lens in fandom needs to point a little closer to the actual evils that were being committed out there in ishval...not on roy feeling sorry for himself, because i don’t think that’s how he works.

[paulsebert]

Runaways S01E01 Thoughts

Going to hide these behind the cut for Spoilers.

The first Marvel property created in the current millennium lets hope they don't screw this up.

And the official  title lets us know it's “Marvel's Runaways” as not to let us think this is a biography of Joan Jett.

The opening is like this little mini-horror movie and if you've seen the plot twist at the end of the first issue of the original series it's made all the more horrible because you know where this is going.

“What's this like a cult?”  “We don't use that word...” - If you ever hear anyone say that in real life say that just leave the room.

Our villains are allowed to basically engage in a public kidnapping because of society's ingrained distrust of non-English speaking Latinos.  Ouch...

The official intro sequence looks to be dropping as many hints about the actual characters while simultaneously obscuring the fact this is a superhero show.  The synthesizer sound has a little bit of a modern synth meets retro John Carpenter feel. Didn't care for it the first time I listened to it but it grew on me.

We cut in to see Alex Wilder playing video games.  You know how the original comic starts with the kids playing a superhero MMO?  Wouldn't it be a hoot if he was playing Marvel Online the week that it gets killed?

Alex is an introvert who appears to have some sort of depression issues and perhaps some unhealthy emotional hang-ups as we learn he's still got issues over a girl he broke up with two years ago. A curious choice for our POV character. If the show follows the complete arc of the comics.

“You know it's like a charity organization and not like... the mob.”

We cut to Nico and we learn she has a missing or dead sister.  Curious how this will play out.

We cut to Chase and he's jacked! Also his dad establishes himself as creepy and emotionally abusive within seconds.

We see the Dean family in the Church of the Gibborum.  It's like Scientology and that Not-Really-Scientology church from Kurt Busiek's Avengers run had a baby. Karolina's mom is the woman we saw take the girl at the per-credits sequence.  Oh shit...

Gert and Molly are like step-sisters in this continuity.  I guess Molly's name and race change in this incarnation is an easy way to get around the whole “no Mutants” rule.  I wouldn't put it past Fox to put a “Molly Hayes” and her parents in this continuity.  The Steins are like embarrassing wacky sitcom parents and the most “normal” of the Pride.  I get a very Daria-esc vibe from Gert,  Molly is written as if she were like 12-13 but looks the same age as the rest of the kids.

“They're teenagers, the last thing they're interested in is what their parents are doing.”

Alex's parents have a giant room just for creepy cult rhobes.  Karolina's mom has a hundred year old dude hooked up to what could best be described as some sort of S&M life support system. That's a new addition and a damn creepy one.

Runaways is presented by “Discover Los Angeles.”  Did the Los Angeles board of tourism really mean to sponsor a show that presents their city as run by a murder cult?

Gert wants to start a club to smash the patriarchy. Her classmates aren't interested by I support this endeavor.  Gert's kinda tongue-in-cheakly set up as the young idealist the kind that gets demeaned online as a “Social Justice Warrior” but... she's kinda perfect.

Gert meets Chase and there's obvious friction.  Gert stumbles across the two and is snarky. Karolina comes along and there is friction between her and Gert because Gert thinks the cult-like organization that raised her is totally a cult. Also she's not that big on organized religion in general.  

Chase is struggling with Spanish yet can't ask for a tutor because... well despite being in this episode for less than two minutes I think the guy's a psychopath.  Gert offers to tutor him. Subtle flirting...

Alex wants to talk to Nico but Nico is ignoring him because she's still mourning her (presumably) dead sister. Meanwhile we learn that Karolina is being cyberbullied over being in a totally obvious cult. So many painful feels...  Karolina comments on Nico's beauty and we get our first hint at her sexuality.

“Some people hide behind makeup, others behind a smile... they're still hiding.”- Ouch...

Molly is having cramps and some mysterious medical issues so she goes to the school nurse.  We learn that Molly's parents died in a fire which means they either had to cut back on the cast or legal rights.  Maybe Molly's Parents will be villains on the next season of The Gifted.  Also Molly has a bad case of CGI glowing eyes.

Wait if Molly is Gert's step-sister why hasn't she taken the “York” family name?

Karolina is being interviewed for some kinda profile or documentary on the church.  The girl we saw in the prologue says that “you're really lucky to have your mom...”  Hoo boy...

Molly's super-strength has already kicked in and she almost gets herself killed trying to figure it out. We get to see her pus a Volkswagon mini-bus!

We finally cut to the Pride's annual party.  Chase's dad gives me more psychopath vibes.  I want a prequel series about the Yorkes being wacky sitcom parents. Ms. Wilder has no idea how they were allowed in their murder-cult.

We actually get to see some of the Pride talking to each other like normal parents which is nice. Though Karolina's mom is still cheerfully creepy while Mr. Stein has a Patrick Bateman vibe.

The kids turned down Alex's invitation to hang out and he is sad.  Chase blew off Gert's study invitation to hang out with frat-looking bros, she is sad.  Karolina trying to sneak out and winds up at the same party as Chase.  There's a dude who looks way too old to be there handing out pills.  Stranger danger Karolina!  Meanwhile  Nico is on the beach doing witchy things.  Gert sends Molly a text message to feed the “pets.” (Old Lace)

Karolina sees two girls making out at the party and it's like a lightbulb goes off!  Gay people exist in the advanced Marvel Cinematic/Television Universe!  She takes off her bracelet and starts glowing... She then passes out. Chase sees two boys carrying her off and oh no...

The Steins have a mad science lab with a bunch of animals in cages and an ominous door labeled “Keep Out.” Molly gets her first glimpse at Old Lace and tears a door off trying to get away.  She calls Gert and wants to get out of the house because there's seriously weird stuff going on.  Now where might they go?

Chase sees two guys about to date-rape Karolina and kicks the shit out of them. I have mixed feelings on this. One one hand I'm against date-rape as a cheap plot  device (particularly in a teen drama) but I'm 100% for attempted date-rapists getting the shit kicked out of them.  Karolina recovers and she doesn't want to go home.

Whatever it is that Nico was trying to do with her beach witch ritual it ain't working. The kids all finally decide to go meet Alex.

Everyone is still weird, stressed out, and still mourning. Amy is confirmed as dead.  It's like this weird therapy session.  Chase decides that the only way to take the stress out of the situation is underage drinking.  Yep... still a dumbass.

The kids see that the parents are gone and start sneaking around. Wouldn't you know it there's a trap door. You know what's coming...

The girl from the beginning is the one being sacrificed made the more horrifying by the fact that Karolina recognizes her.  Rather than being stabbed she's shoved into some kind of glowing space coffin.  We get a cliffhanger as Mr. Wilder asks “what the hell was that?!”

Final Verdict: Some interesting changes... I kinda of wish they got to the party earlier but the young cast is great, the glimpses of special effects are good, and they didn't screw it up!

Final Grade: B+

[adolin]

#we can all agree that John Fucked Up but imo we should also be discussing what a truly weird fucked up insane thing alecto did too#she looked at this idealistic little guy struggling against the system and was like time to alter him irrevocably and inevitably doom him :)

my absolute favourite FAVOURITE thing about john/alecto is that they are both each other’s fucked up little science project that got Very out of hand.

they are both simultaneously victor and the creature to each other at all times. they love each other they ARE each other, they are divorced and married at the same time. they (literally) can’t live without each other and each will be the other’s end. they still love each other despite this.