#she doesn't need to get MORE powerful...

[explodingcelebi]

lovey bibis fanart! @rainbow-neko-artblog 's Mono loves hearts AND loves love, so Gali wanted to show off her own hearts to them~

...their canon is pretty horrific, but plucked from it they're just a big ol lovebug...good thing Gali is a pro at plucking peeps from canon AND loving~

the font is Monster Friend Fore!

thought it'd look good textless, and of course, just the 'bis themselves~ transparency willing, of course...

[lucyshypemaster]

you will NEVER see anyone writing paragraphs after paragraphs hating on keefe like they do with sophie.

[bonefall]

Feel free to ignore you've probably got a lot going on right now, but considering you know a lot about DOTC and Clear sky, I had a question...

We know that he's a terrible, misogynistic, woman beating and war mongering lunatic who was excused of all his actions because his equally misogynistic brother said " But-But he's nice! Deep down! This isn't the real him! "

But! In a world where the Hunters could write such a character, what do you think Clear Sky would look like as an actual sympathetic villain?

Idk if that makes sense, but what I've thought of doing is taking purely cannon Clear Sky and attempting to change him enough that he's still an antagonist, but not too far where only Reddit defends him.

I don't think he works as a sympathetic villain, on any level, ever. I think you're making a huge mistake to even try, and I have never seen an AU where it was done well nor am I interested in entertaining the thought.

Characters. Are. Tools. They exist to tell a story. The story that people tell me, by obsessing over some alternate universe where he was "ACTUALLY sympathetic and had a REAL redemption arc," is that they're not fucking interested in his dozens of victims. Nor do they actually care about the abusive impact he had on the minds and feelings of his family. They're JUST interested in Clear Sky himself.

Just like the Erins. Everything that happens in DOTC revolves around him. Everything. All his wives die so he can be sad about it. His brother defends all of his actions and BEGS you to sympathize with his pain so he can be 'redeemable.' One Eye comes out of nowhere so that there can be an example of "real" evil to contrast Clear Sky so he's less bad in hindsight.

The first three books of DOTC are bad, but the last three are fucking insufferable because SUDDENLY all that Gray Wing apologia pays off, and they take their main villain and throw him out a window. You CAN'T have "redeemable" Clear Sky and the plot of DOTC without dragging in someone else to drive the conflict, to BE the bigger threat to "unite" against. Slash and One Eye have to be conjured up out of thin air so Clear Sky can WHINE about how people only suck his toes instead of deepthroat them after he killed all their friends.

And yet, in spite of this absolute failure of an attempt, we continue to see this bullshit "redemption" be a mistake because Clear Sky is a fantastic villain, with major antagonist roles in nearly EVERY bit of follow-up material for DOTC that came after.

He's the most consistent monster in all of Warriors.

He's a fragile, egotistical, self-absorbed megalomaniac who ALWAYS sees himself as the victim, REFUSING to self-reflect and blaming everything else for all of his terrible choices. He will USE your love of him against you like it's a chain through your nose, step out of line and he will yank you into place with guilt trips, manipulation, public shaming, and violence.

He's a child abuser. He's a tyrant. He abandons the sick and disabled as soon as they're of no use to him, with grand speeches about "illness" and "weakness." He's a murderer who stands above the shredded corpse of his victim and bellows, "I'M NOT GREEDY! I'M JUST STRONG!"

And you'd write a "good" redemption arc for this, why?

Why are people so chronically unable to accept that there are LOTS of people like him, and you can't save your abuser? Why don't you ask yourselves why you're not interested in exploring Thunder, or Petal, or Gray Wing, and how his toxic influence impacts them? Why does the sympathy fall on Clear Sky? What about the DOZENS of victims who are dead by Book 3, and how THEY could have been saved?

Why ruin a perfectly good villain?

What's behind this trend where a billion people say to me, "Yes Clear Sky is a walking cavalcade of fucked up abuse apologia, and an incredibly realistic depiction of an abuser, but how would you change this while keeping it all the same?"

I wouldn't. You can't. It wouldn't be the same story, or it wouldn't be the same character. Never seen it done well, and I have seen it a lot. So I don't entertain this deeply frustrating "Well What If Clear Sky But Nice" impulse.

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[molagboop]

Noise game.

[salemontrial]

Why the FUCK didn't Sasha apologize to Quinni.

[moongothic]

Kinda started rereading Dressrosa and... Although I always chalked up the similarities between Crocodile's plan to take over Alabasta and how Doflamingo took over Dressrosa as nothing but Oda reusing similar plot elements but in a slightly different way (just to show us what could've become of Alabasta had Croc gotten away with his schemes, what Luffy helped prevent from happening to begin with)...

Robin's reaction to hearing the story of Dressrosa and HOW Doflamingo took over the country, that simple little "...!!", actually does kind of speak volumes

Like if you wanted canonical evidence to Crocodile having been "inspired" by Doflamingo, then yeah, Robin would be The Person who would pick up on that, she'd be the person who'd be like "hey, that story sounds awfully familiar to what Crocodile did", since he was her boss

Do want to note that, timeline-wise, Doflamingo only took over Dressrosa 10 years ago, where as Crocodile had been Scheming and establishing his position as the Hero of Alabasta for 16 years. Like Croc's intent to obtain Pluton and create his military nation utopia absolutely pre-dates Doffy's takeover, so that wasn't and can't have been inspired by Doflamingo at all. It's more just the plan and method Crocodile ended up going with (framing the king (through a bloodbath) and putting the country in a position without a ruler where he could just yoink it for himself with ease) where the similarity becomes more obvious. But it is also kind of where it ends. Doflamingo wanted Dressrosa because he felt like he was entitled to the island (as his family had been its original rulers and he was a Tenryuubito), and was using the island for his own gains (Smile manufacturing etc, for his dealings with Kaidou), all while having a great distain and hatred of the world and how he had been "wronged" (=Tenryuubito rights revoked). Meanwhile... yeah, Crocodile wanted to create a "utopia", only targetting Alabasta because he believed Pluton was there and because Pluton would be needed for his ideal military nation. That minor difference and Crocodile's clear and great distain and hatred of Doflamingo combined...

Yeah, I dunno, this is just interesting to me. God I need Robin and Crocodile to have a lil reunion chat

[tentacleplains]

more scenes that basically everyone sees but pointing out a specific detail i find interesting: "though i hope you don't cause a scene this time" does avery regularly cause scenes at parties?? lmao

[badgirlcoven-official]

"Willow is a bad character because she's a mary sue" me when I missed the entire point of the show

[silusvesuius]

g*lmar rly has to be the best skajrim character on the real like even if you don't like him he just is . literally The best one i think......... on dat note i also imagine that he and ulfr*c despite being fairydust BFFs for lyfe genuinely have the worst communication skills ever seen

[dirtytransmasc]

I'm sorry but the moment Alicent decided to obey her father she knew what was going to happen she knew she would have to have sex with him and have heirs. It's the only reason viserys remarried

"decided"????

what else was she meant to do? this was a day and age where women, especially young girls were controlled by their fathers, to some if not a great extent until they were married off (children of nobles typically betrothed for political reasons not love, these betrothals arranged by their fathers to whoever they pleased and saw fit, no matter what it could mean for the daughter). was she supposed to say no? was she supposed to disobey? what could have happened to her if she did? there was no point in which she could say no, when she could disagree. she was a girl, a child, all she could do was bite her tongue and pray for a miracle, pray for Viserys to not take to her, that at the very least he would wait to get her pregnant (the fact a 14 year old had to worry about that is sickening)

she was 14, she was grieving Aemma and reliving the pain of the loss of her mother, her father gave her an order, though disguised as a suggestion, one she could not deny. it didn't mean she wanted to, it didn't mean she wanted him to marry her, it doesn't mean she would have been forced to bear heirs as a child herself (especially because Aemma died because Viserys tried to get her pregnant to young and cause long lasting health issues that eventually lead to her fatal pregnancy), it doesn't mean she wanted any of it. but she didn't have any other choice, she didn't have a choice when her father sent her to his chambers, when Viserys claimed her hand, when Viserys assumed her consent and raped her in their marital bed, when she bore multiple children before she was 18, when she had to take care of him in his illness, when she had to practically rule in his stead. women didn't have choices at the time, nine of it was s choice she could have said no to, she just had to take it, all of it, cause her father told her to and it's her duty to obey him, and then Viserys married her and it was her duty to serve him.

y'all are so quick to blame a CHILD for the actions of her father and the king himself and forgetting the time and place she was in. nothing she could have done would have spared her fate, if not bringing her a worse one.

[sunnylaurels]

Finally managed to sort out some of my thoughts on how marvel fumbled the marketing for iron fist 2022 and ugh I am SO mad about it now

Like first of all why the hell would you try to keep the identity of the new iron fist a secret

Not only is it obvious to anyone familiar with Lin Lie and/or read DODS: White Fox but the bigger problem is that. Well.

Lin Lie is an obscure character. There's no denying that. And you put the set up for him becoming the next iron fist in a tie-in featuring another, slightly less obscure character.

Ami's never really been pushed so most people aren't going to read her tie-in (which does a great job of introducing both Lie and Ami whilst endearing them to the reader as well). The result is too much exposition needing to be crammed into Lie's story.

What marvel really needed to do was give both Lie and Ami more publicity. Like, maybe give Ami an actual book instead of a four-issue infinity comic (that could tease Lie's return as the new iron fist)? I'm 99% sure that Alyssa Wong wants to write one. Or at least admit that DODS: White Fox is borderline required reading to make sure that the readers know what happened?

You know, since iron fist 2022 isn't a continuation of the previous iron fist storyline? It's a continuation of Lin Lie's story (and Ami's, to a lesser extent) so marvel should have been upfront with that.

But just focusing on the fact that marvel is finally making an asian iron fist simply feels lazy and gives the impression that they're only doing this for free diversity points.

At least they could still fix it with a White Fox & Iron Fist team-up series. You know, just like Power Man & Iron Fist. Except with Ami Han and Lin Lie instead of Danny Rand and Luke Cage. And a bigger focus on the mystical side instead of the street-level one.

Edit: AND the fact that Ami is an actual demon should get more attention. Just imagine Lin Feng trying to turn her into a demon with his magic and she just. slaps him

[alullinchaos]

wait off topic if I change Cinder's semblance for my rwby canon-adjacent au.... would this be controversial editing to warn people that the tags are novel length but that i love them and also @graythegreyt pls read them when u have a chance

[simgerale]

CHAPTER NINETEEN ; 3/3

TRANSCRIPT:

olette: Sheri… Is it true? Has Prince Luca awoken?

sheridan: Yes, he has.

o: But was he not deemed��� lost?

s: He was.

o: [purses her lips nervously]

s: Rosebud, if you have any more questions, you’re free to ask them.

o: Well, apologies for being cautious. I was locked in my room all night, so I was not sure what I was allowed to know.

s: Touché.

o: Still… I overheard a handmaid say that the Prince was poisoned by the substance used in the war. No one—well, I thought that no one ever recovered from it.

s: That is correct. But something belonged to his highness that no one else had.

o: What was it, Sheri?

s: The empress.

[hauntingblue]

NAMI NEEDS TO GO UP THERE AND FIGHT BIG MOM I AM SO SERIOUS!!! THIS IS A BATTLE FOR THE ROMANCE DOWN TRIO!! SANJI DO NOT DARE TAKE HER SPOT!!!

[neraiutsuze]

boy i love it when a battle comes together in a narratively perfect way

sixth or seventh try at the cazador battle. for once instead of opening with a call lightning, he decides to open with a blight and insta-kill my bard, who normally starts by dimension-dooring to free astarion. this means that things get perilously close to popping off ascension-wise before jaheira and shadowheart can get her back up and a Daylight off. this kind of sets the tone for the battle, which goes Badly for almost the whole time. it hits the point where both my bard and shadowheart are just spamming Mass Cure Wounds and Mass Healing Word to keep people on their feet.

however. eventually astarion gets in perfect postion to break out the scroll of disintegrate right at cazador. who fails the save. and finally takes a proper hit to his ridiculous HP pool. he then pitches a fit and runs right at astarion to try and fuck him up, but the healing from the ladies keeps him on his feet - and then cazador was in perfect 'astarion has a scroll of Sunbeam' range. he did also hit ryse with it because i didn't realise she was in range. it's fine. she gets it. she's cast fireball on herself to get enemies before now. that put him on his last legs.

and then astarion'd taken a potion of speed before, so he had another attack - and he was wearing the risky ring, so he had sneak attack from the advantage.

get fucked, cazador.