#the idea that these characters were never inherently bad and that they can always choose to be better

[jesse-pinko]

Me when a character is relentlessly looked down on and ridiculed and dismissed by everyone around them including the people they love so they start to believe in and actively play into people’s negative perceptions of them but at the end of the day they still make the choice to be better and do better bc they always had the capacity for good and so much love to give they just had nowhere to put it

[whumpbby]

One of the things I like about MXTX's writing is that she seems to be paying close attention to the way her characters are informed by their backgrounds - in good and bad ways, but always uncompromisingly.

No one is just BAD for the sake of it - every character that has more than two lines of dialogue was formed by their circumstances.

And that includes the good characters - good people in her works are good, because they had the opportunity to be good. Which is not something that is comfortable to realise and admit, but still is there.

Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang represent it in a good way, but Xie Lian and Qi Rong are imho the best example of that narrative technique.

People act as if XL is this inherently good and kind person who just is choosing to be good against all odds and is just better than anyone else because of that... When, in truth, Xie Lian formed his kind personality in insanely supportive environment - he was never lacking, he was loved by his parents, lauded by everyone, pretty much considered to be a superior being from the moment he could walk. He had everything going for him and in that environment it wasn't really hard for him to decide he wants to naively dedicate himself to help "commone people" even if he had absolutely no idea what these "common people's" lives were like. Growing up kind and generous was easy for him.

Qi Rong also came from wealth, technically he had the same opportunities XL had - except his life and formative years were full of horrific abuse. He could have been another Xie Lian, if his journey didn't start with the full knowledge of humanity's worst side and no naivety left.

Being good person against all odds - choosing good even against your own good - is an admirable trait and XL is a solidly an interesting character for being written this way. But a few times recently I've seen people saying that his Masked Era was such a win because "he had all the excuses to become evil and didn't take them!" and it kinda rubs me the wrong way. Because yeah, XL didn't choose the road of resentment and personal revenge and short-lived gratification...

But neither did Qi Rong. Neither did Xue Yang. How can you make a choice when you don't know that other options exist? When they are not open for you? When "believing that people are inherently good" isn't a question because in your most hard-baked experience they never were?

I dunno where I want to go with this, but I've been thinking recently on how the novel characters are written and how the readers seem to be experiencing them, and it's an interesting way of discovering cultural and personal biases in others and myself🤔

[lhuxlux]

Meeting the right people in the wrong time, unfortunately. It happens a lot, that's just how life is. They were happy together as a couple, but they had flaws and they couldn't learn from them and grow as people. Things could have been better, according to Betty. But there are no regrets.

I think it was a beautiful moment because it's true things can always be better once you realize your mistakes and have a happier outcome for the two of them, but that doesn't mean they were miserable. That's just how we learn things. And they learned they had different points of view and their own flaws, which made the relationship not as equal as they thought.

In Adventure Time, we see Betty finally realizing her own mistake, all the things she has done for Simon, she had to neglect her own needs. No one forced her to do that, it was her own decision. Simon was repeating Betty's mistakes in Fionna and Cake, he became obsessed with the idea of having her back. And I think Betty making Simon realize his flaw was cute.

She didn't hate him, she never blamed him, because she understood it was just an honest mistake and he didn't realize until he had to choose between two options in the book he was reading with Beth.

The book itself is a nice metaphor about life choices, there are no do-overs, choices aren't inherently good or bad, but you have to face the consequences later on, maybe you dislike the lack of options to choose from if you aren't careful. Beth said it clear, maybe if Simon paid attention to Nova (Betty's representation) and not only Casper (Simon's representation), things would have been different and he could have had more choices.

But now he cannot hold onto the past. He needs to live, and not for Betty's sake. She didn't want that when she finally managed to undo the crown's wish. Betty wanted to do that because she felt like it wasn't ok leaving Simon cursed.

The bus scene is so powerful, because it shows you the better outcome for the two of them (but maybe not for characters Simon finds later on like Marceline), but he knows it didn't happen like that and there are no do-overs. That's when Betty says her last words, showing no regret and gratitude to Simon for being in her life. Simon doesn't get on the bus, they don't share the same objectives anymore, and they have to take different paths. It was a beautiful goodbye. Some people make us happy when they appear in our lives, but they aren't meant to be in our lives forever.

[ineffable-endearments]

From "And furthermore, I don't think it's our place to start suggesting that there should be a suggestion box!"

I'm not even entertaining the idea that anyone else could possibly have ideas more worthwhile than whatever Heaven's upper brass is telling me God wants. The System is perfect.

to "You can't judge the Almighty, Crawley."

OK, so not everything God does makes moral sense, but that's just because it's too ineffable for us to understand.

to "I don't think that's what God wants. And I don't think you want it, either."

I don't always believe Heaven is right. Something in me is incompatible with the System. I'm hoping there's a greater good than the bureaucracy I work for.

to "I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley."

I'm tacitly admitting that I don't like what Heaven is doing here, but I'm powerless within the System.

to "If I were thwarting you, Heaven couldn't object!"

You've helped me believe Armageddon isn't part of the Ineffable Plan after all. Now I believe I CAN do something to stop it.

to "I have no intention of fighting in any war!"

I'm making my own personal decision here, without consideration for what the System wants.

to "I can make a difference!"

I'm certain that I personally have ideas more worthwhile than the rest of Heaven. I can change the System.

The growth is happening. I know it's slow (well, if you're a human, anyway), but it's happening.

I am wondering if this character development is going to work like a huge outward (inward?) spiral. Take steps to add a new perspective, then use that to start working on the next Big Problem, then circle back to the old problems and start dealing with them with the new perspective. Things are kind of circular, but on a different level every time, hence the spiral.

The first three are like: Refuse questioning Heaven's judgment on moral grounds -> Accept that some questioning is natural but God/Heaven are always right -> Accept that maybe my personal judgment is not always compatible with Heaven's. OK, now I've tentatively accepted that I have my own morality outside of Heaven's, but that is SO uncomfortable.

The second three are like: I have my own moral judgments, but I have no way to enforce them because of what is expected of me -> Maybe there is room for my own judgment in Heaven after all -> Actually, my judgment is important enough to refuse to do what is expected of me regardless of anyone else's Plans. OK, now Aziraphale can use his own judgment within the System.

And I don't know for sure, but maybe - hopefully? - the last three will be like: I trust my own judgment -> My judgment never succeeds when I try to force it on others -> Everyone needs to be free from coercion and I'm going to help that happen by doing things to undermine the System.

That last bit is written with an assumption that the Ball and Gabriel and Beelzebub's ultimate decision are a little bit of foreshadowing: Aziraphale seizing control in a way that is sort of scary, having a bunch of Experiences(TM) with other people including Crowley, then realizing that the only reasonable way to handle people "outside the system" is to let them do what they want. If that's NOT foreshadowing, or if it's different foreshadowing than what I think it's going to be, obviously this is completely off.

Also, I feel like if I'm right, this could illuminate the horrible things Aziraphale says in the Final Fifteen a little bit. I believe he has moved up slightly from thinking Good and Evil are absolutely inherent and immutable, and now believes they are literally Sides that can be chosen. Of course you wouldn't choose to work for the side that has explicitly characterized itself as Bad, even though we both know you didn't have a choice to start with! I'm giving you a choice now! He hasn't "gone backwards." It's just that he's embraced the "doing good is a choice" lesson without internalizing the "you can't divide people into Sides and enforce it using a system" lesson.

[roxannarambles]

What are on your thoughts the cut storyboards especially on the hollow mind episode, where Hunter blushed at Luz from her comment? Or your thoughts on how the we don’t see Evelyn fully in person but just her in the photos in belos mind?

Hmm, Hollow Mind blush? Let's see . . .

This? I assume it took place after he said he reads about Mindscapes. Nothing too odd about that on its own, he's just embarrassed over admitting he's a big giant nerd, presumably. There's a similar instance in Hunting Palismen where he's nerding out over wild magic and in the storyboards he blushes as well. I don't think it's inherently shippy that he wants to seem cool in front of Luz or other people. Though it is a little interesting they always delete it when he blushes around Luz. Personally, I think they were a little . . . paranoid about potentially giving fans the impression he might have a thing for her.

Which is my personal explanation for how BADLY Hollow Mind ended and the rest of S2B went. Among those cut Hollow Mind storyboards is a scene where Hunter confronts the truth about Belos (inside the Mindscape) and Luz comforts him.

These were changed for story flow reasons, favoring the idea of Hunter confronting the truth closer to the end of the episode, when he promptly has a panic attack upon leaving the Mindscape. The problem is that um . . . the comforting part wasn't put back in? Luz just frickin' lets him run off and doesn't even try to chase after him? Which is wildly, wildly out of character no matter how you look at it?

The most sensible, intuitive, and satisfying course for the plot to run was that Luz pursued him and had him stay at the Owl House and they'd comfort each other over such a massive revelation. Not this randomly weird 'oh he stays at Hexside like a hobo' story. It's so awkward and weird. The show also shoehorned in a forced ship for Hunter at the last second. (maybe if the ship had been allowed the space to develop it would have felt organic and a decent ship, but it really didn't for me.) It really does feel like they suddenly went, 'oh crap we can't have him too close with Luz, it will look bad for our power couple of the show. do everything we can to distance him from Luz'

That's what I am choosing to believe, anyway, because that's a more generous assumption than 'it was just really badly written.' ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Buuuuut that's enough talk about S2B. To be honest, the end of Hollow Mind and everything past it is dead to me-- I didn't even watch S3 and never plan to. People might think that's an extreme reaction but I don't think so. Actually I highly recc trying it out. If you stop enjoying a show just stop watching it, if it sucks hit da bricks!! Why keep watching something just to complain and for it to sour your memory of the parts of the show you DID enjoy? I get to (mostly) keep my fond memories of this show, I call that a win

As to Evelyn, idk man, there's all kinds of threads that were never tied up, but to be fair that's 'cause the show was pre-maturely cancelled. Presumably she had ties with Eda's family though, it's what we've always assumed.

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

Why the Llama Incident works

The noodle incident is a trope done in A LOT of shows (PNF has a whole TV tropes page dedicated to its noodle incidents). Technically getting disowned and raised by ocelots is a noodle incident in pnf... we never do know what gets him officially disowned and how he ends up in the care of the ocelots). The noodle incident is meant to just showcase that this character has a history of some sort.

Generally speaking, explaining a noodle incident is a bad idea because the unknown has infinite potential. The intrigue is part of what makes it interesting. People can come up with ideas that are absolutely out there themselves. Usually, coming up with something that will live up to the hype is impossible because the hype of the event has built it up to impossible levels.

Emphasis on the usually.

They literally called it a llama incident. They knew what a noodle incident was, and were purposefully playing with our expectations that it would be an unrevealed event. And, as I said before, PnF has already dealt with its fair share of noodle incidents that go unexplained.

And as a noodle incident it served its purpose. Generally a noodle incident will provide context on what the status quo is without spelling out the details. In Rollercoaster the Juggling Monkey's noodle incident tells us that this is not the first time Phineas and Ferb have had a Big Idea (in fact we never do get what Phineas and Ferb's first Big Idea was). In Milo Murphy's Law the Llama incident tells us that Milo and Melissa were getting into Murphy's Law shenanigans long before Zack came into the picture. Showing us that they're so familiar with each other that situations that might require more context to another person doesn't.

Now bear with me as I go on a bit of a tangent that I promise is related.

The main cast of Milo Murphy's Law is a trio, and one of its members is defined by being the new guy. Zack is kind of an audience surrogate. Melissa is Milo's childhood friend and Milo has lived with this all his life. Generally, they don't need to explain anything to each other, nor do they need to explain anything to their class who is already at least passingly familiar with Milo. But they do to Zack.

I don't necessarily think MML NEEDED the audience surrogate character per se. Quite frankly I think audience surrogate characters are rarely necessary. You can always just start with a group of friends and fill in context via implication. I think it's just significantly harder, because you run the risk of alienating your audience by not allowing them to get settled in what is going on or having your characters talk about things like they don't already know what is going on.

But I don't think its at all an inherently bad storytelling method. I personally find outsider POVs delightful, and a good audience surrogate character is an outsider POV, at least at the start. Zack being new to the whole Murphy's Law allowed him a story about choosing to engage with the hazardous kid, winning him loyal friends and a set of skills he never would have dreamed of before. We get to see him grow, and we wouldn't have seen that if he was Milo's friend the whole time.

On the other hand he also has a bit of a wild background, as the former lead singer of a locally famous lumberjack themed boy band. Which gives Milo and Melissa the chance to join a band. Or for Milo to have a real birthday party. A change in status quo provides opportunities for growth and change, for the whole cast, which is useful in more overarching stories... like MML. It's not NECESSARY of course. Zack could have been a classmate that had always kept his distance before he accidentally got tangled up with Milo and decided he was cool. But there's nothing wrong with him being straight up new either.

And at the most basic level, Zack's complete unfamiliarity provides a nice contrast to Melissa's familiarity and Milo's day to day life. Zack is starting from 0 while Milo has been dealing with this every single day of his life.

So Zack isn't going to know what the Llama Incident is. And while noodle incidents being unexplained is fun for the audience, it isn't going to be so fun for someone who is constantly living with people who know what this Llama Incident is. Of course they could have told Zack the noodle incident off screen, it would have made for a good gag to cut into the story with Melissa and Milo finishing telling Zack the story. But instead, we are treated to an episode that has Zack really beginning to slot into his life as Milo's friend.

Back to the main point.

MML is one of the only shows with enough sheer chaotic energy that it could actually pull off making a group of seemingly unrelated references into a cohesive genuinely interesting story. The whole show is things that could feasibly be noodle incidents, which makes it easy to get a baseline for what could have happened. Milo uses stuff in strange ways all the time, getting tangled up with weird animals and ending up in strange situations. There's no REAL reason to feel like we're missing out on too much. It sounds like a normal Milo situation, just with only him and Melissa... and the fact they keep bringing it up.

And really, if you think about it, its just Planned in Advance Meapless in Seattle. Meapless in Seattle was meant to be a bunch of unrelated clips meant to be a noodle incident of sorts. We wouldn't know what exactly would go down in that fake episode. But they managed to bring everything together into a really fun episode that made sense and honestly lived up to the hype. (At least for me). I mean. They somehow made it work. That's a feat in of itself.

The episode "Llama Incident" starts out implying a completely different noodle incident. We never learn how the kids end up on that branch. That's not important. That stuff happens all the time. Is the Llama Incident more interesting than the other stuff Milo gets into? Not particularly, but it DID involve him using more stuff he didn't normally use.

And the Llama Incident is told in the format of a story. Changing up the format of the episode is always a good way to make an episode feel fresh. I mean, look at The Remains of the Platypus. It's just an episode told backwards but its delightful chaotic fun. Or Delivery of Destiny. Really the only difference is the day follows the perspective of a delivery guy, but we get all our normal plot beats. But both are some of my favorite Phineas and Ferb episodes. If you remove their gimmicks they're pretty basic. Phineas and Ferb build a cheese themed amusement park, and Doofensmirtz's plan is only slightly more novel with brainwashing Perry. Phineas and Ferb building a ride and Doof juicing city hall are pretty typical of them, but Paul's semi-outsider POV (and being one of the closest characters we get to having the full picture of the story we the audience see), makes it feel fun and fresh. It makes the Llama Incident feel special. Even if it isn't my favorite unique episode format, it's still something fresh and fun.

So Milo and Melissa sort of tell the story a bit out of order, because they forget what pieces Zack would and wouldn't have context for or would or wouldn't find interesting. And, again, it's told as a story to Zack, so he asks questions. It's told while they are hanging from a branch, where they cut back to every once and a while to remind us that hey, the group is in the middle of a whole other Murphy's Law incident. We're getting two for one today.

But through the episode we get a bit of a Zack character arc. We've already established that Melissa and Milo are used to this, even if you weren't aware the way they were casually rating it at the beginning of the episode should tell you all you need to know. But Zack isn't completely used to this yet, so he's just nervous. He spends the episode using the story as a distraction, but being genuinely invested. In the end, the story acts as an inspiration to Zack, and he's able to help the group get out of the situation. AND for his trouble, he gets his own mysterious incident to reference. After half a season, he's truly part of the group now. He will continue to grow of course, trying to become braver and cleverer, and he's already made strides since the first episode. But even if Zack isn't really any less part of the group before or after its still a significant moment in Zack's character arc.

And then the Llama Incident comes back the next episode. The date was memorable to Milo, even throughout all of the other chaos in his life. And sometimes that's just how life is. And he uses his knowledge of the event, the way it stuck in his mind, to save him, Dakota and Cavendish from Pistachion's in Missing Milo. What we thought was going to just be a noodle incident, a running gag that functioned to establish just how used to this stuff Milo and Melissa were, turned out to be a plot point. To be fair we didn't NEED to know what the Llama incident was for Milo to choose to go there. We didn't need to know about the Llama Incident to know it was typical Murphy's Law shenanigans. It could have just been more out of context llama stuff. But now we the audience are in on the joke, so when Cavendish and Dakota express confusion, we can revel in the fact we know something they don't. Especially about two characters who themselves were slow revealing information about themselves to us... sure by that point we know their deal but at one point they were as mysterious and out of context to us as the Llama incident. And now we know what the Llama Incident is, and what their deal is.

The Woodpecker incident also is vaguely referred to later with the woodpecker whistle. We may not know the full story there, but it is still satisfying to see Milo's adventures giving him the skills and tools to deal with bigger, actually hostile, threats.

And at the end of the day, even if the Noodle Incidentness of the Llama Incident is ruined, it was immediately replaced with the Woodpecker incident. Which admittedly is never mentioned, but it doesn't need to be. The point of the Llama Incident was to draw attention to a specific incident to make a gag out of it. But they have incidents all the time. And we're privy to most of them. We sometimes get references to other incidents that we never fully get the context for. But we don't need context. We know how it'll go anyway because we have a whole show of effective noodle incidents.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I think everybody has certain things where they prefer the fanon/headcanon version and certain things where they prefer canon. I know I do.

For example, I like to headcanon that, in a scenario where Anakin turns back earlier and he and Obi-Wan are both still alive but Order 66 still happened, that Obi-Wan would not and could not remain friends with him. He might forgive him, but that forgiveness would look more like choosing to let go of his own anger and do what he could to help Anakin let go of the darkness for the sake of the galaxy. In canon, we see Obi-Wan seem pretty happy to stand next to Anakin as a ghost, with the implication that he's decided bygones are bygones and he's just happy to have his brother back or whatever. But that doesn't work for me, so my headcanon is that the only reason he can do that is because they're both dead and still semi part of the Force at that point, so there are things Obi-Wan can let go of in death that he couldn't have done in life.

A LOT of my favorite ships are ships that don't exist in canon because I don't LIKE the ships that exist in canon, and I prefer to allow my faves to find happiness with characters I like better.

But I also prefer the way Lucas's canon handles the Jedi, their culture, their teachings, their position within the narrative, etc. I tend to HATE the way fandom treats the Jedi, I hate their headcanons about the Jedi being "dogmatic" or "old-fashioned", I hate the headcanons about their relationships with the clones most of the time because so often it treats the Jedi either like abusers or like children.

And there are some canon ships I absolutely ADORE and never want to change anything about them ever.

So I don't think it's inherently a bad thing for people to prefer their own headcanons or a popular fanon over canon. It's not even inherently bad for fanon to become so popular that people might not realize it's fanon sometimes. What gets frustrating is when people act like it's canon and get rude at people who don't adhere to a particular fanon/headcanon in their own interpretations, whether they prefer their OWN headcanon or canon itself. You see this primarily in the debate over the Jedi and the way this idea of the prequels being about how the Jedi were corrupt was always the intended message, and people are just SO attached to this that even when they're shown multiple quotes from Lucas himself saying otherwise, they'll refuse to believe it or they'll just dismiss Lucas's intentions and decide that their interpretation means more than the author's actual narrative. And like, if the only way someone is capable of enjoying Star Wars is to view the Jedi as abusive monsters, then fine, whatever, that's their deal. But it should be recognized AS A HEADCANON, as a personal interpretation of the media, and NOT peddled as the intended narrative of the story when it's so easy to find examples of the author saying otherwise.

Headcanons and fanon can be SO MUCH FUN, there's so many that I've seen people come up with that I have adored, I've come up with a lot of my own that I still really like and have fun playing with from time to time. But headcanons being fun doesn't make them canon. It never has.

[cinnis]

cwsg 🥴

Thank you for the ask Sides!!

1. Favorite Character

It’s Lena Luthor by a perfectly reasonable margin. She gets compelling subplots, and like 95% of the best snark, I love her.

2. Funniest Character

I’m going to say Brainy who does Winn’s whole gimmick so, so, so much better. He’s a real goddamn delight, also the science bros relationship with Lena is excellent. I will say that Lillian is a strong second choice! Again the Luthor snark is excellent.

3. Best-looking Character

Or

I refuse to choose between them and you will not convince me. (It depends on the day!)

4. 3 favorite ships

1. Lena/Sam is the best ship in S3. The best Sam ship bar none. Sam is the hotter Kryptonian, and Lena deserves the love and support of a woman who doesn’t lie to her.

2. That said Kara/Lena is still so good and compelling to me that it has to have this spot. The super/Luthor tension the Kara/Lena friendship?? It’s delicious Sides. I am deeply enamored of the angst and well executed healing. It’s so good.

3. This spot is more difficult! I like Alex/Kelly a lot! Nia/Brainy are cute as hell. Jack/Lena has a lot of the same things I love in Sam/Lena. But I think today it’s Lena/Andrea. The Childhood friend breakup that moves Lena cross country! The quoting Titanic! All I’m saying is that Andrea Rojas is Lena’s bi awakening and would be an excellent endgame pairing.

5. Least favorite character

This could easily be Mon-El, I loathe mon-el, his inclusion inherently weakens every single scene he’s in. That said he’s going to come up later. Winn is so bad that he’ll never appear in another question. Winn sucks. Winn’s subplots suck. Wasting 2 episodes in S5’s most important set, immediately following Crisis, on Winn and his boring family ultra fucking sucks. Lena does everything Winn could do immediately and more compellingly, and then Brainy does the same even better. It’s Winn I hate Winn.

6. Least Favorite Ship

Look Lena/James is absurd, like zero chemistry, but Kara/Mon-el is so much worse. Mon-el is such an asshole. A creepy lazy slaver. The idea that our female Main Lead Supergirl should spend time rehabilitating him with romance is fucking awful. Then S3 spends like 10 episodes doing oh Kara’s so sad about Mon-El, will she cheat with him??? It fucking suuuuuucks. God awful garbage that ruins the goddamn season.

7. Reason why I watch it

Lena & Brainy & Nia & Andrea etc. Honestly so far I really like the characters even if the writing doesn’t always work! Also I will admit seeing the Supercorp scenes play out is incredible. Kara compels me even if I think she’s sometimes a kinda shitty friend. For all its faults I do like the show a whole lot. Also when it works it can actually hit pretty hard.

8. Why I started watching it

I found writers from fandoms I was in were writing Supercorp, and I had a DC comics era as a kid so I had what I assumed was reasonable understanding, so I read A LOT of Supercorp. Eventually I finally decided I’d start the actual show. It’s been a really worthwhile endeavor!

[sunspotmangafan]

I hear the sunspot and disability representation: agency and respect.

Note I will be talking about ableism in media; if that is uncomfortable, feel free to scroll past.

So the other day I was watching your average media analysis videos on youtube and I came across this video that discussed disability representation, specifically in reference to deafness. I’ll be discussing it and such with how it relates to sunspot but I do recommend you check it out if you’d like.

There was the discussion of how in a fair amount of shows like medical dramas, when they have episodes that focus on a deaf/hard of hearing person and the decision of going with surgeries like cochlear implants that help them hear better, it seems as though the actual disabled persons opinions don’t matter because at the end of the day the kid is gonna get the ‘treatment’ to essentially ‘fix’ them in a way. If the person explicitly states they don’t want the implant, it doesn’t matter, they will ultimately get the implant because the narrative thinks it’s inherently better and will ‘help’/‘fix’ the person.

Like watching a video where they paint the parent who agrees with their disabled kid to not go with cochlear implants as a bad person/in the wrong.

Or shows going out of their way to give deaf characters surgeries like that to ‘fix’ them in a way. Such as deliberately not going to the parent that supports/listens to their disabled kid, or have the narrative change so that will make their child have the surgery that parent by the end as their arc.

It’s constantly giving “disabled people’s opinions and agency doesn’t matter because we as able bodied people know that they’re intently better if they’re more like us. Life will be inherently be better if they gonna conform to our world.”

I understand that ‘it’s better for you if you’re more like us’ mentality as an autistic person. But this so about Kohei and his journey in Limit as a hard of hearing protagonist.

In the Limit trilogy, a part of his arc is heavily considering getting a cochlear implant. The doctor goes over the pros and cons of it, and how even those who get it, they may not use it after the fact because it wasn’t for them or they experienced complications or whatnot, especially with how with many people who were deaf since birth (like ryuu), it’s not exactly gonna be always the best option. And how ultimately it is just a way to fit more into the hearing world.

And the most important thing here is this. KOHEI. GETS. TO. CHOOSE. FOR. HIMSELF!!!!

THEY LET THE DISABLED CHARACTER PONDER AND THINK FOR HIMSELF!! We don’t even get people ushering him to get one. In fact it’s mainly Ryuu who’s just like “dude you don’t need it”.

Ryuu is also great because he provides that push and extra perspective on his own terms using the language he’s most comfortable with to give himself the voice to challenge kohei’s internalised ableism.

(As Kohei said. He still looked down on those who couldn’t hear. He felt weak when he had to ask people to repeat themselves)

Also side note. IHTS really helps essentially destigmatise sign language. As the video says about the stigma around sign language. It’s nice to see people like Chiba, Ryuu and such be respected by the narrative when they talk about how they genuinely love the language. Kohei and Taichi are both endearing characters whose arcs involve learning to sign. Kohei starts to respect Chiba because he’s so good at not just signed Japanese, but actual JSL. It’s really refreshing!!

And you know what. While he did say that because he has late onset hearing loss, he was definitely drawn to the idea.

HE DECIDED NOT TO GET IT. AND THE NARRATIVE FUCKING RESPECTS HIM FOR IT!!!

They show that for Kohei, him getting better isn’t essentially a surgery to make him seem less Hard of Hearing. It’s about knowing he can be understood, and about knowing he can genuinely understand people, and that’s not inherently tied to hearing.

And they never act as though he’s made a grave decision, the narrative never acts like Kohei is in the wrong. It’s actually treating it like a happy ending, because it is, Kohei’s stopping thinking about a past where he may become completely deaf as though it’s inherently something he should try to avoid (a thing Ryuu helped him reconsider his personal feelings on which may have been shrouded in internal ableism) and start living in the present with a person that already respects, understands and cares for him, and who, at least now, he can hear as clear as day.

And we can’t help but be happy that he’s happy.

[inocennt]

5 most important tracks from TTPD?

This question feels very similar to a little game I saw a few weeks ago that asked people to turn TTPD into a 5-song ep, and for that question, I'd chosen The Albatross, Peter, The Bolter, Robin and The Manuscript. Because those songs encompass The Gender Of It All™ to me, and I feel like gender and the the impact that gendered expectations in a binary/patriarchal society can have on people's behavior is a huge central theme in TTPD (particularly in the anthology section when we start to explore the hows and whys of the main narrative coming to play).

But despite the relevance of that theme, I feel like only choosing anthology tracks would be to neglect the actual main storyline of the album itself, which obviously is very important and relevant as well. So in terms of "most important" tracks, I would say:

But Daddy I Love Him -- Establishing TTPD's main narrative following a forbidden/disgraced love affair, the potential red flags on the part of the lover, and the narrator's own sense of self-assuredness and dedication, both to the relationship as well as her own idea of control and proving others wrong. Heavy use of religious metaphor and iconography, relevant obviously in the wider context of TTPD, but also to songs from past albums (most notably Would've Could've Should've). Narratively depicts an idealized scenario in which she tells off everyone poking their noses into her love life and ultimately wins them all over, which also calls back to songs from previous albums (Love Story, Ours). This song on its own carries and alludes to the themes from nearly every other main album song that is relevant to the lover storyline (MBOBHFT, Down Bad, Florida, I Can Fix Him, Guilty As Sin).

Clara Bow -- Honestly, a good case could be made for WAOLOM as one of the most important TTPD songs too, but I raise this one up as the most important fame-centric track because of how it is not just about the brutal nature of the industry, but also the cyclical nature of it. Cycles and habits are also a central theme of TTPD as an album, perhaps the central driving force behind everything that happens, so while Clara Bow may feel like an odd closer to the main album on its own, its inherent nature as an exploration of the constant cycling through "It Girls" within celebrity culture goes hand in hand with the romantic narrative of TTPD being a textbook reenactment of a previous relationship experience (the Speak Now narrative). The events of TTPD are perpetuated by a mentality that is born out of trauma responses, inflicted in part by past relationships, and in part by past industry experiences, which is why the romantic narrative and the fame narrative go perfectly hand in hand in TTPD.

The Prophecy -- I feel like this song touches on basically every underlying theme in the album. The desire for romantic connection. The looming shadow of fame and its worst facets. The gendered implications and societal dynamics. Religious and witchy iconography. I don't think there's a single song on this album that you couldn't find some thematic or narrative tie back to this song. And obviously, given TTPD's thematic nature as an exploration of cycles and habits, this song can be applicable to many of Taylor's past projects as well.

Peter -- The ultimate song depicting the gendered ideas at play in TTPD. Lamenting the loss of a past lover who swore that they would mature and find their way back to the narrator over time, but ultimately never staying true to that promise. In so many ways, this song depicts how girls are often forced to "grow up" much quicker than boys, and how even grown men are often given a pass for immature behavior, because that's just "how they are." "Life was always easier on you than it was on me." Perhaps, if these gendered restrictions/freedoms were not at play, the story of these two characters could have played out differently, but despite this album's wistful longings implying otherwise, there is no more than one ending to this story.

The Manuscript -- I honestly feel like this one is self-explanatory. It says everything so bluntly and straightforwardly, as is expected of the unrefined and unedited nature of a manuscript. With this single closer alone, you can recontextualize basically every entry in Taylor's discography from Speak Now to today, and even see the tragic fragments of foreshadowing at play in Debut and Fearless (A Perfectly Good Heart, TWILY, You all Over Me).

[a-student-out-of-time]

I think Linuj'a problem is that he's borderline unable to make irredeemable characters even tho he WANTS people to percive them that way, we see a glimpse of it with Kizuna in the first game and it just gets amplified to a thousand in the second because of its themes.

Which reminds me how i don't like the ending of Sdra2 at all because it just confused me, it spent a bunch of time showing us that Sora is not the same person as Akane, she has he own thoughts, opinions and feelings and should be seen as separate from her, yet the game ends with Sora paying for Akane's crimes which just cements the idea that they ARE the same person.

If Sora is meant to be seen as a person of her own an not Akane virtual version then she SHOULDN'T have to play for what Akane's done.

Maybe i misunderstood because of how messy chapter 6 is, but it genuinely left a bad taste in my mouth and made my enjoyment of the game go down severely.

//Now you're seeing my real problem with SDRA2's story. Namely that, while the Voids were a unique idea, they ultimately do more harm than add to it by leaving you both with more questions than answers and the idea that we're supposed to see them only as villains, despite that going against both the information presented and the basic messages DR is about.

//Like, it really confuses me when creators fixate so much on the darker elements of DR, because that's really not what the games have ever been about. It was never about the executions, the investigations or even the trials. It was about the people involved in them.

//If you're going to tell a story like this, where you repeatedly fixate on the blood and violence, and the only thing you have to say about it is "Isn't the one doing this a bad person?", I have to ask why you bothered with a very basic truism ^^;

//There's also this very damaging approach to media analysis where people decide, unless a character has literally done nothing wrong, any bad action they take equates to them being the "true villain." Even when the entire point of the story is that heroes and villains are titles, not an actual moral status.

//You can't claim to be having a deep and engaging moral analysis when all you do is decide that people who do anything bad are inherently horrible. Call them monsters if you must, but never act as though someone can be fundamentally incapable of doing wrong of any kind, because that's blatantly untrue.

//And with the DR2 example, the point of that one was NEVER "Look how horrible the Remnants of Despair are," it was ALWAYS "You guys used to be pretty fucked up, but you can still choose to be better, because that is always an option."

//LINUJ is just not very good at exploring the idea. He can make great characters, as he's shown over and over again, but he really doesn't know how to handle them in stories. Especially not when he's willing to make massive changes to that story that ultimately do more harm than good.

[demani-dusk]

I really loved Babel or the Necessity of Violence a lot and I want to get some more of my own thoughts out.

What I liked: I mostly read/listen to/watch scifi/fantasy stories, and while I love scifi/fantasy for allegory and metaphor that can focus in on and provide sharp commentary on the real or how the hyper real can heighten the emotions of a real thing, it turns out it was very grounding to read a story about empire set in the actual British empire about people who would have been its actual victims. And even then, I really do love the fantastical elements of the setting and the way silverwork and translation convey the ideas and themes so well.

I like the way the premise of the story and the positions of the characters so clearly and directly conveys the exploitation and extraction of imperialism, the way educating and shaping Robin into an Oxford student is so deeply and inherently abusive. I love that actual real world translation work from the time fits so neatly into the story. Commentary on everything being translated into English but rarely would something be translated from one colonized language to another. Commentary on the way imperialists treat texts written by cultures they don't respect. It all works together so satisfyingly well.

Translation as a kind of magic, as a central theme is also just such a great tool for a writer to do fun and good writing stuff with. I love the way etymology and translations give weight and new layers of meaning to the text the way other literary devices might. It's a book where the thinness of any single language is part of the conceit of how the magic works and Kuang is like, supplementing the inherent thinness of language by offering the reader translations as supplement, trying to get *us* closer to the "realm of true meaning" as it were.

I love very much Robin's internal turmoil throughout the first 2/3 or so of the story. His love and hatred of Oxford. His inability to choose between his father and his brother. His fear, his wonder, his resentment. The way he feels extremely at home and never at home at Oxford. It's all done extremely well imo.

Things I'm less sure about:

I really wish Victoire were more fleshed out earlier in the book. I think what we get makes sense with the story being Robin's perspective, because Victoire and Letty are pretty much always together and Letty has a way of sucking all the air out of a room. But I still wish more room had been made for us to learn more about Victoire before the last act.

I would like to see a little more about sexism and Letty's relationship to feminism. We know she is very aware of the sexism she faces at Oxford but what does she think of suffragists? I can imagine white feminist Letty supporting women's suffrage and still not taking racism or imperialism seriously, and I can also imagine ivory tower rich girl Letty being entirely skeptical of addressing any social issue in a way that isn't about personally fighting to improve your own position, including sexism. I also think Victoire's experience of misognoir is relatively underexplored and that's too bad.

There's also this thing in the writing I'm not sure how I feel about. That is, there are a couple of intractable arguments characters have repeatedly on and off the page. I found myself not loving this as a reader, but I'm somewhat convinced that the way I didn't like it was that it effectively conveyed the boredom and discomfort of having the same argument over and over without making progress, and isn't that the book doing its job well? I still sort of feel like it would help to get these arguments in ways that highlight different character's perspectives each time or something. Or like, ifl having the same best reappear in a story you want the circumstances to change such that the thing happening feels importantly recontextualized, and I didn't always feel like this was happenijg. idk I'm not sure my instincts about this are good.

Anyway, it's a good book, I liked it a lot.

[randomnameless]

I'm beginning to think there might have been discourse/debate between KT and IS regarding the Fodlan games. We'll never know of course but it would be amusing if that's the case considering how it translated to their audience.

lol

Some people already thought about it, and while Nopes was a heavily marketed/produced product by KT, at the end of the day, even for FE16, IS had to pop in and give a sign of approval.

I think the interview for Engage more or less revealed that while the two games weren't developed together, they were thought of as being wildly different experiences - both in gameplay and story, and while I have my own gripes with Engage's story especially in the last chapters, Engage's big character resolution is

Alear coming to terms with what they were born as, but deciding, nonetheless, to use their power to be and act as the divine dragon Lumera was, aka use their power to do something "good" even if they were born as Sombron's kid thus supposed to do "bad" things.

Compare this with "crust BaD" - nowhere in the Fodlan games is it ever mentionned, by one character who has a crust, that crust is only a power and not inherently bad or good, it's what you decided to do, you as someone who has the opportunity to use this power, who ultimately choose to do the right thing, or the wrong thing.

Hell, it's only when Fodlan met another game (fully developed by IS, for better and worse) that his question is raised, and quickly eluded by Supreme Leader warping away from Lissa, because hey, in an IS game, that question would have been raised, and defaulting to "crusts BaD" has never been the house's recipe to make a game - especially since this specific recipe has been overused, first in FE Jugdral (Loptyr blood isn't inherently evil, that was the teaching Blaggi tried to promote that was later ignored and then forgotten), then, sort of in FE6 (no Fa, divine dragons aren't doomed to become souless war dragon producing machins or humanity's enemies!), in FE13 with Robin and their fell blood, and finally, in FE17.

I think, even if FE16 still sells a lot of alts in FEH and DLC and what not, the lack of side materials and goodies is, imo, telling enough about what IS wants to do with it - FE17 got a manga release on the shonen jump + (i think?) even when the sales are inferior to FE16's (granted, if we compare something that was around for 4 years including 2020 to a game released in January, that's not very fair) - Nopes's DLC was called off and bar FEH milking the Fodlan verse to sell units, imo, IS wants to drop it and move forward.

And while it makes me sad because there are things I'm legit interested in (war of heroes guide like the tellius recollection guide plz), given what "Fodlan" ended up when KT was left (mostly?) alone in the form of Nopes (you effing beat up refugees to steal their gold! Like, we're the red units beating the green npcs, or the bandits burning houses??) - I am less and less sure I want to see more Fodlan content, even if I was pleasantly surprised with the Fodlan content - especially regarding Nabateans who are completely ignored by their source game - IS made up for FEH.

Sure we have some issues that are inherent to FEH's nature as a gacha selling game cajoling units who can sell a lot (Hilda's family never had slaves unfed servants! Syrup just had some adventures in Goneril!) but to the FEH team - from IS - Sothis is more pissed at Agarthans for having genocided her children and turned them into pincushions than for Billy's dad's death.

Hell, for what it's worth, Emblem!Dimitri mentions how much he likes the idea of a world/place without discriminations based on origins or races, something he cannot say in the KT Fodlan games, because it stars Ms "You are a Nabatean, you should not rule over Humans!" as the main character of the game - so it's not a lot, but imo, FEH + FE17 gives us clues as to what IS would have done with the Fodlan cast -

Even if I'm not kidding myself, Hresvelg Tea was always supposed to be the main selling point of that verse, so while I don't think we would have had less uwus, maybe we might have had some sort of "sekrit brainwash" to make Ashnard in an onesie still be marketable for FEH.

[thedeafprophet]

ambition swap au?

ough ive had many thoughts for Ambition Swap concepts but the big one I have is for Alex doing Nemesis with Jamie being the one killed

general warnings for discussion of major character death obvs and spoilers for nemesis

The general timeline and balance of the backstory here is inherently shifted - since Josephine's brother wasnt killed in this timeline, this means she never ends up at the school, and never met Alex and Jamie (and never will meet Jamie). Alex and Jamie do end up meeting the same way, but without Josie there to balance out the dynamic things are steadily more codependent between the two of them, and the arguments also a lot worse. Both of their experiences are impacted by the fact neither of them meet Josephine, but especially for Jamie to have never had their first friend.

Alex has always been in a more of caretaker role with Jamie when they were younger, even more so here. Jamie's mental health situation develops much quicker in this timeline, a crudge between the two of them with Jamie's unhealthy habits. Alex storms out of the apartment one night after a particularly bad argument.

That was the last time he ever saw Jamie alive

Loosing Jamie is a fundamental crack in Alex's psyche, and not something he would ever be able to move past. I always like that trope in stories where the protagonist hallucinates/maybe sees the ghost of their lost one, so that would be at play here (See: The Mad Ones or Next To Normal). In the story this would serve as a outword vocalization of Alex's doubts as he argues with the figmant of what remains of his friends memory. He can't bear to let go of even this unhealthy aspect. There's nothing else left.

In the main timeline, Alex is never a fan of murder and will always choose to deal with things in other ways if he can. That is not the case here. The ambition would resolve with a full murder route, a hollow and empty conclusion, but a conclusion none the less

(bonus: i like the idea of Alex finding a way to get some of Jamie's writing published after they passed. So something of theirs can live on; what they always wanted)

Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story.

[cholatey]

Honestly, sometimes it makes me confused why so many people decide to dye their hair weird colors. Growing up, I never really got the chance to be considered a person per se. I was a hyper-visible minority in a country where no one looked like me, and I sort of had to deal with the consequences of that my entire life. If you can imagine being a five-year-old biracial child in a train car with a bunch of Asian adults staring at you, and when you look back at them, they look down at their phones like they’re afraid of making eye contact with you. And just, day in and day out, that being your reality with you growing up with that as your baseline. I felt like a monster at times, I’d get angry, and I glared at them when they stared at me, relishing in the idea of them freaking out at the way I looked. Sometimes, I’d get really sad, and sometimes, I just listened to really really loud music. I had bad social anxiety. To be fair, it wasn’t me being overly paranoid; people really were staring at me. I think it was a completely rational reaction to how people were treating me, but of course, it was bad for my productivity skills, so it was definitely unhelpful for me.

To be fair, my life was not hard. I grew up in a fairly progressive space, and within, you know, my school, I felt at home with people who looked kind of like me. Still, there was always an expectation, or at least I felt like there was an expectation, that there was something inherently interesting or radical about my existence. I never really felt like I was a person of my own that I could cultivate meaning by myself of myself. And I think I just never learned how to do that. To this day, I don’t really know how to be a person. I feel more like a zoo animal. Or like a person on display.

I feel, at times my life is an experiment on what happens when you put a child through severe social alienation and expect them to be OK. Sometimes, I wonder what it’s like to be visually disabled, to sort of have to deal with that everywhere you go. I watched the movie Wonder when I was in- I don’t know, middle school, high school? And when the main character said something along the lines of “There is a second where people register my face, and they see me as a freak. They try to hide the face, but it always comes out”. That made me cry at the time, as I wanted to watch Deadpool and not really this movie, but it also really bummed me out because I realized that what was that was what was happening to me my entire life. I don’t really know what to do about it. I think- well, you know, I take my antidepressants, and I don’t have to feel these emotions if I choose not to, which is cool. Still, I sort of want to be a person of my own making, being myself and not necessarily a representation of other people or what things could be your political values or anything. I just wanna be myself, and I don’t think I’ve ever been a person. I don’t think I’m ever gonna really be allowed to be a person.

I really love boring people. I love born people because I feel like I was never able to grow up being a boring person. My number one wish is that I could be boring, I could be unremarkable, I could be nothing when I walk down the street.

I have this character in my head, and she’s well- she’s tall because I’m short, and her face isn’t really a face, it’s a white circle, and the white circle has no facial expression has no emotion unremarkable you can’t really feel anything from it. You know, it doesn’t really show any reaction to anything you do to it. It’s just a white circle. And sometimes I think about her tall and lanky, just walking around the world, and no one seeing her, and I think, ‘Wow, that would be nice if it was me’.

[birdmenmanga]

so ichi the witch has always been on my radar since kaihen came out because someone on Twitter had offhandedly mentioned "Oh, it's a shame Kaihen Wizards is coming out NOW, on Ichi the Witch's tail" in the sense that these two stories were so similar that they would compete for the same audience.

Here's the thing though: I haven't read ichi yet but it's clear from tumblr osmosis that both stories use similar metaphors (magic, mentor-apprentice relationship, etc.) as a conduit to explore societal issues. however, I personally feel that the two authors have fundamentally different politics that will make the two stories play out differently. Ichi the Witch, as it seems from my ichi the witch mutuals' posts, is liberal, whereas I believe Kaihen Wizards is communist.

The post that convinced me I have to read it myself is this one:

Here's the thing: a very similar thing happens between the prince and Zemu. But before we talk about that, let's talk about a different trope common in late 90s and early 00s shonen: the Good King.

In stories like Shaman King and Zatch Bell!, the central premise of the story is: there is a fight to choose the next king. And the protagonist often seeks to be king, even if they don't dream of being a dictator, even if they find the idea of imposing their will onto others repulsive, because if I do not become king, someone evil will! I may not want to be king, but I will be a just and righteous king! It never questions the premise of a monarchy at all; the two choices are either a good king or a bad king, and therefore I must fight, so we all get a good king instead of a bad one.

However, a decade later, we see the paradigm start to shift. Take the Balbadd arc of Magi, which comes out in the early 2010s. In it, the kingdom of Balbadd, which used to be at peace under a kind and just ruler, falls into chaos after the king succumbs to an illness and his corrupt eldest son takes over. Alibaba, the illegitimate son born of the union between the old king and a prostitute, grew up in the slums and is pushed by various people around him to take up the mantle of the crown. After all, he knows the plight of the poor; he lived it, himself! But because he has royal blood running through his veins, his legitimacy should not be questioned. Thus, he must be able to be the good, just king that the people of Balbadd needs.

However, Alibaba himself is doubtful; after all, his father was a just monarch, and his country fell to shambles after his death. What stops the same thing from happening a second time, if Alibaba himself decides to crown himself monarch?

He comes up with a different solution: Balbadd needs no monarchy! The good king can only ensure the safety of his kingdom during his lifetime; and besides which, the will of a single person is never infallible. What the country needs is to become a republic; to have the leader chosen through democratic means!

The inherent idea of the monarchy is flawed, and Magi's narrative disposed of it entirely.

In a similar way, based on the post above, it feels like Ichi the Witch posits the idea of a good family as the solution to the problem of a bad family; it does not question the premise of "the family" in and of itself, whereas the setup of Kaihen Wizards already feels like it's preparing to tackle the idea of family abolition.

The prince falls into Zemu's garden, unconscious, and during his period of recovery, Zemu has marked him with a brand, which allows Zemu to control the prince's powers, and also protects him from those who wish him harm. However, other characters are quietly dismayed at this violation of the prince's consent, even if it was for his own safety. Zemu is also pushed by other wizards to complete a contract with the prince so other wizards won't be able to "steal him away", and it becomes clear that completing such a contract essentially makes the prince Zemu's property, quite similar to how children are often treated as property of their parents in the modern day. Much of the prince's daily struggles is to find information about himself and his conditions, which Zemu is intentionally hiding from him in order to control him.

The direction that Kaihen Wizards seems to be taking seems to be towards the idea of rejecting the flawed mentor-apprentice system, but just based on the vibes Ichi the Witch doesn't see a particular problem with it, or otherwise is not advocating to end it.

Anyways this is just my first initial thoughts on the post. I have to go read Ichi the Witch first to see if that was even what the series was saying or whether the OP of that post has completely misunderstood the series somehow. Homies who have stayed in the loop with the series can nod or shake their heads at this analysis but I'm not making this post rebloggable until I actually read the other piece of media I'm doing media analysis about