#the only issue is that she is SO criminally underdeveloped

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Charlie as an underdeveloped character

One thing I was genuinely dissapointed by when watching Hazbin Hotel was that they never cared to dive into Charlie's Morality more.

I feel like a lot of people can agree that Charlie felt very flat/sidelined in a show she was supposed to be the main character of and I think that that's because they ran out of Character Moments for her. Her Backstory is pretty much just infodumped at the start so there's nothing you can really explore there (except for her relationship with her parents ig but they only really brought that up and resolved it in one episode). Alastor has the mystery behind him of what his goals really are, Angel Dust has his arc about standing up to his abuser, Vaggie has her dramatic backstory reveal thing and Sir pentious gets focus as the one real guest at the hotel and with his goal to be redeemed.

Charlie really has no conflict at all, which is weird since the whole plot is that her idea is relentlessly mocked and never succeeds until the end. But she doesn't have a personal conflict. All the issues she faces come from the ignorance of the people around her who don't support her, but never from who she is. She never has to change. They try to hint at this with her being possibly invasive and not respecting boundaries in the Angel Dust and Valentino episode. But the episode doesn't focus on her and Angel as they talk it out and she realizes how she might have to change as well (from how I remember it). It focuses on Husk and Angel's relationship instead.

I feel like the easiest route they could've taken for her character was that of a moral dilemma. Charlie believes in second chances and being able to change demons and her opposite is Adam, who doesn't think demons should be redeemed and should just be killed instead. But it's never specified if Charlie truly believes everyone deserves a second chance or if there are restrictions to that. Adam sings a song in the first episode and explaines his reasoning for why he believes demons shouldn't be saved, which is that they had their chance to be good and didn't choose it and now they can't expect another one (I guess the real reason is that he's just an asshole who doesn't care but that's because Vivzepop can't write Villains so I'll just pretend like that's his real reason).

The problem is that Adam is presented as fully in the wrong and I just don't agree with that. I'm not saying he's right with killing random demons of course but the show never takes the time to consider that sometimes people go to hell because they are actually terrible and have done inexcusable things. Like yeah, someone who had an addicition or a mental health problem while they were alive obviously doesn't deserve eternal suffering without any chance for redeemability, but we know that those aren't the only people that go to hell (in the pilot it's literally confirmed that real life criminals like Jeffrey Dahmer are also down there).

The show blatanly shows us characters like Valentino who are shown to do irredeemable things and be purely evil.

My question is just if Charlie would also look at someone like Valentino and say: "Yeah they deserve to be saved and get a second chance". She obviously thinks Valentino sucks, which we see in the Episode were she meets him.

So like, what would she have done if in the second episode someone like him stood at their door and wanted to be redeemed instead of Sir Pentious. Does she draw a line? Or would she have really heard him out? Her morality with this "everybody deserves a second chance" attitude is so underexplored even though it would have been the perfect place to develop her more. If they had confronted her with an actually tough situation, where she is presented with a truly terrible person, they could've had two interesting ways to take her character.

She could've accepted the person and with that she'd have taken her role a fully 'good' saviour for the demons. Someone who is truly without judgement, or atleast believes that there is good in everyone that just has to be brought out. Which would've also given room to think about if people like that are even inherently good, if they can 'excuse' the actions of terrible people and still want to help them. This would have made her a very extreme character in her believes, but something coherent and definitive is actually something Charlie desperately needs for her characterization.

The other way would've had her reject the person and with that she would have to face the idea that maybe Adam isn't fully wrong. In that situation she would have found herself in a similar position to the Angels in heaven, where she basically is the one deciding over what's acceptable and what isn't. This could lead to her having a moral dilemma. Is she even a good person if she's deciding what's moral and what isn't? Can she just be okay with making exceptions to her idea to protect her people? Does she even want to view EVERY demon as her family? Or does she think there are some demons that maybe deserve death?

I'm just really dissapointed that the show takes such an interesting idea and such a difficult topic and then just does nothing with it. What we view as bad and good and which people we judge harder than others will always depend on social norms and the situation. It's a topic with no real right and wrong answer because there are so many things to consider. But this moral grey conflict that is literally one of the MAIN CONFLICTS in Hazbin Hotel is so incredibly underwritten, that it's not even funny.

Instead of acknowledging the difficulty of the subject Hazbin does what it does best and takes the easy route with seemingly clear right and wrong sides. This is especially stupid, since morally grey characters are supposed to be the point of the show. Like there are these demons who have done bad things and who aren't perfect, but that doesn't make them bad people. Its about revealing that a person has layers (which the writing doesn't). This is also a big point in Helluva Boss, where characters like Blitzø or Stolas who mess up repeatedly, are supposed to be shown as still having interests, aspirations, and good things to them.

The easy route which is taken constantly in both shows however makes it so that Charlie is completely in the right and anyone who criticises her is one of the evil people who try to ruin her plan, just like Adam. Who's also such a straw man for anyone who even dares to bring any objection to Charlies ideas, because everyone who does is apparently a hypocrite who just doesn't understand her and would rather side with genocide (I wonder were Vivzepop takes her inspiration from).

Charlies writing was just really dissapointing with almost never any reflection being done on her part. She doesn't have really striking moments, discussions or ideas to her in a show she's supposed to lead. That's just an issue that comes with Vivzepop never really putting as much work into her female characters, even tough they would desperately need it.

I know that only the first season is out so far, but I highly doubt thay they'll bring up a discussion like this in s2. Especially since Adam is dead now and the Angels will probably try to work more with the demons, after Sir Pentious' redemtion and the reveal of the exterminations to them. Also the Vees, Lillith and Alastor will be more of focus from what we can assume by the ending scenes.

I just don’t like that Viv can take interesting conflicts and write them to be completely one-dimensional and boring.

[vortahoney]

Was just looking through the image search for Keiko O’Brien and found an article entitled “Is Keiko O’Brien Actually the Worst” and when I tell you I am SEETHING

[jerzwriter]

Meet "my" Tobias Carrick

No. I didn't create Tobias Carrick. But in my HC for Tobias/Casey, I flesh out my version of Tobias Carrick. His character was left criminally underdeveloped in canon, leaving most writers to put together their own version of who he is . Since I have an extensive list of writing for this pairing, I thought it would be helpful to have this as a reference.

Meet MY Tobias Carrick...

Book: Open Heart Current/ForeverLI: Casey Mactavish (F!MC) Face claim: Jesse Williams Full Name: Tobias Charles Carrick Nicknames: T (most everyone), Dwight (Ethan), Babe, honey, sexy, and other nauseating names (Casey) Age/DOB: February 19, 1984 Born: Washington, D.C.

Meet Casey Mactavish Carrick Tobias & Casey Masterlist

Parents:

Vivian Edmonds Carrick was 24 at the time of his birth. She was the first in her family to attend college. She put herself through community college and earned a scholarship to George Washington University. Where she met Charles.

Charles Theodore Carrick was 26 when Tobias was born. He was from an extremely wealthy family with deep roots in Washington, DC. His father was disappointed when he pursued a career in medicine, but he went on to be one of the most respected physicians in his field.

Vivian was a nurse, then later an art curator and philanthropist. Her focus was on improving arts and science education and career opportunities in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Washington, DC area.

Tobias was close with his parents, but there were issues. Especially with his father. When he was approaching adulthood, Tobias didn't feel his father, a white man, was sensitive to the challenges he faced as a young, biracial man in America. Charles tried, but there was a gap that could have been closed, instead, both men became defensive and dug in their heels.

When Tobias chose to go to Howard, an HBCU, for undergrad as opposed to his family's alma mater GW, or an Ivy, his father was displeased (he felt it would lead to his son having fewer opportunities), and their relationship was permanently damaged. While he was in Hopkins Med School, Charles was diagnosed with cancer and not given long to live. They began to repair their relationship, but Charles died sooner than expected. Their failure to truly make peace with his father before he passed had a long-lasting effect on Tobias, his relationship with his brother, and others.

Siblings:

One brother, Jordan, is seven years his junior.

Tobias was an only child for a long time, so he wasn't sure how he felt about having a sibling. They were close, but the difference in age made things hard.

His parents were loving but often busy with work, charity, and social events. He loved his brother and was very protective, but not exceptionally close.

They had a major falling out when his father died but was able to repair their relationship - with one more bump in the road - later on.

College: Howard University, Washington DC. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Bio-Chemistry. Though his family was from DC, Tobias lived on campus while attending college.

Med School: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. He graduated 2nd in his class.

Occupation: He begins his career as a resident at Mass Kenmore Hospital in Boston, staying on as an attending when his program is complete; he eventually leads MK's diagnostics team. He moves to Edenbrook shortly after he begins dating Casey. When Casey gets a job offer in DC, they move together, and he works in private practice to afford him more time with his girls until an opportunity opens for him to be COM at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. He works there for a short time, then, after Casey gives birth to their third child, the two decide to start a family practice together.

Growing up: Tobias always felt like he straddled two worlds: His father's extremely wealthy white family and his mother's lower-middle-income black family. They lived in the same city, but it may as well have been two different worlds. He never felt fully accepted by most in his father's family and preferred being with his mother's until he was a teen.

He had always been close with his maternal cousins, but once he was in high school, the differences in their lives caused issues. He was in one of the most elite private schools in the nation, sitting next to children of ambassadors and world leaders, and his cousins couldn't relate. Some were envious. Some accused him of not understanding them. He felt guilt, and he felt attacked, and once again, he felt like he didn't belong.

He was an only child for 7-years, and he sometimes felt lonely. His parents were loving but often busy with work, charity, and social events. He loved his brother, but the age gap didn't allow for them to become too close. They had a major falling out when his father died but was able to repair their relationship - with one more bump in the road - later on.

College:

He thrived in Howard. It really was the first time he felt as if he belonged, but that caused a bigger wedge with his father.

He was a straight A-student but also partied hard.

He dated Kara Willson for a year and a half but skated far too close to infidelity one too many times, and she kicked him to the curb. At that point, he swore off committed relationships until he was set in his career.

He graduated at the top of his class.

Med School:

The first two years were among the happiest times of his life. He and Ethan were best friends and created a found family. He was thriving and felt like the world was opening to him.

His father's illness was the first thing to end that joyful period, and his death brought it to a halt.

That coincided with his competition with Ethan becoming toxic and their friendship ending. This led to a long period where Tobias's life looked bright on the outside, but the inside was another story.

He kept true to no serious relationships. College and med school were flings, occasional ONS, and a longstanding arrangement with a local woman, Amanda.... until Vincenza (aka, Hopkins girl).

Tobias and "Cenza" were close friends, and decided not to take their relationship further after she broke up with Ethan... until they did. They dated secretly (out of respect for Ethan) for 6-months, even planning on finding residencies near each other - until he said something crass about being with Cenza at a party shortly before graduation, and she was officially done with both of them.

Other relationships:

The last time he attempted a serious relationship was as a resident when he dated Sasha Carlson, who was working in the administration department at Kenmore. She was wonderful, they dated for one year, and then it was clear she wanted more, and he couldn't do it. They broke up, and he swore if he didn't want "it" with her, it was time to admit a long-term-committed relationship was not for him. He swore on to being an eternal bachelor. (He and Sasha became friends later, and when he begins dating Casey, she and Kerry, his first girlfriend/family friend, are his two best friends.)

His adult years were not as "ho-ish" as many may believe. lol He tended to have long-term "no-strings-attached" relationships that were mostly for sex and occasional companionship, never really any deep emotion. (The Exes)

When he met Casey, initially, he assumed it had to be a physical attraction and figured if he indulged in that, the insane feeling possessing him would pass. In time, he realized he was really feeling something, but he blew it. Then she almost died (chemical attack), and she let him back in - only as a friend... and then - they fell in love.

Traits and random things: Tobias is charismatic AF; he could charm the paint off of a wall. He is also relatively happy-go-lucky and wants to enjoy life as much as possible, even if he is misguided at times. He retains this part of his personality even after he settles down with Casey. Some find it odd that he could be so into her, being together, a husband and father - but it's not a stretch. He found the one. And he is as "go big or go home" with her as he is with everything else in his life.

Random things:

Like Casey, he has varied musical tastes. But he has a huge love for Motown. When he finds out Casey does, too, he realizes it was fate. lol

He is very wealthy but not a snob. It's likely his exposure to his mother's family and their struggles that kept him grounded. This is why he can understand (if not fully relate to) Casey, who grew up struggling financially.

That said, he does like the finer things. Clothes, travel, cars, dining out. When he was single, he loved dropping $$$ to impress his dates. When he's with Casey, he loves spoiling her rotten. This is an issue for her, and they have to strike a balance.

Most don't know it, but he's more socially conscious than he appears. His parent's philanthropy (especially his mother's) had a huge impact on him, as did the time he spent with his maternal grandparents, who were active members of their community church. He had gotten into a habit of letting a check be his contribution, but after being with Casey, who was much more hands-on, he rediscovered that part of himself too.

He embraced being a husband and father to the shock of... well, everyone. But he wasn't like Ethan, who wanted love but feared it. Tobias had no fear of it. He just didn't want it because he never met anyone he could see it with. Once he did, there was no "fear factor" to get over, and that's why he was (see above) go big or go home. Casey had cold feet more than he did.

That's more than enough for now. LMAO

[itsclydebitches]

The whole Robyn situation is bizarre because honestly, it DID help for a little bit (Robyn is the reason they captured Tyrian and Watts). But there were ways to do that without going behind Ironwood's back for it, especially given what her semblance was.

But you also have the issue of having Yang, the only one of the four who actually did express doubt in lying to Ironwood, go along with it. In that same scene she's still adamant that going behind his back is a bad idea, refutes Blake's arguments for why it is, but then it ends with her saying "Sure let's go behind his back some more" just because Blake got sad?????

I've seen numerous RWDE blogs (Just-RWBY, Ironpines, etc) say that it was arguably out of character for Yang to go along with Blake on talking to Robyn and that it should have been someone like Nora instead, with Yang being vehemently against the idea and more pro-Ironwood along with Ren. And I agree, it'd play into everything better and keep the characters more consistent.

From what I can remember (it's been a while now), I think I'd actually argue against Robyn being the reason for Watts and Tyrian's capture. Ironwood captured Watts, solo, and sacrificed his arm to do so. Did Robyn standing beside Ironwood help sell the lie that Amity was complete, the thing that brought Watts to Ironwood? Maybe, though I'm not sure why it would. Her semblance wasn't used for that part of the speech - it couldn't be, it wasn't true - and Watts has no reason to trust her word over Ironwood's. He just bought into the lie because it was a decent one. Robyn's assistance during that speech was primary to reassure the people of Mantle, to show them that one opposing side had joined with the other, and she absolutely managed that. But... did it matter? Mantle was briefly invigorated by the hopeful Salem speech, but nothing came of it. These were never people capable of fighting the grimm on their doorstep and we didn't see their positive emotions doing anything to lessen the tide. They were just a little hopeful for an hour or so while still freezing/getting attacked by grimm until the group came back together, split from Ironwood, Salem herself arrived, and suddenly everything was thrown back into chaos. Even worse than before.

As for Tyrian, yeah, Robyn absolutely helped to capture him. But was Robyn needed? RWBY has a problem of making characters interchangeable. Usually it's in terms of their views and dialogue - why is such-and-such saying this? Shouldn't it be someone else? - but in this case I wonder if Ironwood had sent another Ace Ops, or one of the group, or even a couple of average army fighters, if the result wouldn't have been the same, given that it's still three (or more) on one. Clover and Qrow do the heavy lifting in that fight with Robyn shooting the occasional arrow. She gets the aura-breaking blow in at the end because Tyrian is nuts and decided to catch the last arrow with his teeth... which turned out to be a bomb. So yeah, nice job! But that was also a hell of a lucky shot that Tyrian brought on himself. Given how the fight was going and the fact that Qrow and Clover were the ones keeping Tyrian occupied most of the time, it feels like Robyn didn't need to be there, just another fighter to tip the scales.

And then, of course, her benefit is called into question when she turns on Clover, agrees with Tyrian, and winds up freeing him. It kinda cancels itself out in my mind. Yay Robyn helped capture Tyrian, the super dangerous criminal... and then was the reason he escaped, knowingly starting a fight on his say-so. She didn't even benefit the group for the time it took to fly back to Atlas.

To me, Robyn feels like a character whose usefulness to both the characters and to the story simply can't compete with the messy morals of trusting her. We see her framed as an antagonist to the group (baring them from taking supplies to Amity), she's positioned against Penny by thinking she attacked the party, she steals supplies (undermining the group's goal) which we then never see going towards keeping Mantle safe, then suddenly she's an ally when Blake and Yang decide to trust her, she yells and throws a chair, reassures the people, helps capture Tyrian, gets Tyrian released, is knocked out, and spends the next volume sitting around in jail. Robyn is a character who needs a lot of work imo.

And yeah, Yang's motivations there are equally underdeveloped. I could see her pulling a stunt like that during the Volume 5 days when she was loudly opposed to any secrets and was having Ozpin promise her he wouldn't keep anymore... but that was before keeping the Spring Maiden quiet and agreeing with Ruby that Ironwood doesn't need to know the same info. That's always been the issue. Not that they told Robyn, but that they told Robyn when they didn't tell Ironwood. It invites a comparison that continually falls flat. It's a problem that would apply to any member of the group, really. Yeah, I agree that Nora would be a good choice given her pro-Mantle stance, but even then the story would need to investigate why Nora trusts Robyn's claims, especially when pit against Ironwood's less satisfyingly, but more realistic approach. As Jacques' brief plotline attests, what the would-be politician says is not necessarily the truth and even if Nora were to have been blinded by Robyn's promises of fixing all these problems, at least one other character should have been like, "I know you personally like her, but we can't go blabbing secret war info to everyone who says they're our friends. Because the bad guys have pretended to be our friends before. And we even have trouble trusting friends who have already proven themselves. So you've gotta acknowledge that you potentially endangered us all here and also, you know, made a HUGE decision without the input of the 8+ other people involved in all this. That was a shitty thing to do because your personal convictions are not the sole, driving force of this world-endangering war."

It could have been a really good arc if all sides were given weight and there were clear, understandable reasons for why our secret-blabbing character felt compelled to do that despite all the reasons not to. The characters should have flaws, or even just characteristics that are arguably flaws depending on if such-and-such occurred. As it stands, Yang was the most vocally anti-secret, started keeping her own, agreed to keep more on Ruby's say-so, wasn't interested in trusting Robyn, didn't like keeping things from Ironwood, and then suddenly decided to both trust Robyn and keep something else from Ironwood because... Blake doesn't like the awful situations created by a war? Yeah, it doesn't add up.

[prince-toffee]

Entrapdak Positivity Month

30. Imperfection

Hordak had lost count of the number of times Entrapta had to patch him up. It wasn’t embarrassing, he was always glad to feel her touch, they both were very busy and even though they lived in the same castle they barely saw each other during the day. Entrapta was practically buried under mounts of paperwork, being a princess and all. She was busy with rebuilding the Salineas. While Hordak was constantly being shipped off on missions for Bright Moon to reduce his sentence, and not to go back to jail. Last mission Glimmer sent him and his fellow war-criminal brothers to take down a remainent splinter of the Galactic Horde, which were still worshiping Prime. Plenty of those cults around. Unfortunately Hordak got into a one on one fight with an enemy clone, a non-defective clone. And Hordak won... but had to be carried to safety, on a gurney. And now Entrapta was fixing him up. Entrapta too liked to fix and to work on him, touching his skin and healing him. She noticed something in his face, some sort of... shame, frustration?

“You’re powerful.”

“What?”

“I know you feel like a failure, you feel weak, frail, and fragile. But you’re stronger than you think.”

In a way it was true, she knew him well. If not for his defection he would’ve been fine, stronger, faster and more intelligent - due to his imperfections his body was undergoing constant cellular degradation, his bones were fragile like glass, he had memory loss issues, and depending on the day he’s either too sensitive or absolutely numb. That suit Entrapta developed for Hordak was the only thing giving him a fighting chance against any other opponent. He felt so useless sometimes, like a burden. But he denied that.

“I- I’m fine.”

“No, no you’re not. You need to hear it and I think I’ll start saying this more often to drill it into that thick noggin of yours: Your imperfections are beautiful and they make you stronger.” She knew he needed to hear it, she knew his thoughts were nothing but insults and doubt to himself. She could’ve healed his physical wounds fairly-well, but his mind was a completely different story. Hordak spent most of this life wallowing in shame and self-hate, he believed that he was weak, because that was what he was told his whole life. Entrapta needed to break that train of thought seeded deep in his mind. Prime made him and all other clones hate themselves, their bodies, their imperfections and defects. Made them feel uncomfortable in their own skin. And everyday her hate towards Prime grew, she was glad he was dead. “You managed to survive on an alien world for thirty years, running an empire, keeping yourself alive, and creating an adorable little hybrid, all with underdeveloped technology. You. Are. Powerful. Please don’t let Prime’s words define you, dear. I know you’re beating yourself up endlessly, but trust and believe me when I say: You are the most powerful person I know.”

That meant a lot. And it showed on Hordak’s face in the form of a small smile.

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

With more articulation, I'm ready to talk about why the push for Lokius simply bothers me, and this can be said for other m/m or w/w ships that fans push to be canon so hard just because they ship it.

It's the framing. The framing that if Marvel doesn't do it (or whatever the brand is), it's because homophobia, and if other fans don't like it/ship it, it's because homophobia (even if they ship other queer ships and are queer themselves.) And the biggest problem with that is that it overshadows the REAL issue of lack of queer representation on screen in mainstream nerd media, especially from big things under the Disney umbrella (Marvel and Lucasfilm/Star Wars, especially.)

It makes it bad that your ship isn't canon instead of bad that there haven't been any queer romances on screen in the MCU.

And like, as a writer myself, I find myself dissecting the stories of other media all the time. I can watch an MCU movie or series and pretty much assess what direction the story is going in by the narrative points they're hitting. I knew Sylki was basically gonna happen (even if just a kiss) because narratively, that's what the show was doing as soon as they had that "what is love" conversation on Lamentis-1. It didn't mean I liked it. But I knew it was happening.

Similarly, there's no romantic undertones to Loki and Mobius. None. For Marvel to make them a couple, it would mean they'd be doing it simply because the two present as men and it would make stans happy. And while there's something to be said for fan service, it would be annoying to watch them cram two guys together who aren't romantic in the slightest. I'd much rather see Loki meet some guy and have the same type of undertones they were giving to Sylvie and form a real bond to where the kiss feels earned and warranted. Not just put him with the nearest man because "he gay lol."

And how you guys are claiming it's being queer that makes you want this is beyond me. It's not being queer that makes you want this. I don't want queer characters that fuck everyone of whatever gender(s) they're attracted to even when it doesn't make sense for them to. I want real love stories. I mean, yeah, sometimes we can have a slut character, because that's fun, too, but that's not even what y'all think Lokius is. You seem to want them to be in love. But why? Because he's the first friend Loki made that isn't through Thor?

I hate that, too, because I hate this idea that queer people cannot have friends of their same gender without wanting to fuck them. IDK how y'all are, maybe y'all are like that, but I almost never have wanted to fuck any of my friends. The only few exceptions have been when I tried to befriend someone I had a crush on (in which case, usually the friendship can't work, really, because I have a crush on them.) I also think it's okay if you can have casual sex with friends, or if you have a friendship that develops into romance, but Jesus, do you people not have friends that you don't want to fuck? I am bi, maybe more pan (gender kind of doesn't matter to me, I guess) and I'm friends with people of all kinds of gender identities and like... I love them as people, which is why they're my friends, but I DO NOT want to fuck them. Especially my closest friend. I talked about her, before, here, but she's like my sister. The thought of fucking her is gross, to me. Not because she's gross, but because it feels incestuous.

Loki shouldn't want to fuck Mobius just because they developed a friendship. And that's very much how it's written on the series. They almost dislike each other (or Mobius is at least indifferent to Loki) and then they become friends.

That's not to mention the power dynamic that exists, there. And I know some of y'all are subs, but yeah, it's a bit gross to imply a sexual relationship with Loki's captor.

But on to Sylki. It sucks that I feel like most of y'all hate Sylki because Sylvie is a girl, and not just because it's bad in other ways. Like, the reasons Sylki is bad have less to do with "it should have been Mobius" and more to do with it being a lazy 1980s action movie plot that should have never happened. I'm not as creeped out by the selfcest (as many of you wouldn't have been if she was a he, I'm almost positive), but what's bad about it is that they couldn't have a strong female lead character without her being the love interest of the main guy. She didn't need to be, especially because she was a Loki variant, anyway. There was no need for it to have romantic undertones, and there was no need for them to kiss. It was sexist more than it was homophobic (and I can't help feeling like y'all are kind of being biphobic in this case. Maybe I'll talk about that, later, but yeah.) It was sexist bullshit. And there's valid criticism that Sylvie is underdeveloped. She's just angry and something for Loki to project affection onto.

I was also hoping they'd do a "found family" type of thing with Sylvie and Loki and let her be like the sister he never knew he needed, but no, they had to go trope and make her the love interest. It was lazy and bad and basically went "If Loki girl, main Loki want bone!"

Basically, having the main character fall for a character just because of their proximity and gender is bad and I hate it (and it would have been bad with Mobius, too, but yeah.)

Both the Mobius and the Sylvie thing also feel kind of racist, to me, because the show has prominent Black women who aren't even presented as desirable to Loki. And y'all, of course, ship him with anyone but the Women of Color. Y'all can pull true love with Mobius out of your ass, but he couldn't possibly fall for the Black women. lol.

Anyway. Not every show needs ships, and this show shouldn't have had any. I hate it. It's bad.

I guess on the biphobia front, I have heard some takes that it's not biphobic because Loki being queer in the MCU which hasn't shown any queer relationships, and Loki being the first openly queer character means they shouldn't have shown him with a woman presenting character. Which, I guess I get where you're coming from... but I have also been in fandoms for a long time and I see mostly girls saying this shit, which is what leads me to feel like it's simply jealousy. It happens all the time when a long-beloved single male character/celebrity suddenly starts dating a woman. Everyone hates it. And like, we haven't seen Loki be with ANYONE in the MCU, because mostly he's been doing villainy and his dating life hasn't been relevant. If the demigod says he's bi, he can kiss a woman. Especially a woman version of himself. Like I said, I hate it for other reasons, but pretending it's because he should have kissed Mobius is utterly delusional. He probably shouldn't have kissed anyone. Not in this series. There was no reason for any canon romance, especially because the show has a season 2 and we'll have time to see Loki develop earned, deserved romance with someone.

I'd much rather see them create a character just to be his boyfriend than have y'all push Marvel into making Lokius canon, which is a nonsense ship that only happened because Mobius is the only prominent male-presenting character before we meet the other Lokis.

My sincere wish is for people to remember that their ships are just ships and to enjoy them without getting all self-righteous about it. I TOLD y'all that Lokius wasn't gonna be canon like 4 episodes back, and here y'all are acting shocked and like Marvel took something from you. NOBODY expected y'all to ship Lokius. It's not even queerbait.

You can make clear arguments as to why Sambucky was queerbait. It's there in undertones in the actual series.

You cannot watch Loki and tell me you thought it was queerbait, unless you think men can't have conversations or hug goodbye without being romantically involved. Which means, in my opinion, that you need to learn about healthy masculinity.

Again, this is not a defense of Marvel. They DO need to let characters be queer, for real, and not just by saying " A bit of both". Like, let Loki be queer. Let Deadpool be queer. Let these queer characters be queer on screen. Yes.

But please stop making it about your ship. I'd rather see a flashback of Loki dating a guy and see him kiss someone he loved back on Asgard than watch y'all force Lokius. Because my queer rep is not about your crackship. It really isn't. And the fact that y'all keep calling us homophobic for not liking your ship REALLY needs to be addressed.

Like, when will y'all stop? I got on Stucky shippers about this shit in the past. All of us gay as hell, too, we just don't like YOUR ship. A lot of us like other queer ships. A lot of us like queer ships in other fandoms, too, and even have queer OCs. YOUR ship just ain't it. Stop forcing it. Literally, most of the ship wars between MCU fans have been queer ship vs queer ship, not really queer ship vs straight ship. Like, the number one Stucky rival ship was Stony. Not Steggy. People are not homophobic for not wanting your ship.

Sometimes it's because they ship something else.

And sometimes, like me, it's because they want something to make sense narratively and not happen for the sake of it happening. It's always better writing to have a character meetcute a new love interest than to magically turn a platonic friendship into a romantic relationship. Like, even when the characters are straight. Like, when Moesha dated Hakeem. It was just weird, even if he was kind of a great boyfriend. He was just supposed to be her friend, and people didn't really like it because it didn't fit narratively.

And that's why ships for the most part should be left to fanfiction, with the exception of a few where fans are right to call out the writers for not making it canon because it's clearly bait (like what happened to Destiel shippers. To see Lokius shippers compare themselves to THAT was so ridiculous. Destiel shippers had a decade of evidence only to be let down by a criminally unfair ending. Lokius shippers saw two men have a deep conversation once and lost their minds.)

Anyway, I'm not saying don't ship Lokius. I don't even hate it, really. I just think it obviously shouldn't be canon, and fans pretending like they were robbed of it is ridiculous. Literally, Ao3 exists for this reason. I will never see Steve fuck Sam Wilson, so I wrote it into my fanfic. I am not mad that they didn't actually date in the main MCU storyline.

[animezing-fandoms]

Nalu and Feminism:

Why Lucy Heartfilia being Natsu’s love interest isn’t as “irrelevant” to the story as the haters think.

Companion piece to Feminism in Fairy Tail with Lucy Heartfilia

Also, I will briefly discuss Gruvia. And in particular, how Juvia’s character is impacted by her relationship with Gray in comparison to Lucy with Nalu. 

Okay while I was writing that long meta about how Lucy not being a fighter and serving a more emotional role in the story doesn’t make her character any less important than the fighters, I also thought about the other reason that people claim Lucy isn’t a strong female character. Because she’s Natsu’s love interest. 

Now we’ve all been trained to think that when a female character in an action/sci-fi/shounen type story falls in love with and wants to be with a male character, that that somehow diminishes her character. And that adding romance to the story is unnecessary and is just pandering to shippers who they claim are only interested in the story for the romance. Which is a pretty sexist accusation considering that most (but not all) shippers tend to be women, so they’re basically saying that as women all we care about is romance and not the actual story. 

But if all we cared about was romance, then why would we be so invested in a relationship between two characters that haven’t even gotten together yet in a story that isn’t centered around romance. 

And if we were somehow able to force Hiro Mashima into making Nalu canon, then trust me, they would have been canon years ago! We have no power over what happens in this story in any way shape or form. Looking at you on that one Chris. 

We’re invested in Fairy Tail because of the story. And the story isn’t just about fighting. It’s about personal journeys, and overcoming obstacles, and being stronger together as a team. And when you have a story that is heavily focused on teamwork, then the relationships between the characters play a huge role in that story! Those relationships are what drive the characters to become stronger, and what give them something to fight for! Their love for each other doesn’t make them weak, it’s what makes them stronger. 

So yes, Lucy is Natsu’s love interest in the story. But that doesn’t mean she’s a weak character or doesn’t serve any real purpose to the story. In fact, it actually means the opposite. Her feelings for Natsu are what strengthens her character, and here’s why. 

So the main argument with “pointless romance” in stories that aren’t centered around it, is that it’s forced and underdeveloped. And while that is true for some stories (mainly Western TV/movies. I honestly can’t think of any “forced” romances in the manga/anime I’ve watched tbh), in Fairy Tail that’s definitely not the case. 

Honestly, nalu might be the slowest slow burn I’ve ever witnessed in a fictional story. Their relationship has tons of development, and considering they’re both the main characters of the story, that relationship is pretty important to the story. 

Just think about how they first met. That was how this whole story started! Natsu saves her from being enslaved by a criminal and yes while he did go fight Bora because he was lying about being from Fairy Tail, after the fight he brings Lucy with him to join the guild. He didn’t have to do that. But he did. Natsu is the first Fairy Tail wizard that Lucy meets and he’s the one that makes her dream of joining the guild come true. It’s because of him that she finds a family that loves and accepts her and supports her. And because of that, she grows as a wizard and as a writer. 

Natsu is the one who not only changed her life but also stood by her through all of that change. Ever since they met, Natsu has been there for her and she’s been there for him. So them falling in love after everything they’ve been through wouldn’t be forced at all. 

No relationship in Fairy Tail is forced. Even the smaller background ones like Elfever and Albis have good development! 

The main Fairy Tail story was pretty long. And when you have a story that long, you’ve got a lot of time to develop relationships. I honestly think Hiro Mashima did an amazing job of pacing the development of their relationship to having them build up to become basically irreplaceable people in their lives by the end of the story. And we see that development in both of their characters. 

In stories I’ve seen where romance feels “forced”. They often only have one character (mainly the guy) showing interest in the girl and her showing no interest in having a romantic relationship with him at all, until one point near the end of the story she suddenly reciprocates those feelings without anything prompting that change or anything else she’s said or done in the story thus far leading up to that. 

Yes, Lucy is often annoyed by Natsu and Happy breaking into her apartment. And yes she is sometimes annoyed by Natsu’s reckless nature. They bicker a lot in the beginning of the story. But there’s also multiple points throughout the story where both Natsu and Lucy show how much they care about each other. By the end of the GMG arc, it’s clear that they’re both important to each other. That’s why Lucy was so distraught at the thought of losing Natsu during the Alvarez arc. And that’s why thinking Lucy was dead was what triggered Natsu to become END. 

So now in the 100 YQ, Lucy is starting to show more obvious signs of having a romantic interest in Natsu. And that’s not out of nowhere. That’s basically where the story left off. And the same goes for Natsu. Honestly most of us think that he probably just assumes that he and Lucy are a thing already and if that turned out to be the case, we would not be surprised! 

And one final thing to people being upset about a possible romance between Natsu and Lucy in the 100 YQ. It was obviously going to happen in this sequel. The story ended basically with them basically admitting that they love each other, without saying those exact words. They’re definitely more than friends at the end of that story. And a story is only good if the characters and relationships develop further from where they began in the beginning of the story. So in the 100 YQ, the only way to develop Natsu and Lucy’s relationship further, is by them admitting their love for each other and becoming a couple. If their relationship stayed the same, then it wouldn’t be a good story because nothing would have changed from beginning to end. 

Now, to people who think that Lucy being in love with Natsu means she’s not a strong character because they think that her being in love with him means that the only thing she wants to do in life is be his wife and have his babies, you’re totally wrong. 

Lucy does want to get married and have a family someday, and at this point in the story we know that it’s probably going to end up being with Natsu. But that doesn’t mean that being his wife/girlfriend is or ever will be her only desire in life. She clearly has other goals. She wants to become a stronger wizard, and she’s an author and she wants to keep writing books. She can still do those things while being married to Natsu and having a family with him. And he’d support her to! 

Her being in love with Natsu does not take away from those goals or her development as a character. Her showing romantic feelings for Natsu shows a new side to her character. Not many people noticed this, but throughout the story, as her feelings for Natsu get stronger, she fights harder. And I don’t mean that in the sense that she became a stronger wizard. I mean she starts being more confident in battle and taking more risks in order to save him. She fell off of a waterfall with him in the Oracion Seis arc. And in the final arc of the series, she’s literally tampering with a book of dark magic in order to save Natsu’s life! 

So yes, being in love with Natsu did cause Lucy’s character to change. But that’s not a bad thing. Her love for him made her stronger. That added to her character development, not subtracted from it. The argument that a character, mainly female characters being in love makes them weaker is a sexist one because it implies that if a female character is in love with another character, that they somehow become less important to the story and become weaker simply for finding joy in their life in the form of love for another person. 

You know what other character in Fairy Tail is deemed weak because of that? Juvia Lockser. Now, a lot of her character development does revolve around her relationship with Gray. And yes, being with him is all she wants. Her goal is to marry him and have a family with him. And yes that is a traditionally feminine desire, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad goal. 

We’re at a point now in society where women can pursue things other than domestic life. But that doesn’t mean that women shouldn’t also pursue a domestic life. The point of feminism and gender equality is that women get to have a choice between just being a wife and mother or pursuing something else or doing both. And that’s the thing, it’s a choice! Which means that some women are going to choose to devote themselves to their family. And that’s not a bad choice at all. 

Remember that Juvia was an orphan. She’s never had parents or a family. She had literally never seen the sun until she met Gray so if him changing her life like that makes her want to devote her life to being with him and having a family with him as her idea of true happiness, then power to her! Let her pursue that dream! Especially since now we know that Gray loves her back.

And it’s not like she’s the only female character in Fairy Tail either. If she was the only girl in the series, then I’d probably take issue with her main desire being to be a wife and mother. But there’s so many other characters, and each of them have different desires, personalities, and roles in the story. So one of them primarily desiring a domestic life as a wife and mother is totally fine. There’s other female characters who pursue other things. Just like in real life, women are all different and make different choices.

And her being a wife and mother doesn’t mean she’ll be locked up in the house cooking and cleaning all of the time either. She’s still a wizard. She’ll still go on jobs on her own and with Gray. That definitely won’t change. 

And just like with Lucy, she became a stronger wizard after falling in love with Gray. She’s beaten some tough opponents in the name of love. And there’s nothing wrong with fighting for love! 

So love is not something that weakens the female characters in Fairy Tail. It makes them stronger. Love is a great source of joy and happiness and it’s perfectly acceptable to fight for that. It’s a very strong emotion, and it’s not only felt by the girls in these stories. The guys fight for love too. Heck, Gray and Natsu both unleashed their demon side when they thought their girls were dead. 

But we don’t see as many people saying that love weakens Natsu or Gray’s characters as they do for Juvia and Lucy. 

Why is it that people are always so much more critical of the girls motives, desires and actions in a story instead of the boys?

Why are fans so critical of the main female character of a story than they are of the main male character of the story? 

How come Lucy can’t be a strong character because she’s in love?

It’s because the idea that Lucy can have it all by being a successful wizard and author and having a loving and supportive family too, scares the misogynists because it would mean that a female character was able to make all of her dreams come true by the end of a story, by the power of love pushing her to become stronger. They’re scared of something traditionally “feminine” like romance becoming a powerful factor in a story. If love = power, then the one who possess that love, Lucy = power. And that’s what they’re really upset about.

And now I’ll get off of my soapbox. I feel like I was mostly ranting through this and I’m not sure if it made sense but I hope it did! 😂

[ellestra]

Happy endings

That was one big happy ending for everybody. Sam is Captain America and saved the day. Bucky finished his book. Walker got to be superhero again. Sharon/PB got pardoned. Zemo got all the Flag Smashers. I mean Flag Smashers are dead but their goal was achieved and Karli said that’s all that mattered - so YAY!

And yes, that was sarcastic but I enjoyed most of the show and the episode. It’s just that it all seemed too easy and neat and to quick. I wonder if shortened season and dropping some storylines (like the pandemic one) was the culprit makes it feel like that or was the hard job of walking between dropping anvils (repeat the point and overexplain) and people still not getting it (someone tried to fight me it wasn’t about racism - I can’t even). And there is a certain disconnect between the real world, complicated issues presented in the season and too easy, happy solutions at the end.

Bucky is the most hilarious example as the end lets us assume Bucky dealt with the rest of his list in between leaving Sam and the GRC attack so was done after Mr. Nakajima and basically no need for therapy any more. I get the message about finding peace after opening up and helping people but solutions are never that easy.

I suppose this why it felt the show used less characters that feel like people and more of archetypes that show certain points of view. This meant that the story sometimes had to bend in weird ways to show Sam starting as an everyman (can’t get loan) but ends up with him changing the minds of the world leaders with a speech. And I don’t mean it couldn’t happen (as this week’s Super League fiasco shows - public outrage can move a lot of mountains) but that he always had that power - even before he was Captain America. It tried to redo Steve’s story in many ways but it hard to avoid the fact that Sam was not nobody at the start. The show just needed to start him low so he had to refuse to use it. And that image with Sam carrying Karli looking like an angel - very pretty but too much.

This is also what still bothers me about Sharon being Power Broker (besides that she either rose superfast or wasn’t Blipped like everyone though). It’s a cool idea on paper (even if the whole turn the underdeveloped female character people hate for getting into their ship evil is such a bad fandom trope - I think Sleeping Hollow fandom was the worst about it). And I get that she pretended to help to get that pardon and worm her way back into state secrets. It’s just the show made Super Serum such a big pat of Power Broker motivation but the only reason she doesn’t have it is because she let Zemo to he scientist. It only took him 6 months to make all those doses. She could’ve had whole lot more in another 6. And then her schemes got her bullet in the stomach. For a master schemer that whole thing was just a disaster. And so were most of her dealings with Flag Smashers. I don’t see her career as double agent and also running criminal empire lasting long. I suspect it’ll end with her being Skrull (that would explain how non-lethal that bullet was and why she didn’t want a doctor).

The end of John Walker story was I think the most disappointing for being rushed. We all knew he was going end up being US Agent but the way he went beck to being hero just because he managed to make the right choice between vengeance and saving people didn’t sit right with me. I get that public opinion can be easy swayed when it justifies people’s previous belief in him (see he isn’t that bad - he just made a mistake - the guy deserved it) and comes with those blond hair and blue eyes. But Sam and Bucky act like nothing happened either. He just tried to kill them an episode ago but I suppose Bucky is used to that so bygones. At least we know working for Val isn’t all that great. I hope next season would show more of the psychological parts of his redemption when maybe he confronts all the lies he told himself.

Zemo’s manservant blowing the rest of Flag Smashers just as they got the the guard to say “One World, One People” suggesting they were going to be freed was hilarious though. I’m pretty sure Val made sure he knew when they were being moved.

The action scenes were great especially, as usual, Sam’s flying but all fight choreography was awesome. His new suits looks cool and comes with 2 redwings. And Bucky asked for that. It really is a friendship.

But I really loved Karli and the Flag Smashers using the heroes modus operandi against them. From the call to Bucky to slow him down because she knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from trying to convince her to using the heroes save the people first to perfection. Sam even went to save the cops. It gets to be bit overdone with Walker’s whole redemption is choosing saving people over revenge (although I liked the contrast with him just leaving Lamar behind to get revenge last time).

And I loved that Sam refused to fight her. This really showed how much better Captain America he is than Walker. But she knew who Sharon was so she had to die.

But the part that got the most surprising emotional reaction from me was when the GRC people try to justify mass forced expulsions of millions of people as just going to how it was five years ago.

Tony Stark didn’t die for this! He made this mess to protect the lives people got in those five years.

I liked how Sam called them out by comparing them to Thanos. Even though I realise it must be the new “compare to Hitler” in the MCU.

All the moments with Isaiah Bradley were awesome. It was really moving to see Sam bringing that hope to hopeless and showing that it can get better. This is why superhero stories are so popular.

[squicky-fannish-discourse]

I know we got just a panel, but I can’t shut up about Tooru apparently and log off for the next 3 months, because someone else is going to have to listen to this so might as well drop it here. 

Going to expand a little more on the “what if Hagakure is not who she says she is” and “what if she’s not 16 years old” and the implications of that.   

Misogyny in BNHA can be seen as “as simple as girls don’t have plot relevance/underdeveloped,” but as I was reading I thought, more specifically younger females have little relevance to the main overarching grand narrative apart from Uraraka, and she’s directly tied to Deku. You could argue that Mina foreshadows Gigantomachia. But what else? 

They are treated as only relevant within U.A., and otherwise beautifying the background, while the boys grapple with tensions and internal issues and problems and partake in this grand commentary on hero-state society. 

Misogyny is generally the most unrealistic part of BNHA, because Ochako’s story should be about how the economics affect her hero education etc. etc. Idt the cost of U.A.’s education has been ever brought up or the cost of being a hero. What about hero insurance? Why is her family business struggling? Heroes are always busting up buildings, aren’t they? He can’t address that apparently. Lesson to take away? Misogyny = bad world building. 

Anyways, sidetracking there. The difference between older females and younger females. 

Older female characters (heroes or civilians) have more agency. They exist outside of Deku’s influence (Miruko, Nana Shimura, Rei, Curious, Fuyumi, Midnight, Mt. Lady) and sometimes they are affected by him (Lady Nagant, Inko) I think while I like him as a character, his influence often changes the path of his villains, and that includes women (Lady Nagant.)

Hagakure exists in relative ambiguity. If she’s 16, she’ll be treated as part of 1-A. Because at the end of the day, she’s a kid. She’s not close at all with Deku, and I don’t think he’s ever got a clear reading on her quirk. She’s still struggling and got ways to go. Her classmates are going to be there for her after some grand reveal and apology. She’ll help win the war. Idt she’ll die a horrible death or it will be a Lady Nagant. But she might die a hero. She’d be similar to Toga in this respect.  

But if she’s older than 16? I suspect her fate won’t be as kind, but you will also get a completely unapologetic older female villain who has a backstory which might give us a little more about how AFO’s criminal underworld works.  So she’s gonna die/lose, but she might be an unapologetic badass putting them through more hell before she does.

Fundamentally in this manga, the older generation sucks. The new gen is gonna do better is the takeaway of BNHA, because it is aimed at kids. If it was Vigilantes, which has older heroes having more nuanced backgrounds, Lady Nagant’s plot would be different. Similar to Hagakure’s. So her age kind of matters, and that’s my lil’ thought for the day. 

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Edit: So my post was vagued by someone, so let me vaguely also clarify what I mean by plot relevance. It’s not what the female character does. It’s how it’s executed. 

In comparison, Bakugou has a parallels with Endeavor, and he has character development in relation to that. That is not how you should be Bakugou. You want to be number one so badly etc. etc. 

Comparitively, I don’t see the same sort of growth/relationship for the younger female population of BNHA. Ochako and Thirteen, for example? You could see the difference between rescue work and suppression work and subsequently building up Thirteen and Ochako’s characters.  

[thinkingbookthoughts]

Strange the Dreamer, post read thoughts.

I just finished it last night, and hoo boy was it a read. This is the first book I’ve read by Laini Taylor, and it’s got me wanting to read more. I’m starting Muse of Nightmares tonight or tomorrow, and maybe after that the Daughters of Smoke and Bone trilogy. Anyway, [spoilers probably]:

First off, I don’t care for fantasy. I tend to have little patience for made up words (yes, I know all words are made up, you know what I mean) and hyper detailed world building. I enjoy the fantastical, but fantasy as a genre generally bores me to tears. I don’t want to read about fake cultures when I could be learning about real ones. That’s personal taste, whatever. Taylor however, writes it almost exactly the way I want to read it. She dips occasionally into exposition dumps, but I find it nowhere near as tiresome as the typical Tolkienesque approach. Even then, I’m interested. She’s created such a wonderful world that I want to know whatever she’s going to give me, and uncovering some new detail feels like a treat, not a slog. My eyes still glaze over at all the made up words and politics, but everything else makes up for it.

What keeps this book interesting to me is definitely not the plot though. I have no major issues with it, it’s fine, whatever. But it falls into the category of legendary fantasy tale that generally I have no interest in. Hero’s journey and all that. I find it boring. Again, personal taste, whatever. I tend to enjoy character driven more than plot driven anyway, and this book is absolutely character driven. The story itself is so simple I might even go so far as to call it formulaic, but the people who carry it are something else. When their hearts break, so does yours. I won’t lie, she does go for some easy gut punches, but they do still feel earned and in their place. She’s not afraid to let you dislike her heroes. Except maybe Lazlo, I’ll talk more about him later (though I feel like the sequel may challenge him more). Most of the people that we grow to like are complicated. They’ve done terrible things, or harbor toxic beliefs, but they’re also justified to a certain extent. And to what extent that is, is left up to you.

She does kind of beat you over the head with her themes, but I mean, this is technically YA. It’s not terribly clumsy, you just find yourself wanting to go, “OK I get it! Move on!” every once in a while. But that’s a hard line to toe as a writer, and as far as shortcomings go, it’s really not that big of a deal. I’m willing to forgive it, anyway. Sometimes you can feel when the “correct” answer is coming through, usually because Lazlo is taking a hard line moral stance, but it never felt so overwhelming to me that it seemed like right and wrong were being truly dictated. It’s not perfect, and writers are allowed to have opinions, so eh.

In general, I’m a big fan of her writing style. I get the feeling the novelty would wear thin if I read all of her books back to back, so I won’t lmao, but from the one I’ve read I love it. She has issues with repetition to the point where it crosses from emphasis to unnecessary and redundant pretty often, but god I am a simp for flowery prose, so I will forgive it. If I had to describe the way she writes to someone who is deciding whether or not to read it, I’d say that she writes like those verbose, rich paragraphs you find on tumblr. You know, where someone has had a few nice sentences flow into their head, but they aren’t going to expand on it so they post it as is, without the context that might make it anything more than pretty words. (No shade, but... look they’re not exactly high art, ok?) Except that she’s actually written the book. And I find it a very pleasurable experience. Like I said, I am a simp for all things purple. If you’re not, you’ll probably hate it.

It can, at times, absolutely feel indulgent, but in a way the whole book is. I mean the fantastical elements of this story really go hard. She’s not really attempting realism here. Grounded (enough), sure, but definitely not realistic. And it’s fine by me. I’m willing to give a story a lot of passes if I feel like the writer has earned them in other ways. I don’t care if every little detail is what would really happen. Not at all, actually. If I wanted realism I’d go outside. I’m reading a book, not a newspaper.

One example is what I saw described as the “insta-love” between Lazlo and Sarai. Personally, I had no issues with it. It felt earned and in place in the context of the story. It makes sense for the two characters, both of whom are young and have felt painfully isolated for their entire lives. And then in walks someone with a mutual attraction, who can interact with them and appreciate them in a way no one else ever has. Yeah of course they fall in love. Even if the relationship wouldn’t have worked out long term, it makes total sense that one would have started. And as for how quickly it happened, eh. They literally met in a dream, what do you want?

There are plenty of other crimes that I’m sure I would defend, but here’s one I won’t. Thyon Nero. He is so criminally underutilized in this story, I question his place in it at all. Which is a goddamn shame because I love me a petty bitch like Thyon. It feels like he’s all wasted potential. In a sea of interesting, well drawn characters, he’s flat as Saskatchewan. Unforgivable. If it had been another character, fine. But Thyon? Come on! We spend enough time with him that he should feel more interesting, but he just doesn’t. There’s an attempt to give him a tragic backstory and whatever, but it’s so cliche (rich pretty boy with an abusive family behind the scenes controlling him and making him feel like a pawn in their game. Snarky on the outside, hurting on the inside, blah blah you’ve heard it a million times.) that I need more! You can’t just give me a scene of him getting whipped by his shitty dad, toss off a sentence about him wanting to free from his family’s exploitation, and then dust your hands and call it a day. UGH. He honestly serves as little more than an occasionally funny, almost interesting character foil for Lazlo. He exists to show you what a good boy Lazlo is. And that’s it. They aren’t even proper enemies. How much they dislike each other in any given scene is directly inverse to how much the plot needs them to get along in that moment. Before they’ve even reached the city Thyon is little more than a mild inconvenience. So why set him up as this scary antagonist??? I’m really hoping the second expands on him. I need more. You cannot dangle a funny bitch like him in front of my face and then do nothing with him! RUDE.

Ok, now Lazlo, I said I’d talk about him. Here we are. Lazlo Lazlo Lazlo. First of all, hate his name. That’s a nothing issue, I just had to say it. Second, he’s kinda lame, huh? I wouldn’t say that he’s underdeveloped, I feel like I have a much better idea of who he is than I do Thyon, it’s just that his development isn’t that interesting. He very much feels like a protagonistTM. He’s passionate and funny, driven and like... always in the right on moral issues. He’s the immediately accepted outsider who’s also able to bring a new, but more importantly, morally correct perspective on their issues. He’s charming, but humble, shy but not enough to actually impede social interaction. I don’t hate him, I’d probably hang out with him if I was on that journey (assuming I wasn’t following Thyon around like the simp I am). He’s just that kind of perfectly imperfect character. His flaws only make him more likeable, he’s never outright wrong about anything. I’ll say it, Lazlo is a Mary Sue.

Lazlo is a Mary Sue and Thyon was wasted on his basic ass. And that’s that on that.

I will let that (correct) declaration wrap this up. It’s way too long already. Thank god not a single person on earth reads these. Small miracles.

[beware-of-you-98]

JENNIFER👏JAREAU👏DESERVED👏BETTER👏

✨it’s rant time✨

buckle up lads bc it’s gonna be a doozy 

tw// suicide mention, tw// canon typical cm violence, tw// je— 🤢 jei—🤢🤢 i can’t even fucking say it 🤢🤢🤢 je*d

so yesterday i was watching criminal minds again (wow shocker) again for the first time in like,,,, 3 months??? [that’s not important] on weTV (which was just so happening to air reruns from season 3) and there was one thing that really stuck out to me that i didn’t necessarily think about much until i went into work today

season 3, episode 15 “a higher power” shows the team going up to pittsburgh to investigate a spike in suicides rates in the community under the suspicion that it’s the work of a serial killer (okay, cool, normal fucked up every day BAU life, nothing really sus there)

but what really kinda just hit me out of the blue today was just.... how unaffected jj was by the whole case in general

the team is maybe at most, a few hours away from her hometown, with the main topic of the case being surrounded by multiple suicides and taking her past into consideration (she’s literally a stone’s throw away from her hometown where she lost her sister to suicide) and yet she just.... remains unbothered... she never toys with the necklace around her neck or ever seems uncomfortable despite this case hitting way too close to home

i guess just rewatching this episode really just... opened my eyes into how underdeveloped jj was character wise for a really long time (i mean really we know more about gideon and elle in season 4 than we do jj and they had been gone for at least a season and a half at this point)

i mean.... i guess in in heat we get... something??? when we find out that she’s been seeing will for nearly a year?? cool i guess??? and we do get an episode named after her but really it doesn’t tell us much about her background or dive more into her story other than “oh strauss is forcing me to leave that sucks” but it doesn’t really go much into detail about anything beyond that

oh hotch handpicked her to join the unit but i don’t think it ever gets any deeper than that (when it should have!!!!??!!) [correct me if i’m wrong]]

by season 5 we have a detailed idea about every other character on the team (with the only exception possibly being garcia but i digress)

we know hotch has a younger brother that looks absolutely nothing like him and said brother wants to be a chef

we know rossi came back to the bau because of a cold case that’s gone unsolved for twenty years

we know every year, morgan goes home for his birthday and visits the grave of the john doe he found when he was a teenager

we know way too much about reid and his issues jesus christ

fucking hell we even know about emily’s dark past, how much it still haunts her even before we get the ian doyle arc

even ashley seaver has a deeper storyline than jj at this point like ffs

jj.... well..... she has that boyfriend down in louisiana ig?????

and that’s what becomes annoying

jj’s character really isn’t developed past more than i have a boyfriend and i’m pregnant up until maybe, and that’s a really generous maybe, the episode will gets held hostage at a bank and damn near gets himself killed (we see her with henry.... again, i’m being very generous here)

really, we don’t see jj get any sort of deep development the rest of the team has been getting until 200

i loved seeing her finally get some depth, for her character to finally be treated as if she’s an important asset rather than a pretty face that deals with media

she becomes a character we can sympathize with!!! she has issues and fears and traumas!!! finally!!!

and then they keep expanding on her as the seasons continue!!! like yes!!! this is what i wanted from the beginning!!! jj deserved this!!!

and then

it all comes crashing and burning into a pile of shit with five words

five

words

you know the words so i really don’t have to type them out and become unnecessarily angry

but wtf

all that character development they had spent building up over the years, after finally starting to get the ball rolling to making jj a solid character the writers decided “,,,,,,let’s just boil her down romantic feelings she kept hidden for....reid.” (of all people????? confusion)

the biggest sigh i just let out

first of all, that’s such an overdone trope in hollywood and in modern times we’re sick of it we need way more flavor than that

second of all it just..... ruins jj’s character right there on the spot

a majority (maybe i’m just generalizing) but most people in the fandom are reid stans and of COURSE they’re going to be absolutely livid at that bitch jennifer jareau pulling that card on their favorite little twink

it makes her look like a bitch

and it literally makes no sense whatsoever

they went on one “date” once in season 1 and it’s never mentioned again until jj confides to emily in the bathroom in the first episode of season 14

they have about as much romantic chemistry as two planks of wood

what was so wrong with jj and reid being best friends/having a sibling like relationship (which would have been a big deal for jj!!! to let someone that close again!!!! but no!!!!!!! jj is woman!!!!!! reid is man!!!! they must have romantic chemistry!!!!!! gross)

why did jj have to have hidden romantic feelings for reid

please tell me why that was a thing

and then the writers (probably sensing that they in fact fucked up big time) just kinda.... brush it off in 15

“u were my first love” reid: “oh okay (is sad for the duration of the season)”

it doesn’t fix what happened

it doesn’t change what happened

jj still looks like a huge bitch to a majority of the fandom

and it was overall a completely useless and pointless arc that just set out to completely ruin jj and it’s so infuriating

what was the reason

what was the reason

why u gotta do it to her like that writers

i’m sad jj deserved so much better than what those stinky writers did to her

tldr: jj deserved better

[aro-aizawa]

man i never realised how much bullshit there is in mha canon that pissed me off until i sat down and thought about it. like even forgetting abt the sexism, perverted behaviour, abuse apologism, like some of the general mechanics of the world just,,, piss me off??? completely????

like i just remembered the bullshit thing that happened when the league fought that redestro guy and his followers i think. the whole 110% boost?? and i just. hate. everything. about it. the execution, the idea behind it “fear of death caused her quirk to evolve” and i just. oh god does it make me pissed.

it’s the idea of power of friendship makes you powerful except flipped on its head and turned inside out. it’s whipped out at that exact moment because horikoshi needed a way to throw his readers off w a twist in how the world works without throwing in yet more development of ofa.

i would 1000% be on board with this idea if it was introduced in a different way. because yes the power of friendship trope is a trope that’s been heavily used, but it’s a good one. maybe i’m salty that horikoshi gave it to the villains while he continues to criminally underdevelop the rest of ua outside of bakugou and todoroki. yes that’s including izuku, because horikoshi keeps doing my son dirty but only in personality wise, bc in canon he does not have the personality that fans interpret him as having (but that’s a whole other rant).

how abt the concept gets introduced while following some of the less spotlighted characters? using the licenses they got and thus far have not actually used them???

tsuyu getting backed into a corner after being separated from who she was working with, the villain has her completely immobilised as they plaster themselves to her, holding her tightly as they threaten to crush her to death. as she’s trapped in a corner and trying to keep her cool while pretty sure she’s going to die, the villain suddenly recoils when she manages to bite him. the villain promptly gets sick, and she can capture him.

the adrenaline of death made her quirk turn her ability to secrete a mildly irritating toxin into making her actually venemous. her bites make people incredibly sick.

or how about hagakure. she’s interning with a stealth hero and helps on a reconaissance mission. she and the hero are trying to infiltrate a den of villains so that they can gather intel before joining forces with another band of heroes to bring them down. only as they’ve infiltrated, they’re unable to intervene when a villain kills another villain. hagakure lets loose a horrified gasp and the villain now knows there’s someone in the room that shouldn’t be. hagakure is invisible, as long as she’s quiet she’ll be able to escape without the villain catching her.

...but the hero she’s interning with will be caught. and they’ll likely be killed as they’re not physically powerful. hagakure has the horrifying realisation that she’ll probably have to see her mentor get killed in front of her and she’ll have to not react in any way otherwise she’ll be killed right afterwards.

in her panic she grabs her mentor’s arm, and suddenly the hero is invisible just like hagakure, along with her costume and equipment. to two manage to get out of there, but hagakure can now make other people and things invisible when she touches them.

or even hey!! let’s go with an adult this time. hear me out, what if, this happened to aizawa? if you didn’t want to bloat the overhaul arc even more than it already was, then maybe not then, but what if aizawa was working on a job in conjunction to his students and who they’re interning with? maybe he has to watch as his kids get overpowered and the only thing saving them is how long he can keep his quirk going? it’s a game of waiting, the moment he blinks, that’s his kids dead in an instant.

it’s inevitable, he knows he’s going to have to blink but the longest he’s ever kept them open is around two minutes on a good day. he’s pushing it and he knows that he’s going to have to blink very soon he won’t be able to control when he does.

except when he does blink he finds his quirk still was active. he keeps his eyes open as long as he can afterwards, but only twenty seconds later he has to blink yet again. his quirk still holds.

eventually, the situation is resolved and when they go back to ua, and after some extensive testing with the help of present mic and midnight, they find that if aizawa only blinks his quirk stays active. it’s only when he closes his eyes for longer than a second does his quirk shut off.

like. great. it’s, it’s nice so have villains that evolve and stand on even ground with the good guys on the evolving and leveling up w/e. it’s good! it extends the time where a villain will be an actual threat to the protagonists, makes them harder to beat and keeps them as a solid adversary.

but hey horikoshi? you know you have other characters besides todoroki and bakugou you can develop on, right? how about the teachers? how about any other pro hero except endeavor who’s a utter piece of shit and so mind-numbingly boring. does he have a personality except “hates all might”? how about you just maybe think about your characters as more than just extras. treat them like they’re people, their issues and interests don’t get pushed aside or forgotten if they’re unimportant to what you want to do. give. some. DAMN depth to your characters outside your faves i am BEGGING you horikoshi.

[scientistowengottlieb-newtkelly]

Thoughts and feelings about Pacific Rim 2?

you sure you wanna open up that particular can of worms?

movie review time! be warned i'm not in a good mood as i am shaking in pain, however this review would have been scathing regardless. and none of this is to say pacific rim is perfect, it's not, but... aye, i have no words for the world of difference there. oh wait! i do:

so. first and foremost, i hate it. as both a movie and a sequel. did i find it entertaining? yes, mildly, so i suppose it did its job, however the only thing that keeps me watching it is because, simply, it's part of the pacific rim franchise whether we like it or not. therefore, i squeeze as much salvageable content from it as i can, such as how one might analyze the precursors, how we are to view hermann and newt as characters pre-, during, and post-uprising, what we are to expect from drifting (though this one i take with a grain of salt, there is a whole other rant preserved for the joke of an attempt to develop that shit within the movie)

one of my biggest issues with pacific rim is really simple: it plays out like DeKnight did not watch the first fucking movie or was scrolling through twitter while doing it and decided he'd make a cash grab since the first one was relatively popular. "haha the kaiju were going for mount fuji the whole time!!" bitch no they weren't!!! why the fuck did they end up anywhere near sydney, australia, then!!! why did they turn tail on places like manila and san fran instead of heading straight for japan!!! WHY DID THE ONE THAT WAS IN JAPAN NOT SUCCEED, THERE'S NO WAY WITH THOSE MARK 1 JAEGERS THEY'D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REASONABLY FIGURE OUT THEIR PLAN AND WHERE THEY WERE GOING IN TIME TO STOP THEM!!! newt literally lays out what they are doing in the first movie and they completely ignored that!!! not to mention, if the destruction from elements found in mount fuji would have been enough to terraform the earth, WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FUCKING DO THAT WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSEDLY ON EARTH AGES AGO??? THERE WERE VOLCANOES WITH THOSE SAME ELEMENTS BEFORE RIGHT NOW, VOLCANOES ARE NOT A RELATIVELY NEW THING EARTH CREATED SUDDENLY AND I WOULD IMAGINE NEITHER ARE THOSE ELEMENTS!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! and.... okay the fucking drones. how did those bitches make breaches??? we know the breach is some result of precursor/kaiju technology, apparently they know the breach's atomic structure as hermann said in the first movie, but how tf some kaiju organs and tech from earth only is ALL it takes to open a breach... illudes and confuses me... why were no more breaches made by the precursors once they realized how long and how many resources it was taking to kill the humans off??? if it's??? shit they could do with simple earth materials + their own biology??? they could have ended things much faster??? shit just doesn't add up, idk, that was Vague and Annoyed Me

and the jaegers.... were....... strange? the fight scenes were so underwhelming, i could count on one hand the number of maneuvers—NOT SCENES, MANEUVERS—i thought were badass and moved well. their fighting was confusing and paced really weird and some of the moves they pulled... don't... work like that... like some of those scenes were just hand-to-hand combat but in big robot form and they didn't sit right with me at all.

and the characters......... oh my word, the characters. look: i love jake pentecost with all of my heart and soul and john boyega's beautiful acting just barely saves the movie from its poor writing. i do love him as a character. but can someone explain to me why in the world they thought it was a good idea to make the only black guy a black market thief/runner, deep-record criminal with daddy and authority issues, and who they dare try to play off as some kind of lazy??? they made him every stereotype they could and said "yeah let's go with that". i'm- aaaaaaaaaaaaaa and what was with the child soldiers??? ROBOCOPS?????? mako....... character assassination at its worst........ my baby......... but the movie was paced so GOD DAMN POORLY I GOT BORED AND LITERALLY MISSED HER DYING THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED IT. and i couldn't tell you the names of half of those poor damn kids, i really couldn't. and can i also say they killed off one of the only two darker skinned kids?? like y'all???? the other darker skinned kids (one of the children i can't remember the names of because it was uttered ONCE in the entire movie or some shit) didn't even GET characterization. my whole heart goes out to her and those other underdeveloped fucks. speaking of...... i am ashamed about jules. from the movie that brought us the mako mori test, they threw in a girl simply for the sake of some shitty, awkward, and unexplained love triangle between jake and White Angst without much else to put to her name. she deserved better. amara was... a decent shot, but very hit or miss because of the writing. i, personally, am very neutral about her leaning towards liking her, but i know people who swing love and who swing hate. liwen was like,,,, they tried really hard to make her unlikable at the beginning because "oh no, she must be the villain! GOTTEM plot twist!!!" and then suddenly she's no longer. threatening everyone except newt. idk i feel like they leaned to heavily one way and i got whiplash when she's actually another but there was nothing to... portray that. at all. i do like her character, and that says a lot because they got me to sympathize with a capitalist without actually regretting it later, but there could/should have been More there. she was powerful, though, in multiple different aspects, and we saw that from her CONSISTENTLY and i 😳🥵👀💕 mako mori test pass for her

now, let's talk about hermann (and by extention, newton, however he'll be getting a section all his own the rat bastard). that man is one of the single instances of decent cross-movie characterization i saw in the whole god damn film. the idea that he takes on newton's roles, that he is more outspoken for himself, that he is just slightly more unhinged after his drift with newton: THAT is on point. he's himself, you can see it, you still know that he's hermann with ever step, but there's something that has shifted in him in those 10 years and it's good without being too much. the "i still get nightmares" scene, the way he presents himself, that scene gives me chills because god bless burn gorman and his acting ability. every face and intonation of his voice is just wonderful and i think his performance was great for what he was given. king shit.

the biggest disappointment of my life came in the form of a kaiju vest wearing bitch at work. at his corporate job. as a boss. for a tech company that undermines all of his and, frankly, hermann's work over their lifetimes. 10 years older and exaggerated to the teeth. newton "move you fascist" geiszler. let me preface this by stating for all to see that i do not hate the idea of newton being the villain. story wise it was a bold move and there was something possible there. BUT THE IMPLICATION THAT ONE OF THE MOST OBVIOUSLY NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS IN THE WHOLE FUCKING FRANCHISE, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN CHARACTERIZED AS HAVING A "BORDERLINE MANIC PERSONALITY" AKA HAVING ONE OF THE MOST DEMONIZED MENTAL ILLNESSES OUT THERE, ENDS UP ACTING AS THE GOD DAMN VILLAIN OF THE STORY IS A HOT GARBAGE TAKE WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THINGS LIKE POOR WRITING NOT MAKING IT CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT NEWTON IS EVEN IN CONTROL OF HIS OWN FACULTIES AND THE VAGUENESS OF "WILL HE BE 'REDEEMED' OR NOT" BEING UP IN THE AIR LIKELY NEVER TO BE CANONICALLY FUCKING ANSWERED BECAUSE BECKHAM AND DEKNIGHT SHAT OUT A MOVIE THAT BOMBED IN THE BOX OFFICE. we aren't even gonna TALK about the fact that this bitch got AWAY with it despite not even acting in a remotely stable way comparable to himself in the first movie in the 10 years he supposedly dropped off the map from all of his friends because, clearly, hermann hadn't seen him or he wouldn't be so excited with a picture of the two of them on his desk, nor would he have to tell newton about his idea for rocket thrusters with kaiju blood fuel because he would have simply written to him about it. for some strange reason people see his ass show up decked out in a suit he wouldn't even wear for Stacker Fucking Pentecost and a behavior of "Haha Gotta Listen To The Boss" and think "ah, yes, well, time changes a person. THIS BITCH HAS APPARENTLY BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME, YOU THINK HE GOT A JOB WITH LIWEN LOOKING AND ACTING LIKE HE DID BEFORE AND THERE WAS A SHIFT OVER TIME? NO, HE HAD TO HAVE CHANGED IN A SPLIT DECISION AND LIED ABOUT HIMSELF THROUGH HIS TEETH AND NO ONE CONTACTED HIM, OR WAS WORRIED ABOUT HIM, OR DECIDEDLY THOUGHT "YOU KNOW, HE MAY BE EMBOLDENED THAT HE SAVED THE WORLD, BUT I THINK SOMETHING LIKE THAT WOULD HAVE THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT ON HIM AND HE WOULD DO HIS BEST TO AMPLIFY HIS CURRENT STANDING TRAITS. LISTENING TO AND KISSING THE BOOT OF AUTHORITY FIGURES? DIVORCING HIMSELF FROM HIS WORK WITH KAIJU XENOBIOLOGY THAT EVEN HERMANN PICKED UP? TO BECOME THE THING HE HATES? AND FOR WHAT? MONEY? FAME? BITCH WHO ARE YOU?" unreasonable. ridiculous attempt to do this just for a plot twist that was underwhelming at best. i've decided to stick to the fan theory that he was not in control 99% of the time but literally that movie causes such a hellfire path to appear in my wake as i think about it because i know people who don't take it like that and think newt wants what's happening because "haha horny kaiju man" and i wish to scream at the top of my lungs because this is exactly WHY you CANNOT spare ANY EXPENSE to the GOOD, PROPER, INTRICATE directing and writing of a character who is neurodivergent and also ONE OF THE CENTERS OF NOT JUST THE MOVIE YOU'RE WRITING, BUT THE FUCKING MOVIE AFTER THAT. i could go on but i sincerely don't fucking want to, despite how long i've been waiting for someone to willingly hear me out on all of this. all i'll say is if by some miracle they are greenlit for a third film and deknight's working on it and i see ANY sign of a bury your gays end for newt, i'm going to commit the first hate crime against a cishet white male.

to end, the only valid kaiju in that movie was the mega-kaiju, i don't remember the appearance or the names of the three that got through the breaches but the mega-kaiju could kill me and i'd die happy 🥰 beautiful design, that scale comparison when it came face to face with newt? amazing, chills, *chef's kiss* there are exactly two things i liked about uprising and that bitch is one of them.

sorry if this isn't what you wanted, but as i said i am in a bit of a bad mood and have been curled up in bed trying not to think that i'm dying and i've repressed all of this for a couple months now and very few people have actually heard PORTIONS of my frustration so. here it is.

[themyskira]

WW #750 thoughts

Let’s start with the good.

Star-Blossom is the cutest cutie and I would read one million pages of her flower-filled adventures with Wonder Woman

Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott deliver a bigger emotional gut punch in twelve pages than a succession of WW writers have managed collectively in the past two years. Goddamn, guys.

I mean not to say Rucka’s run was flawless, but seeing that simple yet emotion-packed Cheetah story alongside the finale to Steve Orlando’s simplistic and insipid Cheetah story really brought the shortcomings of the past year of WW comics into sharp relief.

oops sorry this is supposed to be about the positives

SO LET’S TALK ABOUT SHANNON AND DEAN HALE’S STORY OMG. Hippolyta and the Amazons conspiring to stage a monster battle and send out a distress signal just to trick Diana into coming home for dinner?? THE CUTEST.

“When will you return home for good, Dianaki? I don’t trust that metal-and-glass city you live in.” “Mother! This is a battle!” “Are you close to vanquishing evil in Man’s World? What share of global evil would you say you have vanquished at this point? Have you considered a hearthmate yet? I would very much like to see you paired with a fine, strong woman. Or man. It is not my place to judge!” I DIED.

Ramona Fradon! Colleen Doran! Bilquis Evely! Nicola Scott! Lots of great women artists in this issue.

The bad:

Steve Orlando is still a bad writer.

I should clarify: Steve Orlando is a bad Wonder Woman writer in the way that G. Willow Wilson was a bad Wonder Woman writer. It’s evident that he loves the character and wants to do right by her. But he seems so fixated on the big beats he wants to hit, the big messages he wants to broadcast that he never pays adequate attention to how the characters get there -- unless it’s to have the characters explain in annotated essays how they got there. As a result, the emotional journeys are underdeveloped, the implications are underexamined, key character/continuity/world-building details are often flubbed, and the payoff never really feels earned.

Also, he shares Phil Jimenez’s flaw of obsessively and self-indulgently incorporating every piece of Wonder Woman minutia even when it’s to the story’s detriment. I love Peng Deilan. I think she’s a kickass, criminally underused character and I would love a full arc dedicated to her and Diana having mythological adventures together. Her appearance in this story was unnecessary and only served to slow the momentum. I love Exoristos. The reference to her was silly, and her story really didn’t need to be embroidered with American patriotic nonsense. “Reclaimed her honour in the American Revolution”, for fuck’s sake.

(not to mention the idiocy in Diana returning the Godkiller sword to Themyscira, saying “I do not want it ... death should never be wielded with such ease” and then immediately going to pick up another sword from the armoury and saying ‘btw I’m taking this stabby murderstick back with me to Man’s World, is that cool? cool.’ Orlando is so fixated on giving Diana the SWORD OF EXORISTOS so he can make a smartass reference maybe 5% of readers will get that he doesn't consider the larger implications/hypocrisy of this moment.)

Steve Orlando is a bad writer.

The new bracelets are hideous but then everything Jesus Merino draws is hideous, why is he still on this book

speaking of artists, listen, I love Liam Sharp’s art but it concerns me that he’s made it this far in life without realising that women have hips

STOP DOING THIS SHIT TO VANESSA KAPATELIS WHAT DID SHE EVER DO TO YOU

5G can bugger off I really could not give less of a fuck

[m00nslippers]

It’s All About the All-Caste in RH:O Issue #34!

This issue was kind of filler and recap to be honest, but I’m always down for finding out more ways that Jason is awesome and we did get a little bit of that here, so let’s jump in to the review!

Right off the bat (hur hur) we flashback to Jason’s time with the All-Caste. He quotes Neitzsche, “Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” This is juxtaposed by Jason literally fighting a bigass monster as a teen in the All-Caste.

Now this is actually a pretty awesome thing because 1) It’s Jason being a literature nerd, which is what sustains my life. 2) It’s actually pretty damn relevant to what is happening in the plot right now, with Jason fighting monsters (Gotham’s rogues) and Jason dipping into that pool of being a monster himself. There is just so much foreshadowing that Jason is setting himself up for a fall, I’m just not sure how it’s going to shake out yet. Honestly unless he does something a lot worse than what he’s been doing, I don’t personally actually fault Jason or think he’s a monster? Like let’s be real here, the guy gets results.

There is some really awesome stuff here. Internally Jason says “When you’ve died once already--stared at the actual gates of hell--and clawed your way back through six feet of dirt? When you stare at a monster? Nine times out of ten...they’ll blink first.” Damn.

And then the monster, who calls himself “The Devourer of Young Souls”, asks Jason why the heck Ducra chose to send some kid after him, to which Jason says, “She didn’t choose me, she didn’t send me, but she knew better than to try to stop me!” Damn.

Apparently Jason is literally a child of prophesy among the All-Caste. I don’t remember if that was something we knew already or something we learn here, but I think it’s interesting that he basically completed the prophecy and moved on. Because Jason did what he was there for, he slew the monster, fought the Untitled, and now everyone expects him to just stop fighting--and he’s just like, “Uh yeah, no.” Jason’s life is an endless war. It always has been, he doesn’t know how to live another life.

One thing I’ll give Lobdell. I think he’s pretty good at dialogue. He has his moments. He’s not as bad as people make him out to be, but I feel like this guy really needs a writing partner. His dialogue is generally good, his ideas are usually pretty interesting, but his plots just need work and his characterization is inconsistent sometimes. It’s the story execution that needs help, also I think he avoids or brushes over emotional stuff a little too much sometimes and that’s a real detriment to his arcs.

After this Jason summons a crap ton of All-Blades and goes MCU Hela on the monster’s ass and I need current Jason to do this, why doesn’t current Jason fight more actual magical monsters, clearly that’s what he’s good at? I need more of this, it’s too cool. It’s super unique among the bat-family, he’s the only one of them with an inherent answer to magic, why is this so underutilized? *Sigh*

The story picks back up in the present with Jason at a restaurant in France, on a date with Isabel. I’m a little annoyed that these two are back together but I think their interaction here actually kind of puts a perspective on it that I approve of. Jason has an extra champagne glass there and is thinking about his adventures in France with Roy when they fought evil mimes back in Red Hood/Arsenal (Yeah, unpack that one). The champagne glass is also a reference to events in RHATO New 52, when Roy orders a glass of alcohol and uses it to test his resolve for sobriety, which happened on the very same plane ride where Jason meets Isabel. Jason is clearly still mourning Roy, not to mention Artemis and Bizarro. I think this kind of shows that while he probably does still like Isabel as a person, he’s not necessarily in this relationship because he loves her and wants to get back together--he’s vulnerable and needs somebody, anybody to lean on and she’s made herself available.

People give Isabel a lot of flak and I don’t really get it? She’s never been mean or lied. She’s never judged Jason for any of the things he does, and she supports him emotionally, she just doesn’t want to be involved in vigilante craziness which is a perfectly sane thing to want. I think she’s really underdeveloped as a character--What’s her past? What does she like? Who is her family? She’s kind of generic--but as a person there isn’t anything to complain about. I still prefer Artemis, but I think Isabel gets too much hate.

Back at the Iceburg Lounge, Miguel is in charge of fixing the place up after the attack by the assassins in the previous issue. Miguel talks a little about this other reality he says he sees or senses, which is maybe a hint to some future event that is hopefully gonna fix every character inconsistency we all hate but probably not (hey I can dream). We get a tease about Miguel possibly figuring out Jason is keeping Cobblepot prisoner, which I think we all know is coming, but it doesn’t actually happen in this scene.

We see Jason walking Isabel to her hotel and it’s pretty cute to see Jason holding a girl’s hand, okay? I do like it. I almost feel like her quip about proving she doens’t love him for his money is Lobdell jabbing at everyone who is saying she’s a gold-digger. He’s just like, “Dude, she’s not, lay off” I never thought she was but the idea definitely floated around, which I think was a bit uncharitable to her character, as I’ve said. She also says the “L-word” that Jason is so allergic to but she manages to keep him from freaking out about it. I think she does actually love him or she wouldn’t be here and I also think the fact that she comes out and says it is A SERIOUS DEATH FLAG. Ya’ll heard it here first, I think Isabel is going to die at the end of this arc.

Also, Jason speaks exactly one word of French but in my mind this is proof that my language-boy speaks French.

Jason leaves her at her hotel to do some Red Hood stuff and calls Suzie Su on the way to check in. She’s fishing for what Jason is doing, she’s suspicious, but he doesn’t give her anything. Jason, you aren’t doing a great job of convincing anyone you aren’t up to no good. Unrelated to the plot, but let me just say, I like the outfit the artist gave Suzie. Artists always seem to give her really hangy dresses and depict her as gross, but she looks cute here! Those leggings are cool!

Then the scene goes to Essence doing some pretty awesome All-Caste magic to contact the guy Jason dusted, and he goes on to say some BS about Jason’s eyes being empty and how he’s not the same person who was their champion as a teen. I think narratively this is supposed to mean something, but it seemed like few of the All-Caste actually approved of Jason to begin with, and this guy didn’t give the impression he was one of them, so why we are trusting his opinion is a question to. The dude is biased, he never approved of Jason.

Essense talks to S’aru, the dude who took Jason’s most cherished memory all the way back in RHATO New 52, and Essence seems to suspect this has something to do with the ‘emptiness’ in his eyes and his actions in the presence. His most cherished memory was a time when he was sick and had to stay home from patrol and Bruce stayed with him. I mean, sure, you can argue this maybe changed how Jason sees Bruce now and is less willing to believe the guy loves him but Bruce’s actions in the presence don’t exactly even jive with that memory so...eh. I don’t know, maybe there is just some magic awfulness that happens when you lose that memory, no matter what it is.

At the end of the scene Ducra floats in to probably tell Essence she can go attack Jason or whatever but we don’t know what she decided for sure because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Back in France, Jason barges into a perfume shop that is fronting a Kill-Bill style meeting of some criminals calling themselves "The Euro Bloc” who have ties to Cobblepot. They finance the guy in exchange for him laundering their money through his Casino, and I would just like to point out that this is Jason doing exactly what he said he was planning to do--dismantle all of Penguin’s criminal activities. I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing, why is Jason ‘empty’ or a ‘bad guy’? He points out later that he didn’t even kill anyone while in Europe, so what is everyone’s beef? I don’t get it.

So Jason basically says, stop your activities in Gotham, also, leave me alone. They do the typical, “OR, why don’t we just kill you now?” but it turns out that Wingman is waiting in a kickass plane ready to murder everyone if they make a move and so they reluctantly back off. The plane seems to belong to Wingman, who we find out is named ‘James’. I still have absolutely no idea who Wingman is supposed to be or what his relationship with Jason is, though. I really hope we get some more of this information soon.

One thing of note though, is that Wingman is THE ONLY ally of Jason’s right now that knows that he is operating as Red Hood still. Suzie doesn’t, Isabel doesn’t, Miguel doesn’t. Wingman holds some kind of significance, and seems to need/want Jason to be operating as Red hood in Gotham for some reason, which was why he was following Jason, to convince him to return to Gotham, but we just don’t know why yet.

And then in the end, Miguel finally finds out Penguin is behind the glass and the title seems to imply Miguel is going to turn on Jason. penguin must convince him he’s the one wronged (I mean he IS the one wronged but he’s not actually a good guy so we know this is bad even if Miguel doesn’t) because i can’t see Penguin overpowering Miguel who has all this Psionic power.

So this issue was interesting. I loved seeing all the All-Caste stuff though on the whole, it’s mostly set up. Next issue, stuff is going down! I can’t wait!

[tarmairons]

re: that last hp ask i got

i know i said i wouldn’t be cross-posting my bellamort/dark au/riddle fam headcanons from twitter but i’ve decided to post a lengthy updated masterpost here after all so ENJOY bon apetit 

1. see the thing is that 90% of my hcs can’t be described with words bc they’re just.. feelings.. aesthetics.. vibes.. vague scenarios that make me feel some sort of way… the dark au has a certain Feel and i just stick a bunch of domestic concepts in there and shake it all up and that’s it shshsh

2. disclaimer: im like 75% sure my self indulgent ramblings won’t make sense so sorry about that

3. i was fully serious that one time i said on twitter that voldemort’s no.1 priority after taking over the wizarding world was doing sth about his snace (snake face) so yeah. first things first he’s not as fugly in the dark au. as mentioned previously he just looks like mr. ralph and probably wears ornate haute couture power suits

4. the public doesn’t actually know who the augurey is for YEARS… they know whoever it is is voldemort’s second in command and sure there’s rumors that he has an heir but nobody knows it’s delphi. this way she doesn’t have to be reclusive and hide away, she just lives her life, studies and trains, masters the art of dark magic, hangs around town etc, and no one suspects anything bc who would think this tiny super friendly innocent looking girl is the dark lord’s kid — her identity isn’t revealed until she’s deemed Ready to publicly take up her position. and when she is revealed it’s a Big Moment bc she’s a drama queen and lives for attention

5. delphi is taller than bellatrix

6. speaking of bellatrix. she’s presumed dead after the battle of hogwarts which turns out to be a cool bonus for the dark side. any leftover resistance? she’ll take care of that and they’ll never see her coming. tbh this seems a lot cooler in my head bc movie bellatrix would not be stealthy enough to stay hidden for years she would probs trip over something and accidentally commit arson within a few days. but yeah sneaky assassin sounds sexy. plus to be super honest i imagine bella is a teensy bit more collected than in the films... no shade at helena y’all know i would die for her but there are in fact things i would change about her bella. so yeah for a while the only people who know she’s alive aside from her immediate family are probs rod and the malfoys

7. hm so. the malfoys…. much to think about. narcissa did lie to voldemort’s face during the battle so logically he should have killed her the moment he realized she knew harry was alive all along. but this is a soft dark au so let’s pretend bellatrix was like hey dude don’t kill my sister maybe and voldemort was like k. i mean no harm done, harry potter is properly dead in this universe after all

8. but seriously tho. the only reason voldemort didn’t yeet narcissa into a wall was for bella’s sake. he’s nice like that, he probably promised her at one point that he wouldn’t violently murder her family. peak romance

9. delphi is surprisingly close with both her parents although with voldemort it’s more of a mentor-student relationship than a parent-child one bc he’s Like That. growing up it was always bella who insisted they treat delphi more like a child and less like a weapon and voldemort wasn’t always happy about that bc he’s emotionally constipated and also never had a childhood. also he’s, like, evil. so yes, reminding voldemort that delphi was her daughter too sometimes got bella in trouble bc we all know of voldemort’s superiority issues. but no bella didn’t stop insisting that delphi deserved an actual childhood and in the end they compromised like functional adults and delphi turned out pretty well for someone raised by 2 of the most terrifying people alive

10. but yeah that’s not to say voldemort and kid delphi never had soft moments. they did. he even picked her up every once in a while. everyone was surprised, bella most of all. she probably cried in the bathroom later bc the softness overwhelmed her. i’m not sure if i mean that in a sarcastic shitpost kind of way or if she was really moved to tears. y’all decide for yourselves

11. delphi looks very very much like bella but she has tom riddley eyes.. so dark they’re nearly black. and soulless. maybe they even flash red when she’s enraged. and she has very aristocratic very controlled tom riddley mannerisms. it’s not until you piss her off and she goes off the rails that the bella side of her personality kicks in

12. delphi gets along really well with the malfoys (except lucius. she thinks he’s pathetic and likes to tease him. in a friendly way but it’s still harsh. she gets that from her mom) esp scorp. scorp thinks this makes him cool at school bc he gets to fist bump the augurey and not get murdered for it

13. speaking of hogwarts. umbridge is scared shitless of delphi and it’s always a school-wide spectacle when the augurey drops by unexpectedly on official business and umbridge starts stuttering and quivering. scorp sometimes makes a point to approach umbridge and delphi when they’re talking and act all chummy-chummy with his cousin just to make himself look powerful and Cool in front of umbridge and the other students

14. i still don’t know whether voldemort would call delphi ‘delphini’ or just ‘delphi’… i imagine he’s a strict stick-up-his-ass kinda father but who knows. he does call bellatrix ‘bella’ but that’s different i guess

15. but THEN AGAIN he does have a gigantic soft spot for delphi too. maybe he slips up every so often and calls her delphi. i’m literally making this shit up as i go along i’m just smashing my mf keyboard and occasionally glancing at my messy hcs notebook. I TOLD YALL i don’t have solid hcs i just have VIBES and AESTHETICS. the only way you’ll get specific hcs out of me is if you ask very specific questions

16. weirdest brotp is delphi and rodolphus. nobody knows where that came from but they get along so well and it confuses everybody

17. we been knew that bella is batshit crazy and criminally insane or whatever but against all odds she is a surprisingly good mother. she’s always been soft for family (narcissa etc) so it makes sense that she would legit die for delphi. they have this super casual bantery relationship YALL GET ME bella is so proud of delphi she’s literally that “my little baby off to destroy people” meme!!! honestly mother-daughter relationships are my goddamn weakness i would die for the two of them

18. delphi has a gf (underdeveloped oc time!) who, for the longest time, doesn’t know who she is dating bc delphi is obviously not allowed to say. she finds out the truth eventually and she is properly freaked out for a very very long time. and since all of these hcs are stupidly soft we’re just gonna keep making them softer: the gf is terrified of delphi’s parents at first (obvs) but they’re both extremely fond of her (well, bella is, voldemort probs doesn’t care all that much about who delphi is dating so long as she’s not of subpar blood status or secretly spying for the opposition ya know. as long as delphi trusts her he does too)

19. no but really voldemort trusts delphi and bella implicitly. with delphi it’s bc he raised her and he trusts her to be loyal bc she knows no other way, she was meant to be an extension of his power etc. but with bella it’s something he learns over time, to trust her judgement bc despite her many many flaws she’s very perceptive and usually right

20. voldemort probably makes more horcruxes. still haven’t decided how this ties in with the fact that he’s now safely immortal again and neither delphi nor bella are. who knows maybe they all do the do and split their souls. much to think about. feel free to send ur thots and ideas my way

21. ya know im basic and always on my bellamort bs and therefore: as the years go by voldemort warms up to bella. not that he wasn’t already extremely fond of her before but he kicks it up a notch. i mean, he’s already taken over the world so it’s high time to start experimenting with other wilder things like Feelings. 80/90 years old isn’t too late to experience Love or whatever. might as well wake up one day and realize you’re completely and utterly in love with the woman you’ve spent the last 50+ years with whew. LIKE to be fair bella knows him better than anyone — they understand each other, they’re familiar with each other’s likes, dislikes, mannerisms, nervous tics etc etc. let’s be real it freaked voldemort out at first, being vulnerable to any degree (not that he let it show) but it just became so easy to tell her things that it became a natural thing to do. and obvs he trusts her to keep everything between them and never judge him for anything so that’s sweet

22. y’all keep asking me for domestic hcs but what can i possibly say?? imagine literally any domestic scenario ever and just think bellamort and i’ve probably imagined that same scenario before. except its sexier bc the world is dark and evil and they live in a dark gloomy super fancy manor. so we have these 2 goths right but they’re in love but in that casual familiar way YALL GET ME and sometimes they even drink coffee together in the mornings or like. do that thing where Person A returns from work late at night and its dark and raining and Person B is already home just chilling and they don’t even have to talk they just go about their nighttime routine but it’s soft and familiar and COMFORTABLE. i clearly dont have enough softness in my life i just. love domestic scenarios bye

23. i forgot everything else i wanted to write bc i got distracted by domesticity. im also thinking about how voldemort absolutely despises the thought of any pda but he’ll take bella by the wrist in public every so often when he wants to get her attention, or like. put his hand on her back. small things but oh so soft

24. hhhh okay i have a LOT to say about the power fam’s fashion choices but it’s hard to explain without pictures. i have a wholeass ppt presentation but i’m not about to upload 20+ slides to tumblr. but i seriously was not kidding when i said voldemort wears fancy suits and yes i have references. meanwhile delphi is a fan of feathers but mostly goes with lowkey military-style outfits.. she’s practical yet ostentatious. bella sticks to a conservative yet undeniably sexy selection of evil looking dresses.. i should make all of these into pinterest boards hmm

25. controversial opinion but i think delphi knows she and voldemort are half bloods. so does bella but that’s a whole other story, she been knew. anyhow yeah delphi was told the truth bc it was better for her to find out from the source rather than hear rumors from the opposition and begin to distrust the foundations of voldemort’s whole empire and voldemort himself

26. i used to absolutely hate fics where bella would eventually call voldemort by his name but now im like FUCK THAT we don’t do guilty pleasures anymore we just stan ridiculous things and that’s that. one day voldemort had a Thought (shocking, i know) and was like. Hm so we have a wholeass child and we’re basically married maybe bella shouldn’t have to call me My Lord for the rest of her life. BUT ONLY IN PRIVATE. THATS BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM it’s nobody’s business. It Is Nobody’s Business

27. speaking of marriage. bella and rod got divorced a few years after the battle. it was just a formality tho let’s be real. they remained very close friends tho!!!!!!!! i think that’s an unpopular opinion among bellamort stans but i genuinely believe bella and rod were always close the way best friends or family are ya know. rod really loves bella but as long as she’s happy he’s happy even if it means her fucking the dark lord on the reg or whatever

28. going back to #6 — when the public finally finds out that bella’s alive they obviously start to wonder about her and voldemort and connect the dots re: delphi etc but nobody ever gets any concrete answers bc there’s never any public pda.. any sort of affection is limited to when it’s just the two of them. and obviously it’s not like voldemort gossips about his private life in tabloid interviews or whatnot. ALSO the whole Bella Is Alive reveal isn’t nearly as dramatic as delphi’s big moment.. it’s more discreet and insidious in that way it implies that she was there hiding in plain sight all along. and if the ministry can keep sth this big a secret, what else are they hiding.. ah classic intimidation tactics of an authoritarian regime

29. i dont think this is ever stated in the CC but in terms of politics and bureaucracy i imagine voldemort has a fancy office in the ministry and spends 99% of his time there and rarely spends any time out and about. he’s almost never seen by anyone, rarely attends events etc. delphi’s the one who handles the day to day shit in the wizarding world. she’s like.. the public relations manager.. between the public and voldemort

30. bella is of similar status within the ministry but that’s just bc people are scared shitless of her. she doesn’t actually hold any political power and she most certainly does not want to, that is not her area of expertise at all

31. delphi is dangerously powerful and i think that’s really sexy of her

32. re: #21 it’s like. as voldemort warms up to bella, she in turn chillaxes a bit with the whole blind devotion thing and becomes bolder with him like. she’ll outright question his decisions or tell him what he should do, make judgement calls etc. and it becomes a regular thing.. turns into this casual companionship ya feel.. i won’t say they become equals bc that’s just unrealistic but he certainly stops treating her like his inferior. he recognizes her value and i daresay her authority and stops treating her like shit all the time Wow Romance Is Alive!! (this sounds like some sort of “douche fuckboi changes for his poor mistreated love interest” schtick but it’s really not that bc they’re both monstrous people who do not deserve any pity so jot that down. they’re horrible and they deserve each other and they eventually do make it work and i am so so happy for them)

33. it is never outright stated that voldemort can’t love. jkr has said that he doesn’t understand love and that it’s just symbolism!!! that he’s the child of a loveless union and grew up without knowing love!!! BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN HE PHYSICALLY CANNOT LOVE thanks for coming 2 my ted talk. i wasn’t aware of this until a few months ago and i was thrilled to find out my soft hcs are not entirely ooc after all

34. THE POINT IS. THEY ARE A SEMI-FUNCTIONAL FAMILY and i just really love soft domestic scenarios so sorry jkr but the dark au is the only canon now and it belongs to me. everybody has feelings and everything is soft. i’d like to pitch an idea for a kuwtk style reality show but it’s these 3 sociopaths under one roof navigating family life and wizarding world politics

35. to finish i’d like to apologize for downplaying the fact that all 3 of the people i woobified in this post are psychotic murderers and tyrants etc

—— i’ll be updating this if/when i remember anything i forgot AND ALSO send me ur thoughts and comments and constructive criticism etc pls pls pls 

—— follow me on twitter and also curiouscat bc i get a scary amount of q’s about voldemort’s sex life thank you and goodbye

edits:

36. in this household we stan dark haired delphi. no i will not be taking any criticism regarding this particular fact

37. bella and voldemort never get married. obviously, because that’s a disgustingly romantic and pointless thing to do. it’s sentimental and unnecessary (well, voldemort thinks so, bella might just disagree but she’s not about to force his hand) BUT that’s not to say they’re not basically an old married couple anyway. AND as much as voldemort thinks love is weakness or whatever he knows this, that they’re about as close as two people can get. SO if he just so happens to gift her a ring.. well it’s a purely symbolic gesture but the implication is definitely there

38. it’s the horcrux ring. he trusts her that much. m y  h e a r t