#this is so long sorry not sorry I had a lot to discuss

[peachesofteal]

Through Me (The Flood) - secret baby fic Simon Riley/female reader

"Mama."

"That's right little man. That's mama." Orion tucks his face into Simon's chest, sleepy and confused. Simon knows he doesn't understand what's happening, why his mother is asleep in a bed, asleep for days without waking, asleep and hooked up to too many machines.

"Mama!" He screeches, swinging his body backwards, and Simon has to hold him tight, trying to keep him close. Cami says he's struggling, doesn't understand why he's at their house all the time, doesn't understand what's happened to his mum. He's confused, and scared, just a little boy in a world trying to hurt him.

"She's sleeping bub. Mama is sleeping." He bows his head, breathing his son in, swallowing the rattle in his chest. "She's sleeping."

You're sinking into that bed.

It's becoming a part of you, becoming all of you, and no matter how many times they bathe you and turn you and change the sheets, you stay tethered to it. In the mornings, when he begins his watch, he kisses your forehead, your cheeks, your mouth, keeping his eyes closed and wishing on nothing that yours will open.

"I'm sorry." He folds your left hand in his. They had to take the rest of your finger, all the way down due to infection, an agonizing reminder of your pain, your suffering. His failure. "I need you to wake up," he croaks in a voice he's only just learned to recognize, one filled with despair, with mourning. "You have to wake up. For Orion and the baby. For me."

He pleads. He bargains. He begs. He promises.

"I'm done now, mama. I'm done. I'll never leave you again. Never leave any of you. 'm taking a desk job, so I need you to wake up so you can be sick of me hanging around the house all day."

Still, nothing.

Once a week, your doctor wheels an ultrasound in to check on the baby. He stares at the screen with tears in his eyes, his hand covering yours.

It's a girl. A perfectly healthy little girl.

He didn't mean to find out but in the pandemonium of those first few days when they brought you here, it slipped his mind. The first time someone talked about the baby, they said her.

"Her heartbeat is strong, and there are no signs of trauma to the placenta. She's okay." 

They left the room afterwards. Left him to his ugly, rib splitting sobs. Left him to press his palm to your belly and rest his head on the bed beside you, soaking the sheets with his tears.

A girl. Your Phoenix.

Today, the doctor asks him to step outside.

"We need to discuss some potential plans of care."

"What do you mean?"

"She's close to delivering, Simon. If she doesn't wake, we'll need to do a c-section." His heart stops. That's not supposed to be for months yet. How long have you been here? 

"I thought... I thought we had more time."

"We do. Another five weeks or so, but I want to put a plan together, so you have time." Time. He needs more of it. So much more of it with you. He nods, and she gives him a sympathetic smile. "Simon, a newborn and a toddler is a lot of work. I want you to prepare for this possibility, okay?" He pushes it from his mind.

"She'll wake up before then." What the fuck does he know about these things? Nothing. But he refuses to live in a world where you miss the birth of your daughter, where you miss her first breath, her first cry, where you miss the moment where Orion holds his baby sister for the first time.

"Simon-"

"She will," he glares and she pats his shoulder before leaving him in the same spot, frozen, staring at the door to your room.

When he sinks back into his chair, resumes his post, he tugs your hand back into his.

"You'll wake up, mama. I know you will."

[onepiecestarry]

A Different Kind of Pirate - Part 8

Hey guys! Sorry it's been a while, I went back to school and tbh nobody told me my second year in college or engineering would be this hard (they definitely did). But I’m making it thru! Only two more weeks T-T. But I checked on this story and saw 1.2k reads and never would’ve thought anyone would read this let alone that many of you (literally gonna cry). And I loved reading your comments. So here I am to update! I am sorry it took so long but I promise to actually finish it this time :) XOXO

Fluff, 1.7k words, lots of plot points glossed over from the manga/anime (sorry!)

Zoro x Reader

Masterlist

Part 8: A Samurai and a Florist

The next day you all convene to discuss the plan going forward. As you sit you watch Zoro making your tea, just how you like it, and coming to sit next to you, handing you your tea and placing his free arm around you. You lean into him quietly sipping on your tea while you wait for the rest of the crew. Once everyone was there Kin’emon started.

“We must go to Zou to reunite with your crew and find my friend! We will stop at Zou and continue to Wano after reuniting with everyone.” He exclaims.

The plans continue with the usual mapping and joking around. You all were not worried about getting to Zou, especially with Sanji there first to check everything out.

---- (Time skip past Zou events)

After the long process of getting to Zou, fighting, not fighting, fighting again, realizing Sanji’s gone, and finding Kin’emon’s friend was over you all realized you needed another plan.

“Alright, guys!” Nami yells at everyone sitting in a circle talking to get their attention. “Let's figure this out.” She says with a worried but determined look. “Okay we need to split up, half of us will go with Law’s crew and kin’emon and co. to Wano, and the other half will take the Sunny to Big Mom to get Sanji back, we just need to figure out who.” She explains.

“I’m going to get Sanji,” Luffy says with an unnaturally serious look on his face.

“Count me in too!” Says Brook, Chopper, Usopp, and some Minx.

“Okay, I’ll go with you guys to navigate the Sunny.

“Count me out, I ain’t savin' that shitty cook’s shitty life,” Zoro says leaning back on a tree. “And y/n is coming with me, the celestial dragons can’t get to her on Wano.” You hum in agreement at his statement.

“Alright then I think Zoro, y/n, Robin, and Frankie should go with Law, and we will all meet back up in Wano,” Nami says.

Everyone agrees and we all begin to pack to leave Zou. You become uneasy as you realize you’ll have to work with Law, nervous he’ll be upset about your last conversation. But you quickly shake it off knowing it can’t be avoided.

You get to Law’s ship with everyone else, Zoro is unusually close to you. You look up at him with a confused look as if asking ‘What’s up?’. He just nods over to Law and you nod in response, understanding he’s keeping him away from you.

Bepo showed you and the rest of the strawhats to an extra room you’d be using to sleep while traveling. As you walk in you see two small twin beds and two hammocks, four places to sleep, and five people.

Robin is already making one of the small beds for herself and Frankie and Usopp are getting comfortable in the hammock, so that leaves Zoro and you to the last twin bed. He didn’t even flinch, already on the bed getting comfortable and falling asleep. You giggle to yourself as you push him over to make room for yourself.

----

The days flew by quickly on your way to Wano, Zoro made sure that Law never came close to you, not that you were worried if he did. On the last day, you finally arrived, finding a cove to hide Law’s ship in and hiking up to a remote area to discuss your next steps.

That’s when Kin’emon revealed the reason you all were there, and how he and his friends had gotten there too. To say you were shocked was an understatement, but of course, Zoro had no reaction. You look at him dumbfounded that he's not the least bit confused or surprised.

“What? We’ve heard crazier.” He says nonchalantly.

“Have we?” You cross your arms in questioning.

“No, not at all.” He says leaning back on a rock. You giggle at his demeanor.

Your attention is taken from Zoro as Kin’emon starts to describe his plan.

“We will have all of you go undercover and spread these flyers to anyone with the crescent tattoo on their ankle. This message they will understand. Frankie, you will go undercover as a craftsman apprentice, and see if you can retrieve the blueprints of Kaido’s mansion from your boss. Robin, you will go undercover as a Geisha, your mission is to get close to the Shogun. Usopp, you will be a salesman and you will spread the flyers in the capitol. Zoro and y/n, you both will go undercover together as a samurai and flower shop owner. y/n I am putting Zoro with you to ensure he will not cause trouble as a foreign swordsman.” You giggle at Kin’emon’s comment.

“Hey! I don’t get into trouble… that often” Zoro whispers the last part. You laugh at his defense.

Kin’emon begins to hand out locations of apartments and houses we may stay at as well as stacks of flyers to hand out. Kin’emon then gives you all the clothes and hairstyles to fit in.

---

As you walk through the busy streets of the flower capital you smell all the delicious food stands nearby, watching people rush from building to building, as well as others on a casual stroll. You notice Zoro is beginning to turn in the wrong direction, so to prevent him from getting lost you grab his hand.

“I am not dealing with your directionless ass right now pretty boy, stay with me for the love of-”

“Don’t gotta ask me twice,” he says smirking down at you, making it obvious how okay he is with holding your hand.

You both continue to walk around looking for your assigned house, eventually finding it and entering. You look around at the sad wood falling apart, and the floor with torn mats.

“I guess that’ll make do.” You sigh. “Where’s the beds?” You question looking around.

“You mean bed. And probably a futon in the closet.” Zoro says looking through the cabinets in the kitchen.

You laugh at his correction of you and go to look for the futon, eventually finding it and setting it up with fresh sheets.

“Any food in there?” you yell over to Zoro.

“Nah, don’t think so,” Zoro says back.

“Alright, I guess we’ll have to go out and get some then. You sigh.

You make your way past the kitchen heading for the front door, but before you can take another step you are grabbed by your waist and twirled facing the other direction with Zoro leaning down towards your face, with a cocky smirk plastered on his face.

“Where do you think you’re going.” He says teasingly.

“To the flower shop to see what I’m dealing with, and to get some food for dinner.” You lightly hit his chest, giggling.

“Hmm, I’ll come with.” He says letting you go.

---

Once you get to your stall, you realize that it's already stocked with most things you’d need thankfully. Suddenly the woman in the stall next to you comes over to speak to you.

“Hello darling, are you both new in town?” She says sweetly looking between you and Zoro.

“Yes, we are, we just got married and decided to move to the capital from our home village,” Zoro says before you could even think of responding. Realizing what he said, your cheeks flush pink at his words.

“Aw how cute, you two make a great couple, I must say. You will make beautiful children one day I’m sure.” The older woman says innocently smiling at the two of you. You nearly choke on air at her words, but Zoro hides you behind him, thanking the woman while ushering her back to her stall.

He comes back to you stuffing your face in your kimono’s sleeves hiding your bright red face. He lets out a hard laugh, grabbing your face and moving it to look at him, only making you blush harder. You lightly slap his arms away and begin to ready your flower stall as he laughs watching you.

You both decide to return home after “borrowing” some food, as Zoro calls it. You immediately begin to prep dinner when you return, making some rice and cutting some vegetables. Zoro announces he’s going to shower, you hum in response.

Suddenly, you turned around and pressed up against the counter with Zoro’s arms on either side of you. You get flustered at his actions trying to look away. Zoro leans down and whispers in your ear, “Want to join me, wife?” He asks in a deep tone. You freeze at his offer, face flushed with pink once again. He laughs at your reaction and backs off retreating to the bathroom. You quickly return to cutting vegetables to take your mind off it.

You finished making dinner as Zoro exited the bathroom. “Hey, dinner ready, go ahead and sit down. I’ll bring you a-” You stammer as you turn to look at a freshly showered Zoro with a towel barely hanging off his hips, leaving not much to the imagination. You stare for a good few seconds before you realize he’s laughing at you.

You set the small table while he changes, making sure to give him a nice large portion. As he sits down he looks at the food you made.

“Wait is this curry?” He asks excitedly.

“Yeah, I figured it would be easy and filling.” You casually say beginning to eat.

“I fucking love curry.” He says inhaling all of his food. You laugh at him, happy to know he likes the food you made.

Once you both finished, he washed the dishes while you showered. After your shower, you sat on the edge of the futon thinking about the day, when Zoro came in and practically tackled you down onto the bed. Both of you laughing as you recovered.

He grabbed onto your waist pulling you closer as you both go to bed. “Goodnight wife.” He whispers before you hear his soft snores filling the room. You melt into his touch at the thought of how much he loves to call you that, eventually allowing yourself to get lost in the comfort of sleep. 

[serickswrites]

Lonely Place of Longing XVII

Master list link here (includes chapter links, summary, and character bios)

A/N: Alright friends, we have reached the end of yet another longer series. I really, really adored these characters. Like so much. So much to the point that I have completely plotted out (and started writing) the prequel as well as begun to plan a sequel! So there is a lot more Dylan, Halle, and Owen in the future!

And I hurt my own feelings with this series. So yeah, you can be mad at me. Just know that I am already suffering lol

Warnings: blood, wounds, unconsciousness, cpr, mcd, cruelty, grief, dissection mention, captivity, heartbreak

“No. NO. NO. Dylan! PLEASE! GOD NO!” Halle screamed as Dylan’s stuttering breath went out in a quiet exhale. She waited for him to take another wheezing breath. But none came. “Come on, love, come on. Breathe! You have to stay with me.” Halle slid her legs out from underneath Dylan’s body, knelt next to him, and quickly began compressions. “You can’t leave me! You can’t! I need you!”

Each word was punctuated by her pumping his chest. Her vision blurred as she sobbed. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be it. Dylan hadn’t meant any of it. He loved her. He saved her. He was dying. He couldn’t be dying.

But as Halle pumped harder and harder, longer and longer, Dylan didn’t take a breath. Didn’t gasp for air and open his eyes. He lay beneath her hands, body moving as she pumped, eyes closed, features slack. He was still except for Halle’s movement.

Something inside Halle’s chest broke. She couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t happening. She had failed him. She had failed him in so many ways. But he hadn’t failed her. She was safe. She was alive. “Please,” she sobbed as she stopped pumping his chest. “Please, come back.”

But no matter how much she begged, no matter how much she sobbed, Dylan did not come back. And so she sat, for who knew how long, with him, coated in his blood, knowing that this was all her fault. He was dead because of her. Because he loved her. Dylan was dead because of Halle.

Things became blurry after a while. People moved around her. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care that she had made a scene, had exposed her secret, trying to save Dylan. She didn’t care that the others knew how much she loved him. She didn’t care about anything because Dylan was gone.

Somehow, Halle found herself back at Tectus. She had refused to leave his side. Had refused to leave him behind. Though she realized that Thomas, that the Authority, wouldn’t have wanted his body in the wrong hands. Dylan wasn’t free, even in death, of Scutus.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to their empty room. Dried blood flaked from her finger onto the floor. He was never coming back. And she couldn’t even keep him safe after. Though she had tried.

“Do not let the body out of your sight.” Thomas had ordered Aubrey and Lysander to take Dylan’s body away. “The other weapon is a total loss. Totally completely destroyed. It will take us weeks to gather all the pieces. We need to preserve this body. Do not let it out of your sight. Do not let anything happen to it. This is our last chance to understand why this weapon is different. I will not let it ruin all that we have worked for.” Thomas glared at the stretcher. “It may have ended up wasting what it was given, wasting its life. I won’t let it be a waste now. Take it to the research lab. See what they need.”

“NO!” Halle had thrown herself at the stretcher Aubrey and Lysander carried. Someone had thrown the blanket over his face, but hadn’t bothered to be sure he was fully on the stretcher as one arm hung limply, swinging with the movement. “PLEASE!” She screamed as she took his cold hand in hers.

“Return to your quarters until either myself or Samuel summon you,” Thomas said. “We will be discussing your release of duty that Dylan bargained for. Remain in your quarters until you are summoned.”

Halle refused to move. Dylan had given so much for her. What did he give away so she could be free? What did it cost him? He would never be free, so why free her? She didn’t care. She couldn’t let them take Dylan away. She had to protect him. Had to save him of one last thing. She couldn’t let him go. She stared at the blanket, knowing what lay beneath. This wasn’t happening.

Aubrey shifted, trying to move the stretcher away from her. All Aubrey succeeded in doing was pulling the blanket off.

Dylan looked like he was sleeping, his features slack and peaceful. But as Halle fought more and more to stay, to keep his hand in her grip, more and more of the blanket slipped off until Dylan’s body was completely exposed once more. Until she could see the wounds that caused him to bleed out. Until she could see the wounds that he got trying to save her.

Dylan was dead.

Dylan was dead because of her.

Halle dropped to her knees as she began to sob once more. “I’m sorry. Please. Please, love. Please.”

“Take her to her quarters and see that she doesn’t leave,” Thomas ordered. Helena and Andrea stepped forward, ready escort Halle back to her quarters.

“NO!” She screamed as they hooked their arms underneath her arm pits. She fought with everything she had to keep from being separated from Dylan. She was never going to see him again.

“The weapon is dead. It’s useless now. Forget about it.” Helena hissed as she pulled harder on Halle.

“No! NO!” Halle wouldn’t let them talk about Dylan like that. They were all alive because of Dylan.

“You’re making a scene,” Andrea whispered in her ear. “Don’t make this any worse. You’re going to be court martialled if you don’t let go. Do you want his death to be in vain?”

She couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt full of lead. This was real. This was happening. Dylan was dead. Dylan was dead and it was her fault. This was because of her.

“They’re going to dissect the body. Do you want to see what they do to broken weapons in R & D?”

Halle felt nauseous. She was dizzy. She couldn’t see that. Couldn’t let them do that to Dylan. But as she watched Thomas glare at her, she realized she had no power. She dropped Dylan’s hand with a sob. She let Helena and Andrea escort her back. She could barely walk. Could barely breathe. Dylan was dead. Dylan was gone. Dylan died because of her. She didn’t want to be awake for any of it any longer. She flung herself onto the bed as she began to sob once more. Paper crinkled beneath her fingers.

Sweetheart. The outer flap of the envelope read. Dylan had such neat, distinctive writing, there was no mistaking it. Halle didn’t hesitate and ripped the paper from the envelope.

Sweetheart, I’m sorry I had to lie to you. I’m sorry I had to push you away. I thought it would keep you safe. I realize I was wrong now. I wish I had known it sooner. I wish I could have said all of this sooner. I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you.

Tears tracked down Halle’s cheeks. He had known. He had known that this was a suicide mission. And still he came for her. He had walked into the fire knowing he wouldn’t make it out, but that she would.

I was born over a century ago in a small country in the sea that no longer exists. I was poor. I was happy. I had a loving family. I had a life I loved. My world was small, but it was all that I knew. All that we knew. Owen and I were inseparable. Even when the war came we were always together. And when they burned our home to the ground, when the invaders had decimated and destroyed all that we knew, we still had each other.

We were taken back to the invaders’ home, Patricanus. The world was strange. So different from our own. Everything was cold, sterile. We lived in a land of greenery, of land and sea. And this was a dry, stale land. It’s since flourished into a greener place, or at least from what I’ve seen. But one hundred years ago, Patricanus was a desert waste land. And so the powers that be deemed it necessary to invade other places to learn how they cultivated the land. How they kept the land bearing life. And our home was the most fertile of all. I don’t know what they stole from us, but they stole us away, so perhaps that was part of it. I don’t know, it’s not something I ever learned the truth about.

I have never felt pain like I felt being imbued. Words don’t describe the process. My world had been destroyed and Scutus destroyed my body. Scutus destroyed Owen’s mind. There was nothing I could do. I was trapped. I was a prisoner. And I had to do as they ordered or they would destroy the one thing I had left. And so I sold my soul so that he could live. So that the one last thing of my home would remain. I sold the last part of my humanity so the inhuman bastard would live.

I regret that. I should have refused. I should have let them destroy him early. But I was young. I was naive. I thought I could change him back. Could bring him back. But all I brought was pain. I am a wretched, piteous creature, but he was even more so. Life was misery. Time passed so slowly

Until I met you. You breathed life into me after a century of no air. I felt myself coming back to life with you, Halle. You are the best part of my life. The greatest thing to happen to me. And so I wouldn’t take back one miserable moment of my wretched existence because I wouldn’t have met you.

Halle, I’m sorry I’m not here to tell you all of these things. I’m sorry I’m not here to watch you learn the truth, to give you the choice for the next part. We aren’t the only weapons, but you know that. But what you don’t know is that the Authority is the source of all weapons. They sell them to the highest bidder, keep them enslaved, keep them deep in the dark. I bargained for your freedom. You’re free, sweetheart. I only ask that you take the others with you. While I’ll never be able to take you to the sea, you can take them. Be free, Halle, and free the others.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Halle read and reread the letter a hundred times over. Patricanus was the aggressor. The Authority had destroyed a country. Had decimated a people. Had stolen them away and enslaved them. Dylan knew all of that. Knew that and didn’t tell her. Having this knowledge was dangerous. There was more than one reason they kept Dylan locked up and isolated. He was dangerous to the Authority, to Scutus, to the foundations of Patricanus. He knew too much. And he could have destroyed them all.

As Halle gathered what few belongings Dylan had left behind, she made a vow. She was leaving Tectus and so were all the other weapons. She was going to destroy Scutus and the Authority. She was going to ensure the world knew what evil lurked within. And she was going to free them all. For herself. For those that had been lost. But most of all because it was all that Dylan had wanted.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t free you. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I love you. I love you. I love you,” Halle whispered to the empty room. She was getting out of here. She was going to destroy the Authority, expose their secrets and skeletons. And she was getting all the weapons to freedom. Nothing was going to stand in her way.

Tags: @beomsstudio @mousepaw @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @eyehartart @corbytheking

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@anightmarishwhump @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @st0rmm @ay5ksal @pepeniascat

[crow-caller]

I read a lot of YouTube comments, and I respond to a lot of them too. I don't know if this is... uncouth or whatever, but I do.

Sometimes, I get comments which are wrong. Sometimes they're abrasive. People who think trigger warnings are excessive, or that something I've called racist/ableist/antisemitic, Isn't. I do talk back to comments like this. And you know?

A Lot of the time, it works.

Most people who reply back consider what I say, and I've changed their minds. It's not that I'm some great writer, it's often that they are genuinely... confused.

A lot of people simply do not know Why trigger warnings matter, because their only context is mockery and extreme examples.

A lot of people don't know what institutional racism is. If you talk to people about things they don't understand, you won't have a scholarly debate— you'll have an argument where both sides thinks the other is an idiot. I had this recently.

I come at people with sympathy and then, gently, advise them. Do not talk to them like they're idiots or scum if you want to change anything. The above comment is saying "ableism isn't real", but what they unintentionally mean is "I don't know what ableism is so I don't think it's real." This is the case a lot of the time, because people's only context for what these terms mean is increasingly mockery, memes, and political ploys.

I was once a mod on the discord of a large gaming youtuber, a phenomenally half-toxic place— most regulars chill, most random lurkers posting the most atrocious memes and not getting why it was a problem. The head mod understood protecting lgbt+ people in the rules, but didn't Get nonbinary people — he was under the interpretation they were real, but the majority were attention seekers. He cited an account on tiktok, whose schtick was gathering and reacting to "blue hair pronouns" cringe. This was his only context beyond the moral instruction "our rules should protect lgbt+ people". He would have put that rule up either way, but only through discussing it did mods realize this was his opinion, and could explain why it was wrong.

I'm not advising everyone has to talk to everyone this way, I'm saying if you're going to engage, consider trying rather than venting.

[spacebubblehomebase]

What app and what pencil do you use :3?

(I send u big hugs and hav a nice day :D♡)

Hehe. (Hugs back. I like hugs. XD) I believe someone else had a similar question before! I made this art then too to demonstrate how I use, Ibis Paint. The free beginner friendly drawing app! (No I'm not sponsored-) And as for the "pens", I usually go for the default brushes. As in the first basic ones you find on the app! ^v^ I've been promoting this idea for years and I'll never get tired of saying it! While fancier equipment IS nice, skills can ultimately outclass tools any day! =D In fact, sometimes limiting yourself can hone your creativity as it forces you to work with what you have and invent new ways of experimenting with materials that are often overlooked! That's how I learned. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ -Bubbly💙

[deepseawave]

obsessed w the tags on ur last reblog

Omgg, thank you haha, it was a quality post so I just had to appreciate it in full force 😂❤️

Can‘t believe someone would actually enjoy my yapping :,D

[heartshapedgreen]

cannot take most intersex people's discordance with trans people not mentioning intersexuality seriously considering how so much of it is hinged on arguments around transandrophobia + simultaneously denying tme/tma terminology. (the cognitive dissonance is unrealllll)

like whatever line of thought people follow when they homogenize all trans women as white, that's... most intersex blogs on here from what i've seen. like either they're white or nonblack who talk like That. so much so that one of the arguments i saw on an intersex blog was basically "forcing intersex people to adopt tme/tma language is strange because if i should add 'tme' to my bio, that means poc also have to mention they're 'nonblack'" and i was sitting there with tme + nonblack in my bio like.... Yea. maybe you should. (this is specifically important to me because i come from an ethnic group with a sizable black community who have influenced our heritage heavily & i have friends who are black and like... i hate the thing racialized people do on the internet where they go 'i'm brown' meanwhile they grew up cared for by a brown maid and they're the daughter of an oil tycoon. but also like... every ethnic group has nonblack & black members lol? so that's a normal thing to mention.)

there is a lot to be said re: tma/tme terminolgoy, like how transmisogyny functions differently in other societies and how that can influences the usage (or lack thereof) of this language. but like. this is the webbedsite where racialized trans women are purged incessantly & it's just useless to create discussions around that because it will never lead anywhere productive other than white people being voyeuristic.

something that always strikes me as odd is when trans people are posited as the enemy when it's not mentioned that intersex people are forcibly medicalized whenever the topic of hrt comes around is that...... cis people will also look at my intersex body and think i've been damaged by hrt, the same way they talk about exterminating perisex trans people, when i literally Just Woke Up Like This™ & i feel like there is a lot of projection for the hurt that causes onto trans people being happy about hrt changing their bodies. (the implication is always that trans and intersex people experiences are always mutually exclusive as if intersex people don't seek out hrt or are happy about the weird fucked up ways our hormones work on their own. idk about the rest of ya'll but i feel like a mad scientist and the experimented on all at once. it's fun!)

like i think it's important for trans folx to understand when making jokes about "cis people receiving hrt so easily" that. they actually do not. that's the entire point. that's the entire reason why we have to fight for hrt to be normalized. the ones who are receiving it "easily" are forced into it because their body is "damaged". but it's also odd to me that intersex arguments against forced medicalization hinge on fearmongering over hrt the same way perisex cis do & they don't seem to consider that... hrt is ALSO not accessible to us if we want to pursue it out of our own will. it's about autonomy & personhood but that's lost in all these weird transmisogynistic bs. so it's unsurprising to me that none of these discussions are contextualized in an intersectional lens, people turn away their eyes from the fact black transfems bear the brunt of interphobia/transmisogynoir (yes even perisex black transfems!!!!!!) and i have to see stupid shit like "if we're forced to use tme/tma terminology to mark our position in the gender hierarchy then doesn't that mean we should adopt nonblack more widely to show our racial privilege??? fucked up and weird if true!! i'm so smart."

[caramelmochacrow]

fearing death as a trans person hits different. if you died never coming out, changing your name or just doing whatever makes you feel happy with your body it will never be shown in your funeral and everyone will never know you as who you were inside. something about if you died and you DID come out, you did do everything that made you happy abt your body but the one relative in your family that didn't accept you had to fix up your funeral they misgender you and place the wrong name on your grave anyway. or if the relatives that did accept you fix up your funeral with the correct pronouns and name but those who didnt will still misgender and deadname you even when you die. idk man.

[floralovebot]

Hi, I want to ask your opinion on something. You made a post that said changing the Winx's races is bad. I agree that it's not okay but I have a question about Helia. I thought he was Native American when I was a child but you've said he's Asian. Is it wrong to think he's Native American?

I had to think about how to answer this for a while tbh! Sorry for the late reply

Anyway, I probably could answer this with a simple yes or no but I really feel like I should explain my answer.

I'm pretty sure you're referencing this post! Anyway, the biggest issue with race changing the canon characters of color is that when you do it, you're participating in erasure. Again, it's not more representation to, for example, make Flora asian - it's erasure because you're intentionally erasing her being latina. Now like I said, I don't have an issue with like,, children not noticing their canon races or ethnicities. It's perfectly fine if a little kid sees characters as something else! The problem is grown adults ignoring and erasing their canon races.

When it comes to Helia specifically, he is very much coded as asian, specifically east asian. I want to clarify that it's not explicitly canon. Rainbow has never stated what race he's supposed to represent and they've never said if he was based on a real person. We don't even know what planet he's actually from! So his race is all coding. However, that coding is still,,, fairly obvious. And I specifically want to touch on how Rainbow depicts their east asian characters versus their indigenous characters.

Most of their east asian characters have either dark blue, black, or brown hair and more narrow eyes. Like,, that's their go-to when trying to make a character Noticeably asian. They're also fond of putting their asian characters in traditional clothing (like qi pao or hanfu) rather than casual clothing. I added Helia at the very bottom so you can see how he compares to other, canonically asian characters.

While Rainbow has absolutely depicted asian characters in offensive ways (espero...), it's usually pretty respectful. Meanwhile,,, their depiction of indigenous characters is... anything but.

Like before, I put a picture of Helia so you can compare him to the canonically indigenous characters. As you can see here, their depiction of indigenous characters is,, extremely racist! It follows a lot of racist stereotypes like red skin, face paint, headdress, feathers, etc. Just,,, all around Not Good. And you'll notice that Helia doesn't really "fit in" visually. That's not to say that he has to look like that to be indigenous but remember that this is an animated show with intentional designs made by white people. If he was meant to be seen as indigenous, he would likely share more characteristics with these characters (like having darker, red-toned skin). Again, their depiction of indigenous characters is extremely racist. I don't think there's a single indigenous character in winx that doesn't look like a walking stereotype out of an old cowboy film. Unfortunately, Helia would absolutely look different and more like those racist designs if he was meant to be indigenous.

Now, to actually answer your question. Is it okay to see Helia as indigenous, and specifically indigenous to the americas? Well... as Helia's racial coding is still just coding and not explicit, it's not a crime if you don't see him as asian. Like,, while I do absolutely think he was meant to be seen as asian, it's still technically ambiguous enough that it's not a Bad thing if you don't see him as such.

That said, you need to be extremely careful with how you think of and portray Helia as indigenous. I've talked before about Rainbow including quite a few stereotypes about east asian men with Helia, and unfortunately, most if not all of them, can also apply to indigenous men. For example, Helia is calmer and wise (often shown to give advice in poetic ways), connected to nature (ie, birds, plants, Flora), frequently meditates, etc. These are all common stereotypes for indigenous men. I'd actually recommend reading this wikipedia article!

Anyway, seeing him as indigenous isn't inherently wrong, but there's absolutely a chance that you're picking up on indigenous stereotyping rather than coding or a headcanon. Like the long hair, connection to nature, the pacifist comment, the weird and kind of cryptic one-liners he occasionally has... Unfortunately, a lot of the indigenous!Helia headcanons/redesigns I've seen have been really racist. And the common reasoning for why they think he's indigenous often comes down to these common stereotypes.

So like,,, god I know this is long but honestly the answer is complicated. It's not a simple yes or no. It really, really depends on why you think he's indigenous. Like. Just ask yourself yknow? Why do you think this? Think of an actual reason that isn't just "vibes". And if you're creating any kind of content, even if it's just daydreaming tbh, how are you depicting him? Is there even the slightest hint of a stereotypical depiction? (And again, please research stereotypical depictions because there are a lot and quite a few contradict each other)

If you're confident that you're not stereotyping him, then honestly, it's not that bad to see him as indigenous. I do ask that you try to see and understand him being asian coded, as I do think that's important, regardless of whether or not it's in your face explicit. However, it's not like. a crime if you don't see him as asian. Just be very, very, Very careful with how you think of and portray indigenous!Helia.

Also,,, I didn't know quite how to fit this into the rest of the post but,, while it's not Bad for you to not see Helia as asian, you should think about why that is. For example, there are still a lot of people in the fandom who don't see Nabu as asian, despite his coding being extremely in your face and honestly canon at this point. But because he has darker skin, he's from Andros, and he was with Aisha, a lot of people assumed he was black. That's not inherently a bad thing, but some of those people get really mad when others point out that he's very much south asian which,,, is a bad thing. I understand the feeling of losing rep and wanting to protect that, but you shouldn't bulldoze other groups to do it.

I'm not sure what your opinion of asian Helia is, but if you're like,, against him being asian or refuse to see that very intentional coding just because you really like the idea of him being indigenous,, you should think about that and reassess things.

[doubleedgemode]

There's a post that explains it way better than I do but. I'm currently thimking about A.B.As frankenstein influence

Aside from the obvious "concept art refs frankenstein by name, so one could assume the head key worked as her electrodes/bolts" I don't see many people mention how her strive boots are black platforms a la creature's movie depiction's (roadworker if I'm not mistaken?? I probably am) boots. Also yknow they have lil bolts

[ghostbeam]

Oh also for the writing asks

3 4 and 6 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

Hehehe thanks for sending some vixie<333

3. what makes you love writing?

What makes me love writing is that I hate when I’m not doing it wjajwjwjsjsjj mostly I think I like the release like all the stuff in my brain is finally out of there and put somewhere and i can make it beautiful if I really try and that’s really nice

4. what does it take for you to be proud of something you’ve written?

I thinnnnk idk I critique myself so much and compare myself to others so bad and I get stuck like that sometimes but I think just finishing it and knowing that it’s like. What I wanted to write like really really what I personally liked and cared about and wanted to explore makes me proud maybe

6. are your projects driven more by character or plot?

Omg character for sure…I feel like I don’t even know how to set up plot like nothing has plot it’s just scenes in peoples lives

Writing ask meme<3

[shoechoe]

Battle Tendency

If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know that I’ve complained about Battle Tendency before and stated that it is one of my least favorite parts in Jojo. I’ve never really gone in-depth with it besides minor tangents and side comments; a little while ago, though, I decided to rewatch Battle Tendency to freshen my memory on it, and... well, I have a lot to say. I thought it would be interesting to talk about this part and explain exactly what my thoughts are regarding it. Consider this a sort of overview of Battle Tendency; I’ll talk about what it was trying to do with its story and where I think it went wrong. (I have not read the manga for this part, so keep in mind these criticisms will be anime-centric.)

 Content warning for mentions of sexual assault and harassment, a brief mention of incest, and a pretty thorough discussion of fictional Nazis.

Plot/General

In a lot of ways, Battle Tendency directed the course of the series even more than part one did. At the end of Phantom Blood, Jonathan Joestar, our previous protagonist, dies. If the series wanted to continue, it could not be Jonathan’s story anymore- so instead, part two begins fifty years later with an almost entirely different cast of characters and setting. This is the first time the series does this, and if I am correct, this was not something heard of much when Jojo was written. Dividing the series up into different parts not only helped make it popular, but also allowed it to avoid issues such as seasonal rot, excessive power scaling, and running out of things to do, as it can just move on to another story once the previous one is finished.

 Though, while the direction Battle Tendency takes is interesting, I find the plot itself to be lacking. Battle Tendency is very short compared to other parts, and I think this ended up being its biggest flaw. For example, take when Joseph is in a race against the clock due to rings placed in his body set to release poison in thirty-three days, with the antidote only found in rings possessed by Wamuu and Esidisi. After multiple episodes of foreshadowing that Joseph will have to get stronger, now he has to train his Hamon in just a month to get strong enough to defeat them. It’s intended to be tense, set stakes for the story, and force Joseph to train and improve under grueling conditions.

 However, this character-crucial training takes up a total of a single episode’s worth of time. The only moment given any focus is the oil-covered pillar test in the beginning. This period is supposed to focus on Joseph’s improvement in Hamon training, which most take years to learn, and his and Caesar’s bonding as they go through life-and-death situations together and learn humility from their trainers- something that would require more than a ten-second montage of the days going by and vague gestures at hardcore training practices improving their Hamon skills.

 Instead of serving as an extra layer of interest to the story, this entire plot point just feels like a lazy cop-out to develop Joseph’s Hamon skills off-screen. This denies us the ability to feel Joseph’s improvement like we’re supposed to and ruins the tension by speeding the one-month deadline way too fast.

 At multiple points in the story, not just here, it feels as though there are gaping holes in the plot where there should just be more. I expected this training to at least take another few episodes. Not only that, but this training session introduces characters that we are supposed to treat as important but then gives them no focus at all. Loggins and Messina were such laughably forgettable characters that I did not feel a scrap of emotion at Loggins’ death nor was I interested in Joseph’s tedious emotional reaction to it. (In fact, I just had to web search which one it was that died. I did not remember which one was which.)

 What is especially odd is that this extra set of stakes with the death timer does... not actually end up amounting to anything. Joseph defeats both Esidisi and Wamuu days before the rings dissolve. The deadline stops being mentioned entirely at the five-day point or so. It starts off seeming important, but the stakes just fizzle out; it ends up being so inconsequential that it makes you wonder what the point of adding the rings even was. You could say that it motivated Joseph to train and improve quickly, but that motivation was already there in the first place with the Pillar Men actively hunting them down for the Red Stone. The best answer I can think of is the symbolism of Caesar stealing Wamuu’s ring before his death, but that alone is not a very strong reason to portray it as a major, high-stakes factor in the story.

 Unfortunately, the actual major plot device of the story is lacking as well. The Red Stone of Aja is the object of desire for the Pillar Men, the antagonists, who want to use it to become all-powerful immortals, and Joseph has to protect it while defeating them one by one. Compared to the plots of other parts, I find this turned out sort of dull. Would you believe me if I said that I genuinely forgot the Red Stone of Aja existed before I started my rewatch of part two? It’s the main plot device of the part and it’s given almost nothing interesting that you can latch onto. It’s given a semi-promising ability outside of being able to transform the Pillar Men (being able to amplify the power of sunlight), but the protagonists just don’t use it until the very end. It’s pretty to look at but utterly failed to capture my interest.

 Not only that, but the writing here has some noticeable problems. Remember, the stone is only desired by the Pillar Men, who require it to transform into the ultimate beings. In the beginning, it is in the hands of the protagonists, who have no use for it whatsoever. The explanation given as to why they don’t just destroy the stone so the Pillar Men can’t transform is because of a vague “prophecy��� mentioned by Lisa Lisa where the stone is involved in the Pillar Men’s defeat- however, this prophecy is never expanded upon nor shown beyond this single line. It’s painfully obvious that it’s less of a “prophecy” and more of a method of lazily dismissing an easy solution to the main conflict.

 The prophecy does technically come true later in the story, where Kars is launched into space due to his Hamon being reflected at him when it hits the stone- however, the only reason why Kars even needed to be thrown into space in the first place is because he got ahold of the stone and successfully used it to transform into a god. The protagonists still could have just smashed the stone and defeated regular Kars much more easily with Hamon, just as they did with Esidisi and Wamuu- the canonical reasoning as to why they didn’t just destroy it doesn’t even end up working in the end.

 (The especially frustrating thing about this is that the fix for this issue, to me, seems simple. Instead of making up some “prophecy” that wasn’t even given more than a brief mention, just make the stone indestructible. It’s incredibly powerful, after all. Why couldn’t it have just been made impossible or unsafe to break instead of all of this prophecy nonsense that didn’t even end up making sense?)

 In terms of plot, Battle Tendency is dry and littered with obvious plot conveniences and structure problems. The Red Stone of Aja was not given enough intrigue to be investing, a lot of the tension just fizzles out due to poor handling of plot points, and there were easy solutions to the main conflict that were explained away nonsensically. (The part’s final fight and the way that it ended were also pretty flawed, which I will get into.) Despite being such a major aspect of the series, it’s often largely forgotten by a lot of fans, and I think that this is why. The story needed more thought and was overall just too short for its own good.

Characters

 When I see people talking about Battle Tendency, the plot is rarely mentioned. Instead, the focus is all on the cast and the potential that they had. I do like a lot of Battle Tendency’s characters, but I also think that a lot of them could’ve been better.

Joseph

 I think Joseph’s introduction is the moment that piqued the interest of a lot of people reading or watching the series. To sell the idea of killing off the previous main character and replacing him, I think that extra effort was put into making Joseph stand out (especially to contrast Jonathan, who was... well, as lovable as he is, he’s undeniably a very cookie-cutter protagonist, as admitted even by Araki himself). And, with that goal, this part certainly succeeded.

 The core of Joseph’s personality is built around performance. He’s designed to be unpredictable and wild to keep you guessing what he will do next. In a lot of ways, Joseph plays as the comic relief just as much as he does the protagonist- the entertaining, charming nature of his character ends up diffusing a lot of tense moments and adding a layer of humor to the situations he gets into. Contrasted to the frankly dark and disturbing tone of everything else in Battle Tendency, his ridiculous antics lighten the mood and provide contrast to the bleak seriousness of everything around him.

 The thing I find the most interesting about Joseph is that he simultaneously manages to seem clever yet brainless. He’s excellent at predicting motives, strategizing, and observing, letting him excel at the mind games that fights in the series like to do so much. Once he’s in a fight, you know he’ll find a way to predict and outsmart his enemy. At the same time, though, he’s impulsive, hot-headed, competitive, and somewhat bad at meeting new people, which makes him a lot of enemies he could’ve gone without. He’s in that in-between state where you’re not quite sure if he’s a strategic genius or an idiot with ungodly luck and improv skills. The way that Joseph battles, predicts, and outsmarts his enemies’ moves makes the fights in part two’s battles very fun to watch, which is one of its main highlights.

 Joseph is a fun, personality-filled, and important character, which is why he’s a big fan favorite. However, in this effort to make Joseph funny and memorable, I think a lot of his actions delve into being less entertainingly stupid and more just uncomfortable. For example, take this scene where he... threatens to forcefully kiss a stranger for screaming too loudly after he seemingly just murdered a man.

 He keeps this womanizing and uncomfortable attitude toward female characters throughout. When Straizo captures a female journalist and tries to use her life to lure Joseph closer, he dismisses the importance of her life as he thinks that she’s “ugly”. He only steps in once he watches her begin to get brutalized.

 The biggest example of this is when he makes multiple sexual comments and advances toward his trainer, Lisa Lisa, spying on her when she’s in her room naked and constantly trying to flirt with her. Even without the twist revealing that Lisa Lisa was Joseph’s mother the whole time (do you guys think Sigmund Freud would be a Jojo fan?), that was gross and unnecessary and I did not find it funny. I suppose this kind of humor is no surprise considering… Well, it’s an anime, but it does still bother me how this behavior is so frequent and it’s always played off as a joke where he often faces little to no consequence for it.

 My feelings about Joseph are overall complicated due to both this and one bigger reason that I’ll get into near the end. His problems also get worse in future parts, which I may talk about in a different post. Overall, though, I do not think he is a bad character, and I understand his appeal and how important he was for the rest of the series. For people who like part two, I think Joseph is the main appeal for them.

Speedwagon, Erina, and Smokey (AKA: part two’s problem with handling its characters)

 The reason why I’m lumping these three together is that they all represent a chronic issue that this part has with establishing characters that have important or interesting relationships with Joseph, then promptly forgetting that they exist. Most of the characters are affected by this, but these three are the worst victims.

 Speedwagon and Erina are the two major characters that are brought over from part one after the fifty-year time gap. Erina is Joseph’s main caretaker, acting as the only firm counter to his destructive tendencies for the first few episodes. She’s the only one who can keep Joseph’s temper under control and reacts calmly while other characters are left in shock at his antics. (You can feel how used to him she is.) Though, after Joseph leaves New York to go chase the Pillar Men without telling her, she just... completely stops being relevant. I can’t think of a time where she’s brought up after the beginning until the ending footnotes where it’s said that she dies of old age after the story ended.

 Speedwagon is essentially Joseph’s father figure, taking the place of the late Jonathan Joestar. He gets more importance than Erina as he’s kidnapped to lure Joseph to Mexico and discover the looming threat of the Pillar Men, but after that, he also gets largely pushed out of the story until the end, where he shows up with Speedwagon Foundation agents to help Joseph fight the vampire army. He’s important largely just because of the establishment of the Speedwagon Foundation, but he doesn’t do much else.

 Smokey, a new character, is a boy that befriends Joseph at the very beginning and functions as a narrator-type character for the first couple of episodes, several moments even taking place in his point of view, until he also just... kind of leaves until the final fight with Kars. There, he just stays close to Speedwagon while commenting on what’s happening, functioning like a callback to the beginning more than anything else.

 I don’t have much to say about them beyond this because the story doesn’t do anything meaningful with them after the first few episodes. It’s especially annoying because of the interesting dynamic these three introduce. Joseph is strange with people due to his inner desire for justice being concealed by his airheaded and impulsive nature, and he will often disregard strangers’ safety entirely but be extremely protective of his friends and loved ones. Erina and Speedwagon are his surrogate parents, so he respects them in a way unlike anybody else and is enraged when they come to harm. Smokey is a person Joseph meets and befriends, and we see him start to give him a similar treatment as he beats up several people who try to abuse him in very cheesy little anti-racism PSAs. However, due to this sudden shelving of all three of them, none of this goes anywhere. It’s disappointing.

Straizo

 Straizo is another character brought over from part one, but instead of remaining an ally, he returns as an enemy. His main role in the story is to give a sense of escalated stakes compared to part one; he improves on Dio’s use of his vampire powers by utilizing his abilities more effectively, having the expertise and lower ego to do so. One of his first attacks was the blow that defeated Jonathan, the laser eye attack that Dio only used once. He is the first major struggle that Joseph faces in the story, and it’s the moment that makes you go “Oh, shit. This is real now.”

 I like the angle that Battle Tendency went with Straizo. His fear of aging led him to lose his sanity and become a vampire; Hamon can prolong youth, but it doesn’t work forever. Vampires stay eternally youthful but lose their humanity in their lust for blood. Straizo tried to slow his aging by becoming a Hamon master, but when that stopped working, his terror drove him to forgo his morals and humanity in exchange for reclaiming his youth. This is especially effective because Straizo is a character we’re already familiar with and how it echoes some of the goals of the Pillar Men and their quest for ultimate power and eternal life.

 Once he’s defeated, something interesting happens when Joseph saves him from falling off a bridge. Straizo inquires as to why Joseph would save him, then warns him of his future destiny. Sad music plays as he laments on his victory over his aging body and he bursts into pure Hamon light. While his flaws took over him in his last few days, you still kind of appreciate his strength and reflect on the time we saw him on-screen even if he turned evil in the end. This goes well with a recurring theme we’ll see pop up in Battle Tendency.

 Straizo is essentially story foreshadowing, both for the story’s themes and to make you think “If skilled vampires are no big deal for Joseph, what will be the real challenge?” I think he works better here than in part one; it took what would have been a character that nobody would have remembered and made him a bit more worthwhile.

Caesar

 I have to admit that Caesar is a character that I initially hated. It’s nothing deep; his rampant womanizing played off as a character quirk and his irritatingly condescending attitude just ticked me off. However, my feelings have softened towards him and my opinions are now mostly neutral. I think the fan perception and complaints about Caesar’s character are interesting, so I want to talk about what I think of him.

 Caesar’s main purpose is to be Joseph’s foil and main companion. He’s a significantly more trained Hamon user that also possesses the charm and social skills that Joseph lacks. Caesar is sophisticated and focused, contrasting Joseph’s much wilder nature, but they share a tendency to be short-tempered and arrogant. Caesar also has a predisposed dislike of the Joestars due to his pride in his family- he blames Jonathan for the death of Will Zeppeli, so his dislike of Joseph naturally follows. This all seeds an initial hostility that results in them fighting while Speedwagon can only watch helplessly.

 After their quarrel with Wamuu, though, Caesar begins to respect Joseph and their contempt fades after they train and go through multiple life-and-death scenarios together. Eventually, they become affectionate with each other, and they work together when they fight, using two kinds of Hamon at once to expel Esidisi from Suzi Q. Their mutual desire to defeat the Pillar Men led them to understand and respect each other in a way that almost makes you forget the rocky terms they were once on.

 We see in his backstory that Caesar had once resented his father for abandoning him as a child, leading to him severing all ties with his family and becoming a feared criminal as a teenager. In a way, his fierce pride in his family was the cause of him going down the wrong path; his hatred of his father was because he disrespected his family, after all. However, his life is ultimately saved by his father, causing him to regain his respect and embrace his family once more. This backstory is intended to make Caesar feel less of a simple foil for Joseph and more of his own character- fittingly, it’s shown to us right after he and Joseph have a falling out, resulting in Caesar leaving the group and attempting to face Wamuu on his own.

 I have seen complaints about the choice to kill off Caesar after he faces Wamuu. Some people say it was a cop-out, or that killing off Caesar was entirely a bad choice. Personally, though, I didn’t have a problem with this part of the story. While I do agree that Caesar being used more would’ve been nice, I think that’s more a symptom of Battle Tendency’s short length than the choice to kill him off here. I like how he puts up a genuine fight against Wamuu, severely damaging him and even having Wamuu say that Caesar was the toughest opponent he’s ever faced. We’re given hope that he might even win... until he takes a fatal hit.

 After Joseph and Lisa Lisa find Caesar’s body, we get one of part two’s most iconic scenes and most powerful testament to Caesar and Joseph’s relationship: when they see Caesar’s blood seep out from under the rock that crushed him, Joseph screams his name and wails in grief. He’d only known Caesar for a few weeks, but they had grown so close that his death was that impactful for him.

 Overall, I think Caesar is a decent deuteragonist. His relationship with Joseph is very satisfying to see develop and it’s arguably the most believable relationship that Battle Tendency has. He works well as a foil while also feeling like his own character, and I like the way his death played out writing-wise despite it not emotionally impacting me very much personally. He’s a victim of Battle Tendency’s stunted length, yes, but I could also say that for almost every character. Though I’m not personally enthusiastic about Caesar, I don’t think I could find many things to complain about (besides the fact that his misogyny gets annoying).

Lisa Lisa

 I find Lisa Lisa’s writing interesting just as much as I do irritating. Unlike Joseph and Caesar’s blunt expressions of their emotions, Lisa Lisa masks her true feelings under a layer of coolness and apathy to be a strong mentor. On the surface, this makes her seem harsh and even cruel at times. She seemingly leaves Joseph and Caesar to die if they could not find a way to climb the oil-covered pillar by themselves. You see her as this tough, distanced teacher that puts them through grueling training out of necessity to beat the Pillar Men; for a while, you aren’t quite sure if she cares about them as individuals or if she just sees them as things to harden into proper weaponry against the enemy.

 When Caesar dies, she attempts to appear level-headed and unfazed, even taking out a cigarette as she calmly orders Joseph to head out. Joseph is first enraged at her seeming disrespect and lack of care- only to realize that in reality, she was struggling to hold back her tears, her cigarette held backward in her hand. All this time, she had distanced herself to appear strong and composed, to the point where it appeared like she didn’t even care about her students or their lives. But in reality, she cared very much, and the loss of Caesar was just as emotionally devastating for her as it was for Joseph.

 Though the uncomfortable incest jokes somewhat taint her relationship with Joseph, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on with them, too. She’s secretly Joseph’s mother, forced to abandon him as an infant for their safety after she murdered a vampire disguised as a military officer for killing her husband. She had to erase all traces of her identity and start a new life in Venice, with Joseph retaining no memory of her. (Fittingly, she was also adopted by Straizo as a child, which makes you view him in a different retrospective light as well.) With this extra context, it’s no wonder why she masks her true self so well; she’s been doing it constantly for years. Joseph’s complete lack of knowledge of their familial ties and anger at her coldness must’ve been incredibly painful for her, not only because she does care about her students, but because she and Joseph are family, something incredibly important and precious in Jojo.

 While I think Lisa Lisa is a good character, a lot of the way that she’s handled annoys me. Her character is intended to be pro-female empowerment, with her skills being impressive and even sometimes surpassing the male characters. With the only women thus far in the series just functioning as minor love interests like Erina and Suzi Q, she breaks the standard for the first time by being not only an incredibly powerful Hamon user but a mentor figure that commands respect from the male characters. Even Caesar, the chronic womanizer, respects her and treats her like his superior. Having a woman be involved in the story instead of being relegated to a minor love interest character is a breath of fresh air for Jojo at this point in the series, so I can appreciate Lisa Lisa just on that end.

 However, this message ultimately ends up falling flat. She’s mostly relegated to the “teacher” role and never actually gets to do any fighting herself. Curiously, she only gets to demonstrate her skills through enemies that exist purely to be defeated by her.

 Remember this guy? (I didn’t.) He shows up, brags about how strong he is, and Lisa Lisa takes him out all in about three minutes. He’s a one-off goon that serves no purpose in the story other than showing off how “cool” and “badass” Lisa Lisa is.

 Later, Lisa Lisa almost gets to fight Kars, a much more important and plot-relevant character, but this doesn’t end up happening. Kars simply cheats, uses a decoy, and stabs her in the back... and immediately, she becomes a defenseless, unconscious woman that Joseph needs to save.

 We get all of this talk of Lisa Lisa having Hamon skills that make everyone else look like an amateur only for her to never be allowed to get involved in the fighting in any meaningful way. That goon that she killed, the only moment where she gets to fight, was a way of cheating us out of her skills being important to the story. She’s painted as a “strong” female character, but she is still functionally the damsel in distress.

 I suppose you could view the damsel-ing as trying to subvert your expectations by building her up as strong only to have her become helpless, but doing that while trying to convey a message of female empowerment is just kind of insulting. It also disappointed me how she had no after-conversation with Joseph after he learned about their familial connection. Lisa Lisa was interesting, but ultimately badly used. (Also, the incest jokes were weird.)

The Pillar Men

 I’ll be blunt: the Pillar Men are the best aspect of part two. They build upon the vampire and stone mask lore from part one in an extremely interesting way while still leaving room for mystery, contrast well with Joseph’s character, and suit the themes of the story very well.

 There’s this David and Goliath dynamic set up between them and Joseph. It’s established that the Pillar Men like to eat vampires, the previously daunting threat of part one; it’s a superhuman food chain where humans are even less than prey. Even with intense Hamon training, the odds of a human winning against them are slim- Kars, Esidisi, and Wamuu alone drove the Hamon users to near-extinction years ago to the point where Lisa Lisa’s small group is all that’s left. So, then, if Jonathan, a natural Hamon user, struggled (and ultimately did not succeed) to defeat Dio, a measly vampire, how is Joseph supposed to defeat the Pillar Men and curb their plans for achieving ultimate power?

 Though Kars is technically the main villain, I most often think of the Pillar Men altogether as the main antagonists of Battle Tendency. It’s partly because of this that my main gripe with the Pillar Men is that, beyond their premises, they feel kind of bare minimum. Most of their interactions with each other are just them standing menacingly and discussing their plans of getting the Red Stone. They would have benefited from expanding their backstories of traveling the world for the Stone together, having them interact and giving them clearer dynamics with each other, and exploring their personalities more. It sets up something interesting to think about but doesn’t use that setup to its fullest potential.

Santana

 Santana is meant to be our introduction to the Pillar Men. He demonstrates their base abilities and gives Joseph a sample of the kind of enemy he’ll have to face. He’s the weakest of the four we meet alongside being less “sophisticated” than the others, not seeming to share their goals or knowledge. Despite this relative weakness, though, you note that he’s still extremely powerful. He’s hyper-intelligent and possesses a scary level of strength, two traits that were enough to immediately escape his containment and brutally slaughter an entire crew of soldiers like it was nothing.

 Not only is he threatening, but he’s also very horror-esque. He reminded me a lot of John Carpenter’s The Thing with the way he contorts his body in disturbing ways, melting into his victim’s flesh and absorbing them. He gives off an almost otherworldly feeling with his alien biology combined with his stoic yet wild attitude as he digs into the human guards and kills them all in an instant. I think the tone here is executed wonderfully; for a minute, the upbeat and goofy tone due to Joseph’s antics takes a backseat to the dark, macabre reality of the part’s threat.

 I also love the way he and Joseph interact with each other, with Joseph taking the situation with zero care and goofing around with Santana only to immediately go into a state of pure rage once he realizes Speedwagon is in danger. I enjoy the fight between them very much- Joseph, possessing but being critically untrained in the one thing keeping Santana from instantly killing him, needs to scramble together all of his luck and what little Hamon skill he has just to stave off instant death. It’s tenser than any fight we’ve had before and I was into it.

 Though, while his fight is good, the way Santana’s character gets capped off is somewhat confusing. The way his body wasn’t fully destroyed and was instead preserved in UV light leads you to think that he was going to come back at some point, but this never happens. He doesn’t even get mentioned afterward besides the one off-hand comment from Kars. If there was no plan to bring Santana back, I don’t see why he couldn’t have just been killed off instead of being left in stasis like that. For the role he plays in the story, he works well, but he kind of leaves you hanging.

Esidisi

 Esidisi is the general least favorite among the three major Pillar Men, and it’s fairly easy to see why. He’s a bit of an awkward middleman between the younger subordinate Wamuu and the dominant leader Kars. I always felt like out of the three, he was treated the least like a character and more just like a first boss fight. Though, even with the limited attention that he gets, I found his time in the spotlight still entertaining.

 Esidisi shakes up your expectations on how the story structure will play out. He’s Wamuu’s higher-up, giving his poison ring second, yet he ends up confronting Joseph first. Most majorly, he shakes our confidence in Joseph for the first time. With the fights before, even when the odds get stacked against him, we’re always reassured by the idea that Joseph can predict his enemies’ moves and have a counter ready. With Esidisi, however, he’s so good at concealing his thought process that Joseph finds him utterly unreadable. Esidisi even once turns Joseph’s “next, you’ll say ____!” catchphrase on his head, predicting his thoughts first. For a while, our confidence that Joseph will win the fight alone is endangered.

 Esidisi has a lot of interesting character traits, but they get frustratingly unexplored. It’s shown that he’s not afraid to show extreme displays of emotion if it’ll clear his head; when his arm is cut off, he suddenly starts bawling in grief for his lost limb, throwing Joseph off his game when he thought he managed to get the upper hand. However, this is the only scene we get showing this character trait. It’s also revealed in Kars’ backstory that Esidisi was the only Pillar Man who sided with Kars, and not only helped him genocide his people but raised two babies alongside him. This implies a very close and interesting relationship with Kars that is... not elaborated on in their actual interactions very much at all. Beyond his fight, it seems like the story wanted nothing to do with him.

 When Esidisi is killed, something similar to what happened with Straizo occurs again, only more overtly. Joseph, feeling strangely bonded to him after their fight, honors his life and respects his drive to defend his comrades, setting aside good and evil just for a moment. Esidisi might’ve been a force for bad that needed to be stopped, but he lived for thousands of years and fought earnestly for what he believed in, and to Joseph, that’s something he can’t help but revere. This attitude of “you were evil, but I honor you after taking your life in battle” pops up once again in a surprisingly somber sendoff for a villain character.

 Esidisi is my least favorite Pillar Man, but that’s not because I dislike him. He’s just the least important of the four and his most interesting traits were not focused on as much as the others.

Wamuu

Wamuu is my favorite character in Battle Tendency. Kars is the main villain, but I think Wamuu is more important than him for most of the story. He gets the most fights out of any of the Pillar Men, having three instead of just one. He’s the most developed and explored out of all the Pillar Men and ends up being the most well-written by far. He’s the only one I feel was used to his full potential and I ended up enjoying any time he was on screen. 

 Nowhere is the recurring theme of honoring courage and power regardless of alliance stronger than with Wamuu. Unlike Esidisi, he did not join Kars freely as an adult, instead being taken as a baby and raised to be loyal to him. Despite being on Kars’ side, he does not seem very interested in the Red Stone as much as he has the desire to be an honorable warrior and wants a fair, good battle for all that wish to challenge him. He often refuses to kill his opponents, requesting they get stronger and come back later to fight him again. We get a scene where Wamuu refuses to harm a little boy, believing it wouldn’t be fair for him, which makes Kars kill the child himself. When Caesar was about to die, he stole Wamuu’s poison ring to give to Joseph, which he allowed simply out of respect. While Wamuu is still an antagonist, you get the impression that he’s not quite as evil as the others.

 The final fight with Wamuu in the arena is my favorite arc in part two. It’s tense, creative, and incredibly investing. The fight being in horse-drawn carriages reminiscent of Roman gladiator shows with a crowd judging Joseph’s every move shook up the typical fight structure and fits both Joseph and Wamuu’s characters incredibly well. Wamuu loves fighting and expressing his strength, and Joseph is such an entertaining and performance-based character, why not turn their final battle into a show? Both Wamuu and Joseph dangle on the brink of death at several points throughout and have to make serious shifts in mental states to give themselves the strength to keep going. I don’t know how to elaborate on how much I like this fight in any better way than “it’s so cool, holy shit”.

(Side note: In the fight, Joseph calls on Caesar’s spirit to help him, burning his headband as a symbol that he was with him the entire time. Usually, in Jojo, death is a very final sendoff for a character; when someone is dead, they’re rarely mentioned again. I found it surprising that such a major symbolic move in Caesar’s name would be used so far after he died. It’s an additional testament to how strong Joseph and Caesar’s bond became.)

 When Wamuu takes a fatal hit, instead of celebrating or finishing him off, Joseph eases his pain in his final moments by giving him his blood and they share a surprisingly tender final conversation about respecting each other and the honor of battle. Wamuu even flat-out says that immortality means nothing to him- all he was seeking was a true warrior to challenge, and he finally found that with Joseph.

 Even though they just tried to murder each other, there’s no animosity between them in this last scene. As Joseph salutes Wammu’s passing, the narration even states that, in a complex way, they were friends.

 I always thought this theme of honor was the most fascinating thing about Battle Tendency, and it’s done in such a believable, earnest way with Wamuu. He’s what I look back upon most positively when I think about part two. I wish the rest of the part was as good as this, but frustratingly, it just isn’t.

Kars

I have mixed feelings about Kars. Though the Pillar Men as a whole are good villains, Kars himself falls short as the main antagonist. There are a lot of things that I like about him as a character, but he’s not a great main villain.

 Most of the issue comes from the fact that he stays out of the conflict for most of the story to build suspense only to have an underwhelming final fight that doesn’t keep him in your memory very well. He doesn’t give Joseph a poison ring and largely keeps to the shadows as a calm, mysterious leader figure. He gives hints of an interesting character throughout- we know he’s the mastermind behind the Red Stone plot, meaning he’s incredibly intelligent and has a strong desire for power, but outwardly, he seems very quiet and composed aside from short bursts of maniacal laughter or bloodlust.

 Kars’ morality and respect for life are complex. He has an appreciation for nature, actively avoiding causing harm to plant life and saving animals on multiple occasions. Compare the scene of Kars slicing a car in half to save a dog to Dio burning Danny alive in part one- Araki loves dogs and uses their murder to symbolize pure evil in a character, and Kars actively contrasts this. And, while he goes against his comrades’ wishes from time to time, killing a boy that Wamuu wanted to let live, there’s no sign that he doesn’t care about his allies, with him mourning their deaths and swearing to avenge both of them after they’re gone.

 However, not only does he slaughter hordes of humans in his way, but in his past, he genocided his people for not aiding him in his quest to gain immortality. He is perfectly willing to be heartless if it means getting what he wants. While he may have some humanizing traits, his ambition turned him into a monster regardless.

 Once Wamuu and Esidisi are dead, he betrays his agreement to a fair battle and stabs Lisa Lisa in the back. His stoic exterior falls as his true deceitful nature is revealed and he disrespects everything his recently-deceased comrade valued. For the final fight against Kars, the morality and respect dynamic built up throughout the story is thrown in the garbage. Not only is he evil, but he’s also a dishonest piece of shit. Unlike Esidisi and Wamuu, no respect is afforded to him.

 I like this personality twist for Kars in theory, but in terms of a climax and conclusion, the final fight wasn’t very good. Once Kars gets the Red Stone and becomes an unkillable superbeing, the fight essentially becomes Joseph being chased by Kars as he desperately thinks of ways to hold him off. In some way, my issue with this final fight is something inherent to having an unkillable, all-powerful villain like this- virtually the only way they’re going to be physically defeated is through some serious plot contrivances that instantly break story immersion. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens, as Joseph suddenly holds up the Red Stone as Kars attempts the killing blow, leading to a volcanic eruption, which... launches Kars into space, somehow.

 Symbolically, I like this fate for Kars. He committed atrocities all in the name of his obsession with immortality, and eventually, he got it- however, this turns into his curse as he’s doomed to float in space for eternity, causing his formerly genius mind to stop functioning as he wishes for death only to never receive it. However, as an end to the final battle, I did not find this well-written, sensical, or satisfying. This felt like a sudden jolt to the finish line using stretches of logic far further than even acceptable for Jojo. The only word I can think of to describe it is “lazy”.

_

 As you’ve probably noticed, there’s one big aspect of part two that I have neglected to mention so far. This is, of course, Stroheim and the major plot point of the Nazis. I felt this needed to be discussed in its own section, so now, I will do that.

Rudol von Stroheim (and the inclusion of Nazi Germany)

 The inclusion of Nazi Germany along with prominent Nazi characters is arguably Battle Tendency’s most infamous feature, and it’s easy to see why. The Nazis have a big impact on part two and make several recurrences throughout it. When it comes to including Nazis in a story, it is important to take care in the way you portray them; bad handling of any sensitive subject can lead to your work sending unintended messaging to the viewer that might not be ideal. Unfortunately, this is where we run into some issues when it comes to Battle Tendency.

 The first Nazi appearance in the story is when Joseph arrives in Mexico to find Santana. The Nazis, stationed there with the Pillar Man in his dormant state, want to utilize him as a weapon for their plan of world domination. Battle Tendency takes place in 1938; while the Nazis were in control of Germany at this time, this is before World War II began with Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, and a few years before the Holocaust in 1941, the Nazis’ worst atrocity.

 Despite this, though, the Nazis’ brutality and fascism are made very clear in the beginning. Not only do they explicitly desire world domination, but it’s also revealed that they’re holding an entire Mexican village prisoner, packing them into cages, experimenting on them, forcing the women into sexual acts, and using them as servants. In one scene, they promise to let the innocent people go free if they choose one person to sacrifice for an experiment- only to then reveal they intend to have them all executed except for the sacrifice instead in a cruel twist of extra psychological torture. This is not far off from real tactics Nazis used in their brutal treatment of minorities; inhumane experiments on prisoners were frequently done by Nazi scientists and Jewish prisoners were often tricked by being told that they were being given a shower before being gassed to death.

 Rudol von Stroheim, a Nazi officer in charge of facilitating the experiments on Santana, kidnapped Speedwagon to get information on the Pillar Men, forcibly extracting information from him with a truth serum. He sexually harasses prisoners on-screen and was the one who personally decided to execute the villagers being held captive.

 He, a high-ranking Nazi, commits an explicit act of genocide on a group of innocent people. Keep this in mind.

 Though it’s fictionalized in the typical Jojo fashion, I feel as though at this point, the Nazis are very explicitly framed as evil. They murder innocents, they kidnap, they torture, and they want to take over the world; all things you are very clearly not supposed to like. There is the question of if this was an appropriate thing to bring into such a goofy story like Battle Tendency, but that is not my focus- if the story stayed like this, I would not have felt much of a need to write about it. However, when Santana breaches containment and slaughters Stroheim’s crew, something very odd begins to happen.

 During the fight with Santana, Stroheim ends up helping Joseph. After Santana grabs onto Stroheim’s leg, he demands that Joseph chop his leg off, claiming that he would gladly lose limbs if it were for the sake of Germany. Joseph, who previously did not care for the Nazis, makes this remark:

“I thought he was a coward, but when the going gets tough, his bravery shines through.”

 Stroheim then proceeds to sacrifice himself by using an explosive device to try and take both himself and Santana out at once, something that brings our protagonist to... tears.

 At this point, I was getting confused. Why is the Nazi who just massacred a village being mourned by our protagonist (who did not spare a second of thought for the slaughter of an entire group of Nazis a few minutes ago)? You could make the argument that Joseph didn’t see or know about anything Stroheim did, but the way this scene is framed makes it feel as though we are supposed to feel the same as Joseph here- we are supposed to feel bad about Stroheim’s death. I do not see how this was in any way earned or justified and it feels jarring and inappropriate.

 Later, after Joseph meets Caesar in Italy, it’s revealed that Caesar has a friend that’ll take them over to the site where the other Pillar Men are being held. He also just so happens to be a Nazi.

This character is portrayed as a good man with any rivalry explained away by the fact that Italy and Germany are allies. The fact that he’s a Nazi is nothing but a background detail, and Caesar’s friendship with him is treated as something harmless. When Joseph’s group arrives at the Pillar Men’s site, Caesar’s Nazi friend is killed by Wamuu and it’s treated as something tragic yet again as Caesar mourns his death. This is twice now that a Nazi character being killed is taken as some horrible casualty of the Pillar Men that we’re supposed to feel bad about. (The Nazi character didn’t even do anything particularly brave this time.)

 After this, the Nazis are out of the story until Joseph’s group travels to Switzerland to find the Red Stone. There, they are again encountered by the Nazis, revealing that they have been watching them this whole time. Joseph’s group and the Nazis then agree (though through pressure from the Nazis) to help each other, with Joseph’s group giving them information on the Red Stone and the Pillar Men and the Nazis letting them into their base for shelter and providing help with defeating them. (Interestingly, it is said yet again that the Nazis are seeking world domination, but this is pretty much ignored.)

 They are then all ambushed by Kars in search of the Red Stone, but as Kars tries to attack, a retaliation happens from none other than Stroheim. It turns out that, despite Stroheim’s body being blown to bits, he was rebuilt with the Nazi’s advanced technology and is now a kind of cyborg, allowing him to come back from the brink of death with an entire arsenal of weapons in his body. Joseph remarks on Stroheim’s return with this... interesting line of dialogue:

 Too… pompous. Stroheim is just too pompous. Yes. That’s the problem. (This is sarcasm.)

 After Stroheim fails to stop Kars, the Nazis are once again out of the story until Kars tricks Joseph and he’s swarmed with vampires, where the Nazis barge into the plot once again. They and the Speedwagon Foundation have developed anti-vampire technology and helped in the final fight by getting rid of the vampire army so Joseph can focus on Kars. Speedwagon makes a lighthearted comment about Stroheim:

You would think that he would have a significantly less friendly attitude toward the fascist that kidnapped him, forced information out of him, and was responsible for awakening the Pillar Men in the first place, but I guess not.

 Stroheim helps Joseph fight Kars and they both witness him getting launched into space. At the very end, Stroheim receives a mention in the summary of the character’s fates, where it’s stated that he... dies an “honorable” death fighting for the Nazi army in Stalingrad.

 “Honorable.” The Nazi general. The fascist. The character that sexually abused innocent prisoners he was using as slaves. The character that mercilessly slaughtered an entire village of innocent people to fuel his weapon of mass destruction. The character that does an explicit Hitler salute and is shown in nothing but Nazi attire throughout the story. “A proud German soldier.” “Honorable.”

Yeah, can you see why this is bad?

 The way that the Nazis are portrayed is, at best, a severe flaw in Battle Tendency’s writing. At worst, this is, intentionally or not, actual Nazi sympathizing. Regardless, this upsets the balance of the entire part and makes for some incredibly uncomfortable viewing, to the point where it supersedes every positive aspect of part two- in a lot of ways, it is the real rot underlying this part, tainting the entire story and making every character at least a little bit unlikeable. This is the reason why I can’t say that I fully like Joseph or Caesar as characters. It’s the reason why I avoid talking about this part in casual discussions, and when I do, I have to use such vague language and swerve around major plot points to not immediately escalate the conversation, as I have been doing throughout this analysis until now.

 Every attempt to defend this that I’ve seen has involved ignoring the obvious and pushing claims that are just not true about what Battle Tendency did here. You can’t call what happened to the Nazis a character redemption; no true change in belief occurs here. The Nazis never stop being Nazis, nor do they cease seeking world domination. Stroheim never faces consequences or is even criticized for slaughtering innocent people to use in his experiments. The only reason why he realizes that he was wrong for doing it was that Santana was too powerful to control. It’s not a “WWII hadn’t started, so the story operates like the Nazis aren’t bad because we didn’t know it yet” scenario, because we see the Nazis have explicitly fascist goals and commit atrocities before their rapid portrayal shift. It isn’t just a worst-case “teaming up with one enemy to defeat a larger one” scenario, either, because as we can see, Stroheim and other Nazi characters are actively praised and treated as good people after this point. No matter how I look at it, this is indefensible.

 If this wasn’t already bad enough, it also makes the whole story confusing and unfulfilling. Remember, the Pillar Men are supposed to be omnicidal tyrants, but the only hordes of people we see them kill are Nazis. This is intended to paint them as monsters who kill without a second thought, but it doesn’t register because the only people they’re killing are tyrants themselves. (If you ask me, it has the exact opposite effect of making them the most likable characters in the story.)

 Not only that, but aren’t the Nazis even more of a threat than the Pillar Men are? With their similar desire for world domination combined with highly advanced technology, exponentially greater numbers, and, thanks to Joseph, knowledge of Hamon and the Red Stone, they’d also pose (and obviously ended up being) a massive threat. Battle Tendency ended on a “happy” note due to Kars’ defeat with only a brief side mention that World War II began at the story’s conclusion. Joseph stops one disaster only to completely ignore, if not aid, another starting. (Hell, Jewish people are never even mentioned despite being the most major of the Nazis’ victims. What’s up with that?)

 What makes this whole thing especially angering and upsetting to me is that this series has quite a bit of messaging that’s very anti-Nazi, including in Battle Tendency. Let me put it this way: In terms of actions and desires, what makes the Pillar Men different from the Nazis? The Pillar Men wanted immortality; so did Nazi Germany. The Pillar Men wanted world domination; so did Nazi Germany. The Pillar Men slaughtered innocent people without care; so did Nazi Germany. Every single thing that the Pillar Men are treated as evil for, the Nazis explicitly wanted and did as well, if not even more and more successfully. If the Pillar Men are treated as evil tyrants who need to be stopped, why aren’t the Nazis acknowledged for attempting the same thing? Why is Kars’ slaughter of innocents and desire for immortality and world domination an inexcusable evil, but Stroheim is forgiven and gets to become a core ally despite trying to achieve the same thing and never realizing that his army is in the wrong?

 There are more examples of this, too. Do you remember Battle Tendency’s opening scene, where Joseph defends a black child from being brutalized by corrupt policemen in a cheesy but blatant anti-racism message? What about Lisa Lisa, the point of her character advocating for gender equality and the idea that women can be just as capable in battle as men? What about George Joestar II, who fought in World War I against Germany and was framed like a hero for it? All of this (attempted) messaging- gender equality, anti-racism, anti-genocide- are things that do not fall in line with a pro-Nazi line of thinking. Not only that, but remember, you also have the fact that in the beginning, Nazis were explicitly portrayed as bad. They were treated as evil for having the goals that they did. You saw the way that they brutalized minorities and viewed every other nation and people as inferior to them, and it was framed as harmful.

 This is where my opinions get more complicated. While the portrayal of Nazism in Battle Tendency is an unforgivable oversight regardless of its original intent, I do not believe that Battle Tendency was intending to send a pro-fascist message. I just do not think that a writer with a truly positive view of Nazis would put scenes like Stroheim’s sexual abuse, slaughtering of clearly innocent prisoners, and blatant irrational German ultranationalist beliefs into the story. So, then… How did this end up happening?

 I think that there are a couple of underlying problems that led to this. The first one is the broken way that Battle Tendency treats its antagonists. When Stroheim and the Nazis were being more appropriately portrayed as evil, it was before the Pillar Men were introduced into the story- Santana and the others were still in their “dormant” states, so they were not yet a threat. Stroheim was Joseph’s main priority in stopping as he was the biggest threat introduced so far, and so he was treated as a villain.

 The moment that Stroheim’s portrayal flips can be pinpointed to when he begins fighting the Pillar Men instead of aiding them. The characters, instead of objecting to his help, instead seem to completely forget what Stroheim was doing beforehand and accept his and the Nazi’s allyship with little to no fuss. Their attitudes become very lighthearted, with the most negative comments being light teasing about Stroheim’s obsession with German superiority. The Nazis suddenly start being portrayed in a disturbingly positive light as they become recurring characters due to proving useful allies against the Pillar Men; to rub it in, it’s even revealed that Caesar has a friend who’s a Nazi. The Nazis stopped allying with the Pillar Men, so in the eyes of the narrative, they have become the “good” guys.

 Another thing that I think contributed to this is the recurring theme that Battle Tendency has towards honoring power regardless of good or evil. The same thing happened to Straizo, Esidisi, and Wamuu; once they were defeated, the story tries to make you respect them for their fighting strength even though they were evil. It doesn’t matter if they were good or bad, the story says- they were strong, honorable fighters that committed to their beliefs with all of their hearts, which is worthy of respect regardless of morality. After the Nazis were shifted from their “antagonist” role, I think this theme might have been haphazardly applied. Stroheim was a prideful soldier committed to his cause, and so, according to the story, it doesn’t matter if he was an evil, genocidal tyrant hellbent on world domination… he was “honorable”.

 This is the only explanation I can think of; the story simply forgot what kind of character it created. Since Stroheim was not with the main bad guys anymore, and he was “honorable”, he became an ally, even if that means ignoring his vile actions and beliefs to paint him in that light. What was previously a genocidal fascist is suddenly now a goofy exaggerated nationalist who’s ultimately a brave soldier at heart. The fact that Stroheim is a totalitarian and a murderer with no difference in desire from the Pillar Men has to be greatly downplayed and eventually just forgotten about. 

 I don’t think I need to explain how this is bad writing. The story introduced a threat that is just as severe, if not more so than its main villains, but did not have the desire to deal with that conflict- so instead, it opts to make fascists the good guys out of the blue, which is monumentally thoughtless even in the most charitable lighting you could give it. While I believe that this messaging was likely accidental, that does not change what this botched writing ends up signaling to the viewer. When it comes to Nazis in fiction, you have to be careful with the way you portray them- something Battle Tendency did not do. Ultimately, nothing will excuse the fact that this part made a Nazi a good guy, and I wouldn’t blame anybody for skipping Battle Tendency or even dropping the series entirely for that.

---

 My issues with other parts are to do with typical writing flaws and maybe some mishandling of subjects that ultimately does not ruin the entire story. Battle Tendency, though, has flaws overpowering any of its strengths to the point where it’s nearly unwatchable for me. I have no desire to read the manga or rewatch the anime for this part and I’m honestly glad that it doesn’t get acknowledged very much going onward. What’s a shame is that there are a lot of good things about it- the antagonists were great, the protagonist was entertaining, and I like many of its themes and how it expands part one, but overall, it’s just not good.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

it's so interesting for me to hear that houses localization changed the script to vilify(?word?) the church bc when i played the game (i recently finished my first and so far only playthrough in lions route) for the first half of the game i was waiting for the shoe to drop to reveal the church is the big bad guys but it never came and the revealed was actually ed. idk if it should have been obvious but i was too focused on suspecting the church to see it or if it was actually subtle as i tend to be oblivious to hints(¿word again?) given in media lol.

idk where im going with this but i hope it makes at least some sense bc i am so sleep deprived rn

and the thing tou said about Henry being changed i am so curious of that too

hope you have a nice day and better sleep than me!

I'll answer the last part first since the rest is more descriptive.

Basically Henry went to Wizard School (tee em) and it was a cool and great experience. In JP, it was... iirc basically close to torture/hellish? It was a more mature situation/topic, but the loc changed it to be silly and fun sounding. For some reason Treehouse in particular seems deeply if not fatally allergic to mature topics and/or properly handling them.

Thank for about the sleep comment and I assure you, I sleep too often!! I wish I could send you some of my sleep and make it extra quality for you. :(

As for Three Houses, yeah, in AM it doesn't really happen that way. Nobody is really vilified (not even the imperialist warmonger invading neutral lands!) in AM (same with AG in Hopes).

What you saw/understood was the whole point! It was made it look at first like the Church was suspicious, but then the reveal was meant to be no, it was a fellow house leader all along. That was what the red herring part about the Church was all about. You were supposed to suspect the Church at first, hence Jeralt's warnings, and if you're playing GD, Claude's suspicions.

Unfortunately what happens in the other routes, especially in CF, is that Rhea's trauma is never explored, no characters stop to understand her motivation, etc. She's just used as the resident bad guy because she's Edelgard's enemy. Basically, you're seeing it from the point of view that Rhea is bad because you see it from Edelgard's perspective... but it fails to work because the game, in particular the localization, amps Edelgard up as a huge progressive hero. AM is the only route that really confronts her about her "views", and even then, it's a mess because all the things she argues with Dimitri about aren't her end goal (i.e. they don't ever end up actually happening in the vast capacity she claims she's going to do).

About Edelgard:

The localization avoids any particularly negative comments about her and changes or outright removes them (true of Hopes as well). In Dimitri's case it would make sense because of their connection, but when it ends up just being another route in the pile of feeling sorry for Edelgard (and... not Rhea, who had her family massacred and their bones turned into weapons), it just feels stale.

They basically tell you Edelgard is very cute and easily embarrassed, and she's just this headstrong progressive woman fighting For The People (tee em). The truth is (as per the game itself, i.e. content they can't change/localized because it's the contents of the game itself) that she's invading innocent lands, conscripting her own citizens, turning her citizens into demonic beasts to add to her military strength (lelz when u can't even rely on ur nation's own military strength without demonic beasts), and victim blaming anyone who fights back (if you have yet to see the extremely infamous "no u" line from Edegard to Dimitri in CF, you've been blessed) among other things.

They basically shove it down your throat, characters and narrative both (in the loc in particular), that Edelgard is good and just, while the story itself is looking at all that like ???. The JP script still tries to take good care of her and her image, but they're a lot more blunt about her/her goals (i.e. they don't dance around them nearly as much).

The localization showers what she does with love and attention, and even when they have to say she's the problem/aggressor, they still pretty it up as much as possible (such as Dimitri wondering if maybe her vision of society could possibly be just and righteous, instead of outright admitting what she's done is absolutely atrocious when it's way worse than anything he ever did, all of which he admits to doing and takes responsibility for).

The JP version is more clear on her being the villain. There's definitely bias toward her (as the writers were, confirmed by an interview), but it doesn't slap you in the face with it nearly as badly. Also, Dimitri has won a character popularity poll every year since the game's inception in Japan. In the west, Edelgard is much more popular than she is in the east. That, of course, is because of the way the loc pushed the writing for her/about her.

Edelgard's "progressive" stuff is supposed to be just propaganda (which is ultimately, even as per the western endings because there's only so much they can change). The way the loc frames it is that it's actually what she's aiming for. It's what she uses to inspire people to fight for her though, not what she's actually doing.

About Rhea:

This one's the real doozy because it's a victim of the above. Since they wanted to pretty up Edelgard's dialogue and make her A Hero (tee em), they needed whoever her main enemy was to be the "villain". Since Edelgard, now popular because of the tweaks in her dialogue, hated and wanted to kill Rhea, so too did her raging fans who gave no fucks whatsoever about any character who opposed her... even if it was just to save their own life!

They changed the tone of Rhea's voice in the loc to make her more angry and villainous sounding, rather than sad or kind. She was basically altered in the loc to make Edelgard look better. Like, of course, in the perspective of playing a villain in CF, she's the bad guy and the enemy. The problem comes when they have Rhea say things that are more aggressive than in the original script, and change her tone to sound demeaning and vicious (when she was otherwise not or not as much).

But like, why? The only reason any of us can think of is because they wanted to market Edelgard more. This is likely a result of the west's views and especially political views, since Edelgard's pretty words would sound good to a westerner's political beliefs... until you dig into them/the actual story content more.

Rhea also being the head of a Church probably got tweaked because of the west's recent irl views on religion. Religion in the west has been looked poorly upon in recent years. Instead of accepting this is just a fictional game though, the loc team just... pushed that they're Really Bad.

Rhea is more of a victim of them needing someone to be worse than Edelgard to make Edelgard look like less of a villain (which again, this isn't the case in the original script nearly as much), and they couldn't use Thales/the Agarthans because you were allied with them in that route.

The other characters vs Rhea as a villain choice:

The goal wasn't to make a playable lord a villain in the loc's case. It was the intention of the original script with Edelgard, but the loc tried to make her actions sound more justified because ??? like idk, I can't wrap my head around them justifying what she does.

Dimitri isn't handled too badly by the narrative itself and he's overall seen as a good person (even the loc didn't alter that or Edelgard's ablest mentality toward a mentally unwell person), so he wasn't really a good candidate for all that. Also, Dimitri's story is one of recovery, and because they ventured into mental illness, he wasn't a good candidate. He was treated well and pretty fairly (Edelgard not treating him particularly well makes sense with her character, but the narrative itself doesn't push him as being a monstrous person. Even in the time he considers that he was, there's depth, logic and complexity to the situation).

Claude being the main bipoc character would have just been an all around disaster if the loc or even original script tried to make him the top villain, yadda yadda (understandably). There was no chance that was going to go over well, especially in the west (have you seen the shitstorm GW caused? And that was with the writing not considering him a villain!!). He was basically safe from the get go as far as villainy if they writers/localizers didn't want serious backlash (there are discussions about the overall treatment of poc characters in Houses/Hopes, but I can guarantee it would've been legit backlash if he was made to be a genuinely and intentionally horrible person, so that wasn't really an option if they wanted this game to actually sell and be enjoyed).

So since Rhea isn't playable and is the head of a Church, that kind of makes her the only candidate. Players will get attached to the other lords and not like killing them, so it won't feel like a badass victory to kill them. I guess for some reason the loc team just... hated Rhea or something?

Dimitri's death in CF is either extremely sad and garners audience sympathy, or in the other version of his death in CF it's clear his mentally stability is starting to break right before he's killed, which in and of itself is another topic. Claude is either free to go by choice of the player or can be killed, and his death is sad and he's not villainized. Aside from how some characters treat Claude's death (in contrast to Dimitri's which is never outright villainized even by Edelgard), the scene meant for the player at the time it happens is supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

So again, it really just leaves the loc team with the option of Rhea if they want to make the final battle seem like a big victory for the player. VW also has its big happy victory, and surprise surprise, Rhea dies in that route (offscreen no less!).

SS kills off Rhea but actually makes it sad, and it's, you know, actually the route that focuses on her/the Church most. AM doesn't kill her off and doesn't treat any character death as a badass victory, and instead gives a bittersweet ending (which again would be in line with Dimitri's connection to Edelgard, and it only feels botched down because of all routes obsessing over her).

So while, technically, the writing in the JP script wasn't trying to make Rhea as bad as the western version of the game, if the loc wanted to go for that, she was the best option. It just... came at the expense of butchering her character to make Edelgard shine, which shouldn't have been done but it was.

[kindahoping4forever]

I miss your fics. I hope you’re doing well tho

I appreciate this, thank you 🥹

For the record, I miss my fics too! This unofficial hiatus has been out of necessity rather than choice, and I can honestly say there hasn't been a day where I don't fantasize about A Grand Return. 💙

[gh-0-stcup]

One thing that's so odd to me about the Eugenia Cooney thing is how there's still people who think she's in denial about her ED.

She knows. She was in a treatment program, she mentioned in it Shane's "documentary". The people who are wondering what she's saying to convince doctors (and the recent crisis team) that she's fine kind of boggle my mind.

She just tells them the truth. That she has an ED and either that she's trying to work on it by herself or that she does not want to get better. It depends on where you live, but very often medical professionals aren't going to bother putting limited resources towards someone who does not want the help.

She can say, "Yes, I'm anorexic. Yes, I know I could die. No, I don't think going somewhere would help but thank you for the resources." Whether they decide that's grounds for commitment or not depends on the laws of her state and the personal judgement of those evaluating her.

Leaving her to die and moving on to the people who are in her same physical state but begging for help isn't exactly a wild decision.

[zorkaya-moved]

zarina had the biggest character development arc in obey me out of all verses tbqh.

all because: 1) she is in a position where she is literally at the bottom of the food chain. she came from the human world. she was AT THE TOP of the food chain, fought her way there, suffered her way through there, but got there. in devildom? in the celestial realm? she's like a dust particle before ancient powers. it hits her pride, but also slams her survival mindset: how can I survive and flourish? how can I protect my family from this??? 2) forced to accept that aside from humans, angels and demons are actually real. and witches too. which means that there are far more things to take into consideration when she lives on 3) her survival instincts kick in a bit too hard in the beginning because she has 0 information, and it means getting it at any means possible while making sure she won't die. 4) almost dying countless times because of some of the demons' inability to control their power, attempt to use their powers on her, or plains lower demons trying to get at her with pranks that could end in death if she wasn't smart/quick enough or she didn't have one of the brothers by her side 5) her masks don't work on demons like lucifer, diavolo, barbatos... it's hard; the fact that they see through her acting rubs her the wrong way. it was usually her being able to play her way out of any situation, but here it just doesn't fucking work. she needs to learn new techniques, be smarter, be quicker, be more adaptive. they force her to be less stubborn and learn flexibility 6) accepting magic because now it's an essential skill. she didn't want to learn magic at all because to her it felt like it goes against all of her hard work with working out, with studying, with military training, etc. however, she sees it's essential... and even... fun. and it's challenging 7) she had to ... forgive belphegor. for killing her. in the timeline she appeared in. she watched him, learned about him, but she'll never forget that. she'll NEVER forget that. but she forgave him. that's a massive fucking character development. it was the hardest thing for her to do. i mean, if she forgave other brothers for ALMOST killing her (aside from mammon), then she concluded it was logical to forgive him as well. logical. rational. yes. 8) understanding that in those 2 moments when she was 'supposed' to die, lilith's spirit actually protected her and saved her. meaning that if not for lilith, she would've died. twice. in the human world. thus, her accepting that she owes to lilith to ... understand the demons, the angels, and these news worlds. she owes it to her. 9) when she became a threat to 3 worlds and had to choose between stabbing herself or lucifer to sever the contract, she concludes that - yes - she doesn't want to die, but if it means protecting her family in the human realm and those people she came to care about, then she'd rather die herself. she's a human. but there are pillars of powers like lucifer who must live on to keep the balance. so, yes, stabbing herself was done out of 'i'm not as important in terms of power as thes people are, but also I have those I need to protect.' 10) luke got the best treatment right away because he reminded zarina of her youngest brother aleksey. but simeon? took a bit. she didn't trust his kind nature at all because she thought that angels are less trustworthy than demons due to how cynical she is, but... took year(s) to understand that he is genuine. she also apologized for her behavior because she's an adult and she must acknowledge her wrongdoings.

Zarina, altogether, remains the same: ambitious, confident, and adaptive. A survivor and fighter at heart. She has to learn how to be less judgemental, how to look at others in a new light, and be honest about her experiences with emotions. About how and why she behaves the way she does. How her past affected her. She needs to learn to trust and let them in, which she hadn't done since her team. Building relationships with others may take time, but it does develop. She's still selfish, but she is FORCED to learn to be more flexible. She is FORCED to break out of that ice. She is FORCED to face the changes.