#what a huge disservice to both characters

[helenofsparta2]

Having the whole plot between Nico and Percy be resolved simply with “You’re not my type” in Blood of Olympus was such a huge disservice to both characters

They are pivotal parts to each others journey. No person in PJO influenced Nico as much as Percy did, aside from Bianca, and no person represents Percy’s guilt and the responsibility he had to shoulder more than Nico does. The writing for both characters really suffers through this lack of a real satisfying resolution.

First to talk about what Percy represents for Nico:

Percy, first of all, represents Nico’s introduction to the mythological world

He is the first demigod Nico ever came in contact with

He saved him and Bianca from the manticore (somewhat)

Nico stated in Blood of Olympus than Percy had reminded of the heroes of his mythomagic game come to life

Nico wholeheartedly believed that Bianca would be safe, if Percy was with her and created this image of the perfect hero in his mind, putting Percy on a pedestal

2.

In Nico’s mind Percy is irrevocably intertwined with Bianca and everything that happened to her

Despite Nico naively believing, that Bianca would be safe if Percy were around, he was instead the last person to ever talk to her, and present when she died

Percy informed Nico of her death (Dead silence. I stared at Chiron. I couldn’t believe nobody had told him yet. Then I realized why. They’d been waiting for us to appear, to tell Nico in person, Titan’s curse)

Nico turned him into the scapegoat for her death, so that he could let all his grief and anger and bitterness out on him

Bianca sent Iris-messages to Percy, so that he would find and help Nico (“Percy has been worried about you, Nico. He can help. I let him see what you were up to, hoping he would find you.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Her ghost only appeared to Nico when Percy was with him

Percy is the only person Nico knows of, who also grieved for Bianca (“Bianca,” I said. My voice was thick. I’d felt guilty about her death for a long time but seeing her in front of me was five times as bad, like her death was fresh and new. I remembered searching through the wreckage of the giant bronze warrior she’d sacrificed her life to defeat, and not finding any sign of her. “I’m so sorry,” I said. Battle of the Labyrinth)

3.

Percy is the person who protected and cared for Nico more than anyone else in pjo

Tried to convince Bianca to think more deeply about her decision of joining the hunters, especially thinking of him (“Biance, this is crazy,” I said. “What about your brother? Nico can’t be a hunter.” (Titan’s curse)

Searched the woods in the dark for hours after he had disappeared (Annabeth and Grover helped me search the woods for hours, but there was no sign of Nico di Angelo.)

Didn’t tell Chiron about Nico’s parentage to protect him from the Gods. (I don't think Nico understands who he is. But we can't go telling anyone. Not even Chiron. If the Olympians find out—") Titan’s curse)

Decided to completely commit to the prophecy, solely so Nico didn’t have to bear that burden and go trough any more suffering(It was the last thing I wanted, but I didn't say that. I knew I had to step up and claim it. "I can't let Nico be in any more danger," I said. "I owe that much to his sister. I… let them both down. I'm not going to let that poor kid suffer any more." ) Titan’s curse)

Searched for Nico in the months after Titan’s Curse (Now, six months later, I hadn’t even come close to finding him. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. Battle of the labyrinth, chapter 3))

Saved his life on Geryon’s farm. (“Either way, you get my friends,” I said. “But, if I succeed, you’ve got to let all of us go, including Nico.”)

Always offered Nico a place at camp half-blood to the best of his abilities (“We missed you at dinner,” I said. “You could’ve sat with me.”“No.”“Nico, you can’t miss every meal. If you don’t want to stay with Hermes, maybe they can make an exception and put you in the big house. They’ve got plenty of room.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Invited him to join him on his birthday (“Is that… is that blue birthday cake?”He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he’d ever been invited to one. “Come inside for cake and ice cream,” I said. “It sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Reminded him that he was still a child (I smiled. “Maybe it’s okay to still be a kid once in a while.” I tossed him the statue, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Helped him to get the sword of hades back to impress his father (Then I looked at Nico. Unfortunately, I recognised the expression on his face. I knew what it was like wanting to make your dad proud, even if your dad was hard to love., Sword of hades)

Acknowledged everything Nico did in The last Olympian and is one of the main reasons why Hades has a cabin at camp. ( “But your children should not be left out. They should have a cabin at camp. Nico has proven that.”)

4.

Percy was Nico’s first, and after Will, his biggest love

Nico had feelings for Percy, which didn’t leave him for around 2 1/2 years, and accompanied him throughout the most challenging parts of his life. 

Feelings, which were so deep, the god of love personally acknowledged them.

Favonius even called Percy, the person Nico cares about most in House of Hades.

This was more than just a mere crush

Percy is so completely intertwined with most aspects of Nico’s character arc, in both PJO and Hoo, be it his feeling of ostracism, his relationship to Bianca or him coming to term with his own sexuality, that them not having a final interaction, makes his writing feel shallow and unfinished. Especially Nico coming to terms with his crush on Percy opens up the opportunity for a really heartwarming conversation and a moment of character growth and maturity for both of them, instead of it being wasted on one throw-away line.

And it’s the same the other way around. Nico is also a huge part of Percy’s journey.

He especially represents Percy’s biggest failure.

The first five Percy Jackson books are characterized by Percy having to take up responsibility and him being afraid of not being able to fulfill them. Be it responsibility for camp, the world, Bianca’s death, the prophecy, his friends, teh unclaimed demigods, or everything else. Most of the time, Percy was able to make sure everything turned out fine. He saved camp, he saved Olympus, he finished his quests, made the right decision for the prophecy, and he made the gods swear upon teh styx. But there’s one exception. And that is Nico.

Percy did everything in his power to make sure Nico would be spared any more hardships. He took up the burden of the prophecy, explicitly, so that Nico doesn’t have to go through any more hardships

He searched for him after Titan’s curse, kept his identity a secret and even risked himself, Annabeth, Grover and Tyson dying if it meant saving Nico

Still, Nico is one of the characters, if not the character, who has suffered the most in PJO and Hoo, even partly because of Percy (though, of course, Nico having a crush on him was not Percy’s fault at all)

He lived alone at 11 years old on the streets and in the labyrinth, while getting manipulated by an ancient evil spirit

He was isolated and ostracized at camp half-blood

He experienced the horrors of Tartarus completely on his own

He got captured by the giants and slowly suffocated to death in a small jar

He had to deal with internalized homophobia and his complicated feelings regarding Percy

He has been a vital part of two wars at only 15 years old

Had to admit his crush involuntarily in front of Jason, etc.  

One of the things Percy battles with in Heroes of Olympus is this overwhelming sense of guilt. He blames himself for almost everything that went wrong over the last few years. Be it for Iapetus, Calypso, or especially Nico. Having Percy acknowledge this complicated relationship he has with him during House of Hades, but not allowing the two of them to talk it out is genuinely baffling to me, and one of the (albeit many) reasons why I really don’t like most of Percy’s writing during Heroes of Olympus, despite the fact that he is my favourite character by far. This could have led to a moment of character growth, where Nico helps Percy to aknowledge that he feels guilty for things he had little to no control over, while Nico himself realizes how important he actually is to Percy.

They are also so similar in terms of who they are and what they’ve been through, that even if you ignore their history with each other, it seems insane, that they didn’t interact in any meaningful way:  

Both were ostracized at camp half-blood because of their parentage, and so far are the only two half-bloods we know of with that experience

They are (together with Hazel) the most powerful demigods in the Riordan verse, and have feats which far surpass anyone else’s

Both are in some way afraid of their powers

Both went through Tartarus

Both have relatively similar relationships to their godly parents

Both have gone through immense trauma and loss

And if you read heroes of Olympus, it actually very much seems to build towards a final resolution of their relationship

Percy and Nico were, aside from Frank, the two people closest to Hazel; both saw her as a little sister, and Hazel treated them both like her brothers

Nico was the first person Percy met from his old life

Percy was the one, who received the visions of Nico being captured

From everyone present, Percy trusted Nico to lead the others to Greece in his moment of greatest desperation

They both had introspections about the other in house of Hades, Nico having to deal with his crush and Percy with his guilt in Tartarus

But, in the end, after they met again, nothing happened. The only scene we really got was the “You’re not my type” line and Percy being surprised by it for a couple seconds. That’s it.

We saw no meaningful conversation between the two of them, no acknowledgement of what they’ve been through together, no lasting feelings. Nothing.

In regards to their relationship, Percy acknowledging everything that Nico has been through led to nothing. Nico acknowledging his feelings for Percy and finally letting go of this pedestal he had placed him on led to nothing. You could argue that their entire relationship, which has been built up since Titan’s curse led to nothing. And considering that they are so important characters for each of their character arcs, their characterization very much suffers from this writing decision.

The two of them, together with Hazel, are my three favourite Riordan verse characters by a long shot, but some very important aspects of both of their characters fall so flat to me through this lack of a satisfying resolution.

 Both of them deserved so much better.  

They are the friendship with the most missed potential in the entirety of the Riordan verse and probably the most fleshed out and nuanced relationship Rick ever wrote.

R.I.P.  Nico di Angelo, and Percy Jackson, you will always be brothers in my mind.

[sapphiresaphics]

You’re right. You don’t have to like her.

But if you’re going to dislike her, use the proper terminology to describe what she is.

And when you simplify her into just “a dictator” you are removing complexity from her character to make it easier to hate her for her actions.

For a show that is ALL ABOUT nuances, when you over simplify things to simple black and white terms you are doing both yourself and the media in question a huge disservice.

You can hate Caitlyn all you want for her actions. She absolutely should be criticized for them. But when you reduce her actions to just “a dictator” and ignore everything else the show is telling you, then yeah… you’re bad at media literacy.

That’s WHY we call people out about that.

Arcane season 2 spoilers, don't read if you don't want any!!

another arcane rant tbh. the fandom / fans are soo offended when you don't like their fav (targeted at SOME caitlyn fans) they say you 'don't have media litteracy' when even if you did you still have the full right to dislike any character you want, they act self-righteous when you don't like a character that just happens to be complex, you have a right to not like a character for good reason, if you don't like caitlyn bc she gassed the undercity and is openly classist + a dictator, you have every right to?? she may be complex and i admire the writers for this people can dislike a complex character while understanding them and their motivations for crying out loud, your not better because you like a charcter who has done bad things for a reason. always whining about 'media literacy' when people have an opinion. the way i see it caitlyn is a sign of people with a lick of political power falling into corruption, oppression of the lower class and facism. which is very interesting to watch but at the same time people can just not like her.

[sorryimlatecapt]

yeah i'm not fucking buying how they handled this breakup. i'm so angry that this is where we ended up.

tommy more than once reiterated that he longed for a family, a place to belong, only for him to pull the rug out from underneath buck's feet when buck has reassured him that he wants to be in a relationship with him? when we have been shown from the start that buck wants to build something real with him, and he's been intentional about it the whole time? tommy didn't have a SINGLE reason to doubt him, and his insecurity and worry was the kinda thing that, the way their relationship has been established, they could have resolved it by talking to each other. and they didn't. and that was that. poof, done.

what the fuck man. what a slap in the face.

[hesgomorrah]

every time i see someone make the "trapper didn't leave a note" argument i lose 5 years off my life fr

[idkaguyorsomething]

One thing that kind-of annoys me about the Jojo fandom is there is this tendency to portray Giorno as more noble than he actually was. He was fine with deal drugs to adults, it was dealing drugs to kids specifically that he did not like. He had no issues killing people and wanted to be a mob boss. I like Giorno but a paragon of nobility he was not, and I think it is a disservice to the character to water down his less-then-positive traits.

yeah, there’s a lot of truth to that. i think part of the reason why that is is because lots of fan works of golden wind are significantly lighter and softer than canon. there’s nothing wrong with that, especially given how much darker it comes off in comparison to diamond is unbreakable, but as a result a lot of the main character’s negative traits tend to get sanded down, ie, narancia’s more violently destructive outbursts, abbachio serving as an enforcer for a corrupt institution via both the police and the mob with hints that he might be outright bigoted towards giorno because of his ancestry, and yes, giorno’s less than noble traits. a lot of this tends to bleed into how fans view the characters overall, but honestly it’s not nearly as bad as some other fandom mischaracterizations i’ve seen

it’s definitely a disservice to giorno to downplay his more unsavory traits, though. he joined the mob at fifteen and probably thought he was gonna have to work his way up the ladder for years even though they did things like dealing drugs to kids that he explicitly didn’t like. he’s quite an ends-justify-the-means guy, particularly in the long run, though part of what makes him interesting as a character is how those means are always done in service to an ideal. giorno’s proactive approach to most things and how he inspires others through his ideology shapes a lot of the narrative of golden wind, so entirely discounting that would be a mistake, but he’s definitely got quite a bit of the brando family ruthlessness in him that he knows how to use quite well (it’s also possible that fans conflate his character with bruno’s a lot, since bruno is the one who hates drugs the most and who we see more of being openly conflicted about his job as a mob enforcer)

[zukkaoru]

i support women's wrongs but i have to say i'm also a rather big fan of consistent characterization,,

[constellationcrowned]

((Honestly given the tone of my lore posts about the Traveler you'd be forgiven for thinking that I hate her (and that goes double if you're familiar with her conception, the elements of her character and etc that reflect mine, what I use/write about in order to work through certain things, and so on, and that's putting it very lightly) but I don't. I actually love her very much (and the same goes for my other oc, Sishel but he's, understandably, a different case) regardless of what I'm writing for her or about her, and so on, but the fact remains that she's an incredibly troubled and worrying character and I won't sugarcoat that or handwave things.))

[lenalvthor]

hey i have a fucking bone to pick with sapphic fandoms

like, i get it okay. i've been on tumblr since 2011, i was in the trenches during the bury your gays nightmare, i grew up on buffy, i watched the 100, i've been through the furious and devastating queerbaits, and i've watched helplessly as the boom of proper progress with sapphic rep has burned and disappeared with the faults of the industry as it is rn and the resurgence of bury your gays in the form of tv cancellations

i even did a fucking guest lecture for a film & tv university course a couple years ago on all of this

we joke about the fact that queer (specifically sapphic) fans flock to any show with the barest hint of rep in it because we're so starved for it, and we talk about the fact that if nothing else, that proves that there's a market and an audience and it usually creates a huge wave of viewership and attention for the show

but i need to fucking point out: acting as though a show exists for the sole purpose of the sapphic relationship you've started watching it for is fucking detrimental to how you'll perceive the show, how it'll get talked about in fandom spaces and then beyond that (bc the line between fandom spaces and wider online discussion of media is a lot thinner than it was ten years ago) and isn't actually going to do any good for sapphic rep! like, at all! because guess what! unless you're watching a show where the entire storyline revolves around romance, this couple you're watching for ISN'T going to be the centre of the story! it's a part of it! and there's such a weird fucking entitled toxicity to how fans act around brilliant storytelling and worldbuilding and writing and characters throwing tantrums about not getting more screentime for the relationship they like because they don't actually care about any other part of the story. and the thing about people who watch something solely for a ship rather than the wider story it exists in, is that a lot of the time, you'll fundamentally misinterpret the characters and their dynamic because you're not taking any of the wider context of the world and story into account at all.

and yes, of course i'm talking about agatha all along in the immediacy. because we knew a long, long time ago that billy maximoff was gonna be an integral part of this story, long before we knew anything about what the vibe of this show was gonna be, long before anyone even had the tiniest whisper of rio's existence. the same way wandavision was monica rambeau's origin story even though the show was wanda's, we suspected that agatha all along would be billy's/wiccan's origin story even if the show focused on agatha. and you know fucking what. that's good fucking storytelling. this show is smart, it's funny, it's curious, it's campy, it's queer, and it's ensemble. that's always been the point. agatha and rio were a delightfully unexpected part of it that added such delicious tension and phenomenal sapphic rep, but you know what else! the point of that dynamic is to flesh out agatha's character! this show isn't about agatha and rio! it's about agatha and billy, who they are, how their pasts and their magic are connected, their traumas and their power and how the road shapes their futures! rio is a part of exploring agatha's past, and it's phenomenal, but i am so fucking bewildered by the ridiculousness of people's reactions to billy now having a bigger part in the story and there being less focus on agatha and rio. you do know that you write scenes and characters and stories in a way that makes sense right? that because of the nature of this show, even if we don't get more than a handful agatha and rio scenes for the rest of the episodes, they're both still sapphic characters, this is still wonderful sapphic rep, and this show is still very, very queer?

like, it's obviously not fair that we have to beg for scraps to have queer shows to watch. but that doesn't mean that any of us get to do such a fucking disservice to the people who make amazing shows and fight to put sapphic rep in them within the contexts of the stories they're telling by whining that it's not enough. what we're getting with agatha all along, what kathryn han and aubrey plaza and jac schaeffer have said with such grace and nuance and intrigue and depth about agatha and rio's relationship, is so fucking rare! and it's nestled within a story that's got so much other intricate storytelling that makes agatha and rio richer characters when you actually pay some fucking attention and care about who they are outside of their sexual tension!

and i'm saying this because this is an issue i see with So many other shows, where the worth of a show gets boiled down to fandoms wanting content of their ship and nothing else and then poisoning the conversation and reception around what else it is that show is doing with its story. idk get some fucking media literacy, grow up and respect artists and creatives.

[sassydefendorflower]

There is this common misconception in the fandom that to get the "fullest" Fullmetal Alchemist experience, you should watch the first 20 or so episodes of 03 (up until Hughes' murder) and finish the show watching Brotherhood.

I think that's bullshit.

Not because I have anything against 03. Oh, I think 03 is a perfectly valid interpretation of the text with a few absolutely genius moments thrown in there that make Brotherhood pale in comparison.

But it is an interpretation of the text.

Don't get me wrong, so is Brotherhood.

And while Brotherhood is a lot more faithful to the text, especially later on, that anime as well cuts out a lot of important worldbuilding in the beginning. Which is where this idea of inter-cutting those two animes even stems from.

But these two stories have wildly different interpretations of the same characters! The depth of characterization in both 03 and Brotherhood gets undercut by a mix and match that does both a disservice.

Ed is a lot more vulnerable in 03 - he is the tragic hero we follow who will make horrible choices in order to save his brother only to suffer and fail and break. The anime establishes this by introducing him to us at the age of 12, when he's only just starting in his journey. Many of his first adventures (the train, meeting Hughes, Nina and Alexander) take place at a point where Ed is a lot softer, a lot less hard, a lot less broken - they are what breaks him in a way. What eventually leads him down the path he takes.

That is a hugely different interpretation of the text as Brotherhood offers it to us.

In Brotherhood we meet Ed when he's at the top. The priest of Liore is no problem for him, he's been doing this for years, he's internalized a lot of the hurt he grew up with. Getting hurt doesn't faze him, his biggest hindrance is his urge to finally get this done and over with. He's cocky and self-assured and oh, so insecure. Which is why we need Nina, to remind him of the fragility in life and his own powerlessness. In Brotherhood Nina is the linchpin that leads to Ed finding out about Philosopher's Stones.

In many ways this interpretation of the text is a lot closer to the source material, but, yes, it is still an interpretation. Someone once said the biggest mistake Brotherhood made was include the Elrics' backstory in episode two and I agree - it is often what hooks first time viewers with the stark horror of what these kids went through, but it stands at odds with the original purpose of the backstory only being revealed in vol.6 of the manga.

Because in the original story, up to that point, we don't know why Ed and Al are the way we are. We've seen flashes, we know Ed has nightmares, we know certain things spook them, and we know they committed a taboo whatever the hell that means. And only when we meet Izumi, only when Ed has to forcibly drop all the walls he spend the last three years building, do we see what actually happen. It's also the closest Ed comes to crying - clinging to Izumi and begging her for forgiveness.

These are three very different ways to tell the same story.

All of these are valid. All of these can be fun.

But they hold fundamentally different approaches to the characters within them, which makes them not interchangeable.

The same is true for Hughes, who - in 03 - is a presence in the Elrics' lives from the very beginning, their friend and confidant in ways not even Mustang is. He helps them during the train hijacking and Elicia shares Ed's birthday.

That's a significant switch-up from the manga, where Ed and Al only meet him once they go to Central to search through the First Library - and in which only Winry ever really grows close to Hughes as a person, and not as a mistake made by the brothers.

And Brotherhood tells a different story again, by having Ed and Al meet Hughes in the first episode, as they visit Central to catch the Freezer and befriend Mustang's ally who invites them home - placing that relationship somewhere in the middle of coworkers and close, intimate friends.

These are three different characters, who are connected to our main duo in three different ways.

There's overlaps and I am not keeping anyone from having fun (03 Roy Mustang being the one to kill Winry's parenty, my beloved) but to really enjoy these stories, they need to be understood as three different texts.

03 stands strong in its originality, Brotherhood in its closeness to the source material, but if you want the OG experience just read the manga. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying the other two as well.

If anything, it should be more fun to have three similar - but different - worlds to play in.

[phantom-chirp]

I find it a bit strange when some people are so insistent that Ren and Akechi have a purely negative relationship, because canonically they very much don't?

If I had purely negative feelings for someone I wouldn't regret what happened between us enough that it brings them back to life and the fact they'll be dead again threatens my resolve to stop the entire world from being controlled, and with Akechi during his boss fight Morgana might as well have looked right at the camera and went "Akechi does not actually hate Ren as much as he says he does" because their relationship is complicated, and that's the point

It's less of an annoyance to me and more of just... a confusion? Thinking they both fully hate each other is a very surface level reading of their dynamic in my opinion and it also isn't even an interesting way to view their dynamic? That would just get a rid of so much of what makes their dynamic interesting

This isn't even purely about shipping them, even if someone doesn't ship them their dynamic as friends is still super important to them as characters and the story and viewing it as them just hating each other seems like a huge disservice to me

[pmpknsoup]

exactly! id like to clarify, i made that post very much as a jon lover—but i love him for the same reasons i love the girls. hes FLAWED. hes deeply, inextricably flawed. you cannot have jonathan sims without the Archivist, and you cannot have jonathan sims without his flaws. i cannot separate jon from his bad actions, and i dont WANT to. him being so utterly wrong at times is what makes him appealing!! i dont like characters when they're picture perfect renaissance paintings. i like characters when they get ugly. when theyre selfish, or rude, or liars. when theyre actually PEOPLE.

i love jon!! hes a truly fascinating character—and you cannot have a fascinating character who is a perfect, one note angel. for the same reason, i absolutely adore all of the girls.

basiras hypocrisy makes her interesting, because in the end she still chooses to kill daisy, despite how desperately she wanted to defend her.

daisys violence makes her interesting, because when she was offered a second chance she never thought she deserved, she tried to genuinely make a change.

melanies anger is interesting, because in the end she's still cordial with jon—even backing him up at points.

georgies frustration with jon is interesting, because in the end, choosing to have a moment aside with him, inadvertently cost him his life.

MY POINT BEING i think flaws are honestly what make the character, and the women did nothing different from the men, save for being women

i actually am a defender of georgie and melanie and basira being mean or rude to jon bc that man really needed to be put in his place sometimes. like i understand that they were also wrong sometimes— basira is hypocritical and the other two could be nastier than necessary, but i literally cannot blame them at all. jon was so out of line sometimes

[devils-minion-cult]

The other day I talked with my younger sibling (she is 23) about amc's "Interview with the Vampire" and the future of the show’s characters. Although we both enjoy the relationship/ the interaction between Armand and Daniel, we disagree on their season 3 development.

I think/ hope we will see a devil’s minion type of relationship (or any kind of romantic relationship) between Daniel and Armand in the present. However my sister hopes, we will only see a romantic/ sexual interpretation of their relationship in form of flashbacks. She argues, that mainstream viewers don’t want to see sexual/ romantic acts, when one partner is well past 70. My answer was that I don’t think IwtV tries to cater to a “mainstream audience” in the first place and I hope they won’t support ageism by erasing a multilayered story line.

At the same time it is fair to feel uncomfortable watching romantic/ sexual acts between people, when there is a huge age gap involved. I know that is the reasoning behind my sisters argumentation. And although I don’t want my sister to feel uncomfortable while watching content we both enjoyed so far, in this specific case I can’t help but think, it would be a huge disservice to the fans and the story, if they choose to show Armand with young Daniel only.

What is your opinion about this.? Do you think the show shying away from portraying a romantic plot between Armand and older Daniel is a possibility we should prepare for?

I hope we get Eric Bogosian’s full frontal dick in close-up specifically to make your sister viscerally uncomfortable. I hope his pubes are so gray that she can’t look at anything gray for a year without Eric’s penis burning itself back into her memory. I hope she throws up every time she sees someone with gray hair and wrinkles. Most importantly, I hope your sister remembers that someday SHE will get old and only shape people will be grossed out by her experiencing love. 💕

[chiisana-sukima]

nine people i want to get to know better

Thank you for the tag, @slutsons-blog! Starting a new post because I'm autistic and therefore mostly only care about the "Current Obsession" question, and want to ramble excessively as usual in that one.

Last song: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team: Pokemon Square because I'm currently playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon with my daughter. Otherwise I honestly couldn't tell you. Whatever was on in my car.

Fave color: Purple

Currently watching: Star Trek Discovery

Last movie: Knives Out

Sweet/spicy/savory: Sweet, tart, salty

Relationship: married x 27 years

Last thing I googled: the word "dependent", for spelling assistance. which is a good thing because I spelled it "dependant".

Current Obsession: it's been spn since 2016. Truly we are the Hotel California of media franchises. I did recently play Disco Elysium twice in a row in quick succession, and I follow the DE tag. I can't recommend the game highly enough.... but I can feel my Special Interest-level obsession with it fading already. Spn has never faded even a tiny bit and I wonder if it ever will.

@slutsons-blog I feel after reading that you're watching spn for the first time, that I did you a bit of a disservice with my Sam takes to you before in that I mostly talked about Sam's evolution as a character as the show goes on and very little about him from the first five seasons.

Gotta be honest and tell you that although I liked both brothers all along, I was a Dean girl until the end of s6/beginning of s7, when the balance of who gets whumped the most started shifting and my subconscious suddenly decided to switch allegiances. It's not that I liked Dean any less; my id just loves a sopping wet pathetic kitten of a man who has been sexually abused, and Sam got suddenly way more kitteny and pathetic after the Cage. So I don't actually have a ton of takes on "what to love about Sam in the early seasons". I do love early seasons Sam too--she is my beautiful baby princess--but my early seasons takes are a lot more inchoate.

I count myself lucky about my id's sudden defection though, because I think we have limited control of who our blorbos are, and having Dean as a blorbo is a tough row to hoe as the later seasons go along. You know how you noticed that in s6, Dean suddenly gets a lot more assholey without apparent reason? Unfortunately he never gets better again, and in fact keeps getting worse and worse as the years go by, until by the last seasons he is openly far more abusive to their joint child(-in-an-adult body) than John was to him and Sam. It's a realistic picture of what can happen when trauma keeps piling up on people, but it's also honestly pretty distressing, especially if he's your blorbo.

If one is in it for the ship, there's some good destiel content in the later seasons, but if you're in it for Dean, you're left either 1) dealing with the fact he's got extremely significant interpersonal problems that he never gets much of anywhere on solving and that negatively impact his chosen family in profound ways, or 2) pretending he's the same character he was in s1 and Sam is the same Sam from s1, only more boring, and Dean is just trying to put up with him because he was brainwashed by John (or ig 3- something in the middle between those two. But that seldom seems to happen in practice for whatever reason). These two versions of the show are poorly compatible, and that's how the Sam girls and the Dean girls end up in isolated silos. A few people manage to live in both, but not many.

Anyway, I feel like without the context of how Sam and Dean change in the mid to late seasons, the two fics I recc'd as Sam character studies are going to seem insanely Dean-critical, so if you haven't read them yet, you might want to wait until s10. In the meantime, the general recs are fun reads and hopefully do a good job of showcasing both characters earlier on.

Tagging (but I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't specify there's no pressure to respond, since I almost always fail at responding to tag games myself): @adihildilid @aliusfrater @quietwingsinthesky @sammygender @ardentpoop

@peanutbutterandbananasandwichs @schizosamwincester @normalbrothershow @jellybracelet.

[fllnrdr]

So… I have a lot to say about this post I saw on my feed today. I took screenshots and blocked out the username for the sake of the OP. I didn’t want this to be a callout post for one specific user, and do not wish them any hate or harm. I DO have a whole heap to say about this and the treatment Charles gets from the rdr fandom as a whole, not only the OP in the screenshot.

I have a lot of problems with this post, and I have been wanting to talk about this issue and pattern I’ve noticed in the rdr community. Again, I do not mean to send any hate in OP’s direction or suggest that OP is racist in any sense. With that being said…

It’s an inherently racial stereotype to assume that Charles, a black and native man, is illiterate with such a lack of evidence or real reasoning behind it. He was isolated for most of his life after the age of thirteen, and he’s been with a gang for only six months. He is very private, and he is shy. He doesn’t talk much at all, much less about reading. I have never seen this sort of assumption made about any other character, claiming they’re illiterate, because they’re never seen reading at camp.

This is the most ridiculous take I have ever seen. Charles is the one who buried Arthur with his own two hands and created his gravestone. He was the only person who knew where Arthur was buried, hence being the sole creator of Arthur’s final resting place. Charles’ handwriting is the one we see on the gravestone. Charles is the one who wrote the inscription on the cross. He is not illiterate.

I think a problem I have with a lot of Charles fans is that they see him as a blank slate. They see Charles, a physically attractive man, who is quiet and take him for that alone. He is often seen as a blank canvas to project their own ideas onto and sort of mold to their own use and convince. And often times, whether knowingly or not, Charles is consistently watered down to racial stereotypes. Race is obviously a part of who he is, and it affects a lot of his actions, as it does with everyone, but that is not all who he is.

Charles is clinging to the fringes of what little of his culture that he does have. His mother was taken from him as a boy, and he holds onto what little he does have and that absence of his mother, and both of his cultures (because people also tend to ignore the fact that he is also black) is a huge part of who he is. But a lot of folks would rather see his shyness as blankness. He is not levelheaded, but he is moral. He is not always morally correct though. It’s frustrating to constantly see who he is being ignored for the sake of the false persona that’s been created for him.

I think a lot of folks need to listen to the one dialogue of Charles opening up at the campfire. Yes it is a relatable speech for a lot of reasons, but it is also about his race, how he experiences the world, and how he feels as though he has no place because of the loss of his mother, the lack of knowing who he is, his culture, and a whole host of other things. He is one of the best written characters in the game, and to brush that aside to make him into this ‘softhearted super caring ideal s/o’ is so frustrating. This is the same man who was ready to kill Uncle if the need arose. He is moral, but they are morals of his own, and he is not always correct. He is also flawed, just like everyone else. He is not a saint. He is a flawed and conflicted man.

To disregard Charles for who he is, is such a great disservice to the character and to all the work put into him, his story, and other people who have and continue to share the same experiences as he does.

[halemerry]

The thing is. When people look at Book Omens and Show Omens there are a few different things that can happen. Sometimes you get people who try and shove them into one universal true canon. Sometimes you get people totally dissociating them from each other into two separate entities. And, to be clear, I don’t think either of these options is inherently bad to do - I myself defaulted to the latter for quite awhile after season 1 aired - and I always think folks should choose to view these characters in the way that makes them happy. For that matter, I think that there's nothing wrong with disliking a version or preferring one over the other or even ignoring one exists. But, I do think a lot of analysis I have seen has a tendency to remove the characters from their context in a way that does them a bit of a disservice. Because their context matters quite a bit.

Book Omens and Show Omens were made in two very different worlds facing two very different problems and two very different futures stretching out in front of them. The Book belongs in the context of a world on its way out of the Cold War while the Show belongs to a world starting to buckle under the weight of capitalism’s pressure. The evils in the story reflect these two world states - which I think is a good thing. As much as I love the book, if the show had just done the Cold War allegory, I don’t think it would’ve hit quite the same way and could've easily felt dated.

The most notable impact narratively from this shift is the fact that Heaven and Hell both have a more constant presence. Show Aziraphale and Crowley feel far more watched and actively monitored than they do in the book, especially in Aziraphale’s case. His relationship with Heaven especially is far more ‘boss checking the quarterly numbers’ or ‘oppressive family head checks in on their younger sibling’  than it is ‘spy reporting his findings’. And this shift is a huge one as far as what it means for our characters and their context.

Take for example, a small exchange of dialogue in the book where Crowley and Aziraphale do something that we know for a fact would never happen in the show - where they discuss the admittedly slim possibility of each other’s side granting of each other asylum. This is dialogue that works quite well if you’re looking at them as two spies with wavering loyalties but does not work for the show version of our protagonists, because the pressures they face from Heaven and Hell are different. The same thing goes in reverse for the Bandstand scene - a scene that is not in the book at all because it works far better in a show interested in a character facing pressure from a toxic family than it would in a book where Heaven’s presence is a very distant one.

And this right here is where we end up with the question of character consistency. There’s traits that each version of Aziraphale and Crowley have that the other does not, which leads to them feeling like two sets of characters in a way that can make them feel like the show is occasionally out of character. But it’s not really that, I don’t think. I think that's just a side effect of viewing them out of context. And I think a lot of those differences and the ways they manifest make a lot more sense if they're viewed like aus - because that's what they are in a lot of ways. The Book is a Cold War au and the Show is a modern au. They’re different, yes, but still undoubtedly them.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.

Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)

What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.

That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.

So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.

And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.

The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.