#why do they treat max with such inconsistencies?

[goldenboots1]

You know what pisses me off the most? The inconsistency and the hypocrisies….

A few years back a driver was pushed in the wall with 51g and the driver responsible got the time and chance to repair his car during the red flag he produced he got a 10 second penalty and won the race in the end. And everyone was happy with it because we don’t punish the outcome we punish the incident.

And now suddenly they punish the outcome?! The fuck! Just because he’s British? I hate it here!!!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for leaving behind my old friend group?

just note that these events happened about 4 years ago, but I still think about them regularly. my memory is pretty foggy of that time because I was doing pretty bad mentally, so some details may be inconsistent or exaggerated by my mind.

A, M and me, all about 16 at the time, were very close friends. we'd known each other for years and we always hung out at school. we were very classic best friends, we told each other everything, did all of the cringy fandom stuff together, had inside jokes and honestly just complained about everything to each other. I was very depressed at the time, to the point I got hospitalized during the schoolyear. I spent multiple months at the psych ward, and attended the hospital school. I didn't see my friends at all during this time, not that I didn't want to, I just didn't have the energy to send them a message about meeting up, and we didn't normally hang out outside of school anyway. but because I didn't message them at all, they didn't message me either. when I was doing a bit better, I went back to normal school. I had meetings with teachers and other school staff to recieve some special accommodations to make going to school a little less exhausting. I had messaged A and M about me coming back, and they seemed excited for me! but at school they were treating me very differently. they had become colder towards me. mean, even. they'd make snarky comments about me being lazy for having accommodations, mocked my coping mechanisms and slowly starting to treat me as if I wasn't even there. they'd plan things together in front of me without giving me the space to say anything or even asking me if I was available, if I tried to join a conversation they'd just stare for a moment and then go back to talking as if I hadn't said anything. there were a few times I called them out on their behaviour, they apologized and said they didn't mean to do it or didn't notice they were even doing anything like that. they'd even cry while apologizing to me, but after a week at max they'd go back to treating me like air. so at one point I got sick of trying, and I started hanging out with other people. these other people used to be a part of our friend group, but had left because of stuff A and M had said. I discovered that they had said some pretty nasty things about me and my family. after not hanging out with them for a while, A and M would send me messages asking where I went and why I stopped sitting next to them in class, but I blocked them.

I think about these events every now and then, sometimes all I wish is the worst for A and M because of how they treated me, sometimes I wish I would've given them a second chance. I must've been a pretty difficult person to hang out with, since my depression was rather obvious to everyone around me. perhaps they just wanted the happier version of me back. so am I the asshole for leaving them?

What are these acronyms?

[vro0m]

the swearing thing is so 💀💀 but I think fia said max did apologized when he went into that meeting with fia when the swearing happened

the thing with max and Charles swearing is that max got told to double down by a reporter but did it again whilst Charles said it but apologized afterwards.

But either way no one can say that's British bias lol

No but the swearing thing.

We talked about it already but my position is that it's stupid to ask them not to swear on radio but it's not completely absurd to ask them to watch their language during interviews. However when the rule was introduced MBS only talked about the radio thing and also they didn't make it clear that they would enforce it, nor in what circumstances and with what penalties as a result. That's what I have an issue with personally, not the fact that they were told to not swear during press cons.

The fact that they're treating the two cases that differently is also weird although not surprising. I would agree they did not have the same attitude about it during their respective incidents but that's very subjective. What are the rules? How are the penalties determined? What makes it worse what makes it better? How do they work towards consistency?

Note that Max was talking about the media when he talked about the bias, not the stewards, but it is true that these inconsistencies are also a reason why people come up with such explanations or say the stewards hate such or such driver.

And there's always been inconsistencies, and people have always complained about the stewarding, but with the rise in conspiratory beliefs and with title fights, it would do everyone good if they showed that they are at least TRYING to make things more consistent.

[chicaotaku-fanfics]

There's Three of You?! Pt. 12

Continuing from where our last chapter ended.

Our shooting gets 10000x more complicated when new evidence comes in.

Also, added two scenes which I think are cute, and show how Lilly and her brothers interact, as well as how her friendship with Connor is growing. (They'll end up being best friends, you can count on that.)

Warnings: foul language, might be some medical inconsistencies.

CHAPTER 12

Sometime later I saw the Gift of Hope members take off with two little transport fridges with the organs of Mrs. Simps, it was a bittersweet sight for me since I had the chance of taking care of Max. I was sitting at the nurses station, thinking somethings over, when I saw Miss Goodwin and Maggie, I walked over to them.

“Well, there she goes.” said Miss Goodwin.

“Something doesn't make sense.” said Maggie, I nodded.

“What's that?” asked Miss Goodwin again, I decided to make my presence known to both women.

“Shooting in a movie theater, and we've only had one GSW, and that was the shooter.” I said.

“Where are the rest of the gunshot victims?” asked Maggie, continuing my point. Miss Goodwin looked at both od us, I turned to the chief nurse and then to my boss, nodded to both of them and left to check what else I could do around the hospital.

My trip was cut short when I saw my brother and his partner enter the ED, I walked over to them.

“Hey guys.” I said, Jay smiled at me and hugged me briefly, I hugged back, then Erin hugged me.

“Hey LilyPad, how you doing?” he asked, I shrugged.

“Seen better days. You here for the teacher?” I asked, Erin was the one who answered now.

“Yeah, just got some interesting info, and we wanted to run some details by him.” she said, I nodded.

“Of course, follow me.” I said, turning around and starting to walk towards the treating room we had him in. Reese was with him, as well as April, putting a band-aid on a recently stitched cut on his forehead.

“Mr. Miller. There are a couple of detectives here that need to ask you some questions.” I said, then turned to Reese.  “Is he all right to come with me?” I asked her

“Yeah, just finished. Just waiting to get him to CT.” she said, I smiled.

“All right, Mr. Miller.” I said, guiding everyone to a more private room.

“Thanks.” he said.

“Mm-hm.” Reese nodded, and April did too.

“Uh… I already spoke with the officers at the scene.” said Mr. Miller, as soon as he sat down.

“We're just here to clarify a few things.” said my brother, I thought I’d be last one in, but Miss Goodwin entered the room too.

“You said you saw the gunman enter the theater, is that right?” Erin asked the algebra teacher.

“Yes, from the emergency exit by the screen.” he answered.

To be honest, he seems pretty sure for someone who suffered a head injury.

“And what was he carrying?” Erin questioned again.

“Um, an assault rifle.” said Miller, I was a bit shocked.

“You saw the weapon?” the dirty blond detective asked.

“Yes, he was, uh, waving it around.” answered the brunette.

“Can you describe the weapon?” Jay questioned now.

“Uh… I couldn't tell if it was a Kalashnikov. I couldn't see the banana clip, you know? I think it was an M16A1.” the teacher answered.

He knows a lot about guns to just be an algebra teacher. I thought, as I heard the man answer the questions.

“Did you hear him fire the weapon?” Jay aked the man the $10,000 dollars question.

“Yes, that's why I pulled my gun.” said the civilian sitting in front of my brother and his partner, who then looked at each other.

Oh oh, that look’s not good.

“Is it possible that the shots you heard were actually coming from the movie?” my brother asked the man.

“No. What– what's, uh… what's going on here?” asked Mr. Miller.

“Peter, the kid that you shot is a prankster.” Erin started her explanation.

Now that’s a big plot twist if I’ve ever heard one.

“He thinks it's funny to scare people. He posts videos on the Internet.” she finished her explanation.

“I don't understand.” said Miller, confused beyond belief.

“He didn't have an assault rifle. He didn't have a rifle at all. He had a leaf-blower.” she said, pulling a print out of an oficial PD Crime Lab picture from the file foulder she had in her hand.

I saw Miss Goodwin close her eyes, not believing what she was hearing, I turned to my brother and he looked at me, nodding to follow him outside. We excused ourselves and left the room. I guided him to an empty hall and turned to see him.

“Please tell me that the last few minutes were some kind of joke.” I said, he let out a sigh.

“Unfortunately LilyBloom, I can’t.” he said, then walked closer to me, as if to share a secret. “We retrieved the leaf-blower, and the bullet caskets found at the scene are a match to Miller’s gun. No other caskets were found.” he said, I walk away a bit, hands going to the back of my head.

“God.” I let my hands fall, just when I was about to ask another question, two more figures joined us.

“Hey Jay, Lilly. Everything alright?” asked Will, Connor not to far behind him. I turned to my green-eyed brother, he nodded. I, in turn, turned to the other two doctors and nod towards an empty room.

“What’s going on here?” asked Connor as soon as the door closed.

“The movie theater shooting situation just got a hell of a lot more complicated.” I said.

“What’s so complicated about it? A guy went into the movies, pulled out a gun and a concerned citizen saved everyone. What’s complicated about that?” asked Will.

“The fact that the kid didn’t have a gun.” said Jay. Both doctors’ expressions changed to ones of shock.

“Say that again? There was no gunman at the movies?” asked Connor, looking between Will, Jay and I.

“Apparently he’s a prankster who enjoys scaring people… thinks it’s funny somehow.” I said.

“But the gun…” started Will.

“Never existed. It was a leaf-blower.” said Jay.

Both doctors in front of me are shocked. As if on cue we all turned to the window of the room we were in, a nurse was taking Mr. Miller to another private room, probably to avoid everyone… specially the press, then I remembered something important.

“Oh, right.” that pulled the thre men’s attention back to me. “Uhm. Connor, this is our brother Jay. Jay, this is Connor, a great trauma surgeon, and our colleague.” I said, both of them shook hands.

“Nice to meet you man.” said Jay, Connor smiled at him.

“So you’re the famous Jay, huh? Lilly’s told me a lot about you.” Connor said, I blushed, Jay turned to me.

“All good things I hope.” he said.

“Who do you take me for? Of course I’ve sang you praises everytime I talked about you.” I said, the blush still on my face.

“Except for the occasional comment about you wanting to slap him in the back of the head.” said Will, I turned to him with a murderous expression.

“I know where you live Halstead.” I said to him, he laughed, grabbing me in a headlock and giving me a nudgie.

“What was that you pipsqueak? Did you say something?” he said, I started laughing too.

“You freaking giant, let me go!” I said inbetween laughter.

Eventually Will let me go, and the mood became serious again, but Will had a smile on his face.

“At least you’ve improven my mood, my last patient isn’t the most pleasant.” he said, we all frowned in confusion. “She’s old and a bit racist.”

“Oh.” Connor, Jay and I said at the same time.

“Yeah. Asked for Ethan because, and I quote, «the Orientals make the best doctors. It's their math skills.»” I snorted at that. “Yeah, ha ha.” Will said, sarcasm in his tone.

“And what did you do?” asked Jay.

“More like, what did Ethan do?” I asked.

“Told her she needed a biopsy, and then finished it up quoting Confucius.” he said, I made a confused face.

“Isn’t Ethan Korean? Confucius is Chinese.” I said.

“That’s what I said, but… meh… she was left starstruck, and agreed to the biopsy so…” Will said, just then Connor’s pager went off.

“Gotta go, the kid’s finally in the ICU.” he said, I turned to him.

“Right, how did he do in the surgery?” I asked, Connor sighed. “Don’t say anything else, that’s answer enough.” I added, he nodded. “Want me to go with you? We were primaries when he came in.” I said.

“Yeah, why not.” he said, then turned to my brothers. “Gentlemen, I’m gonna steal your sister for a while.”

“You can keep her if you want man.” said Jay.

“Yeah, she’s independent, won’t give you much trouble… but we don’t take responsibility if she breaks your heart or wounds your ego.” said Will, both had smirks on their faces.

“You fuckers! I’m a delight!” I exclaimed, that made everyone laugh.

“Go treat the kid and we’ll see each other later.” said Jay.

“Chinese at mine later? We could watch a movie.” I asked, both my brothers nodded. I turned to the blue-eyed surgeon “The invitation’s for you too.” I added.

“Yeah, why not.” Connor answered.

“Great. I choose the movie.” said Will, Jay and I turned to him so fast it was a miracle we didn’t get whiplash.

“The hell you will! You made us watch Titanic three times in two days last time!” Jay and I exclaimed at the same time.

“It’s a classic!” argued my elder brother.

“Still… to much.” I said. “I say we watch a Disney movie.” now both my brothers groaned. “What?” I asked.

“Aren’t you too old for a Diney movie?” asked Will.

“Says the guy who still sings along to all of the Brother Bear soundtrack.” I said, Will blushed.

“Just get out and go to your patient, we’ll decide later.” said Jay, I nodded.

Connor opened the door for me and we exited the room, making our way to the elevators. The ride was a short one, he gave me main details that I had to know, but the entire description was for the parents.

“We have clamped the entire blood supply to his liver.” Connor told the parents as he made his way to the side of the bed to check the monitors, I made my own way to the other side.

“It's keeping him alive for now, but it's a temporary solution.” I said.

“He needs a liver transplant to survive.” Connor spoke again.

“Which he won't get. Peter'll stay at the bottom of the list, won't he?” the father asked, looking at Connor, then at me. “How long does he have?” he added.

“A day, maybe two.” Connor answered. The parents moved to be beside his son, instead of standing at the foot of the bed.

“He did a bad thing, but he's not a bad person. He's just a boy.” said his mom, placing a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

A boy who decided it was a good idea to enter a movie theater and scare the shit out of everyone with a leaf-blower.

“Please… save my son.” she said, looking first at me, then at Connor. We both nodded and then exited the room.

Both Connor and I rubbed our faces with our hands, different degrees of exhaustion in our expressions. Just then, Dr. Zanetti made her way to us… more like to Connor, but I was there, so she pulled me along too.

“Rumor's floating around, you're gonna want to hear it.” she said, as she made us walk along with her.

Is she talking about the kid being a prankster?

“You mean the fact that the kid didn’t have a gun?” I asked, Zanetti stopped in her tracks.

“You knew?!” she exclaimed. We both nodded. “How?!” she asked.

“Contacts.” I said, Connor nodded to that.

“If you’re talking about the rumor mill…” Zanetti started, I interrupted her.

“Nope. Although its speed is remarkable… no we didn’t hear it from there. We heard from my brother.” I said, Zanetti looked confused.

“Dr. Halstead?” she asked, I shook my head no. “Then who?” she added.

“You do remember I have a brother in the CPD, right?” I asked her, she looked confused again.

“There’s three of you?!” she exclaimed, I just rolled my eyes.

“Yes, there is. Now, focus?” I asked.

“So, the good doctor, the detective, and the walking disaster?” Zanetti asked.

“I’d like to think I’m the good doctor, but yeah… you could say that.” I said. “If you’ll excuse me.” I added, walking away and leaving Connor with the blond surgeon.

Not ten minutes later, Connor found me to tell me that, apparently, Max’s mom’s liver was on its way back. We looked at each other and then ran to find Miss Goodwin.

We found her right before she took the elevator to her office, so we jogged a bit to catch up to her.

“Is it true? Lucy Simm's liver is on its way back to the hospital?” Connor asked.

“The intended recipient died in pre-op.” said Miss Goodwin.

“Peter is an HLA match, it can go to him.” the surgeon next to me spoke again.

“Yeah, there are names ahead of him on the list.” rebuted our boss.

“None of them are in this hospital.” said Connor

“It has already been three hours, livers are viable for less than 12.” I added.

“By the time the list gets sorted out, the patient prepped, organ shipped, it may be too late.” Connor added this time.

“Lucy's husband can direct donate to whomever he chooses. Ask him to give it to Peter.” I begged.

“You two are talking about the man responsible for his wife's death.” Miss Goodwin said firmly.

“Who’s also our patient.” I said with the exact same tone.

“And he has done a horribly stupid thing, I know, but he's a kid. Peter deserves a chance to turn his life around.” said Connor, ending his sentence right before the elevator doors closed.

“Think she’ll consider it?” I asked him, he sighed, rubbing his hands through his face.

“Honestly? I don’t know. At this point, I’m willing to start praying for a miracle.” said Connor, half his sentence sounding muffled ‘cause of his hands being on his face.

“It seems we do need a miracle…” I said, my hand going to where my Saint Benedict medal was under my scrub top, Connor followed the movement of my hand with questioning eyes. I took out the small medal and showed it to him. “Saint Benedict’s medal.” I said, he took the tiny medal into his palm, and nodded.

“I’m willing to pray for that miracle to happen… even if I sometimes doubt God listens to them.” he confessed. I took his hand and pulled him towards an empty room.

“Then thank God I was raised Catholic… and that my faith always came easier.” connor was about to ask, but I beat him to it. “Jay’s like you most of the time. Has his days were faith comes easier and others in which I can tell he questions if God really listens to us mere mortals.” I make a pause, taking a seat, Connor sitting next to me. “Will and I’s faith always came easier… we trust easier too.” I make another pause.

“I envy you for that, you know? It's a good thing.” said Connor, I blushed a little, then looked at the ground.

“It’s also the reason Will and I got our hearts broken so much during college and med school.” I said, then took the medal into my right hand, offering my left to Connor. He took it and, silently, we prayed for our miracle.

[hyperfixingfr]

big fan of your peacock design for Hoagie because idk maybe I’m reading too into it but the show making him a walrus (I think?? Been a while since I’ve seen the episode) just felt like a cheap and lazy “haha fat character” joke

It was actually worse than a walrus, it was a hippo! And yes, you're right. That was exactly the point of him being made a hippo. Big, fat, and hungry.

CW// a bit of some serious criticism of KNDs writing.

Hoagie was a comedic relief character who was supposed to be viewed as mock worthy material, no matter how much it extended to real life bigotry. One of the biggest flaws of the show is the mediocre at best writing. It had good jokes, but that all goes to shit the minute they use other people's harmless traits as a gag. Plus, they were horribly inconsistent. The treatment of Hoagie was horrible and I don't mean that in a, "ohhh no my favorite character is being bullied!" kind of way. That's not how you pick on a character unless you're also intending to give the character severe mental issues and self image problems, which never happened in canon beyond slight hints that he was merely anxious. Hoagie was always portrayed to be this completely oblivious and lacking of response character who you could freely pick on because he never felt bad about the way he was talked about. Not only is that completely unrealistic and taking away his character, but it's also implying that you can just... Say those things to people. And they won't feel a thing.

If Hoagie being mocked in those ways happened to be some sort of emotional arc, I would understand that. But the problem is that, it wasn't. Hardly anything came of it. He didn't even seem to flinch despite him being young and susceptible to a more difficult time handling emotions. A kid his age would be ruined with that kind of treatment. People who were treated like him at his age end up in places I shouldn't even mention right now. And they show clear signs of it. I know they do, because I was one of those kids. Yet, Hoagie really never budged beyond maybe a frown in the aftermath he'll hold for like... 5 seconds. Max. Suddenly, he's over it. Like he's a mature adult capable of handling feelings and understanding that they're wrong and why they're wrong. I wouldn't expect them to go ham on anything, but shit. At least a more accurate response, like keeping his head down and holding a frown the rest of the episode. No kid would hear the kind of bullshit he hears and experiences and does nothing. Children would cry, become sad, get angry. And he's not one to get angry, so it's kind of obvious what he'd do otherwise. Probably more likely to sit in silence than cry, but my point stands.

Absolutely horrible to have done what they did with their writing. Not only did they feed the flirty Asian girl stereotype and the chill motherly black girl stereotype, but they also enforced the idea that healthy but fat people are flawed for their completely normal body. The fat jokes weren't even funny. They could've made fat jokes without bringing down fat people.

And I don't even wanna hear the whole "but it was made in the 2000s" bullshit because I can name five shows that aired before KND with fat main characters that never, EVER made a harmful fat joke. There's a reason why Ed, Edd n Eddy was considered peak comedy and KND wasn't. Because Ed, Edd n Eddy never made derogatory and degrading jokes about completely harmless things like a person's body. And that's with Ed and Eddy being fat! It's pretty simple - the show just... Wasn't well written. The time period has little excuse considering how easily other shows had been funny without their weird mockery. And I'm telling you right now, KND definitely had at least a minor impact on how children viewed fat people. If they didn't provoke the thought in the children who watched, they enforced it with their jokes. Not exactly a great thing to have done.

If you need to put someone down to be funny, you aren't funny. Simple as that. Hoagie could have gotten so much more development if they were being more realistic. This is Sci-Fi, of course he'd still be a human with human reactions. And they could have done so much with it, too. It would have been nice for there to have been a plot relating to his struggle with bullying. I would've loved to see him develop his character... Hoagie and Kuki hardly developed like the others. And I'm reaching to say Abby did because it's far less than the other two.

And really, it sucks. I love seeing fandom interpretations of him because they try to take into account his true character. He's a sweet, nerdy boy who loves to use comedy to cheer himself and others up. He's the pinnacle of empathy development in children (excluding the, uh... Weird misogynistic stuff...). He's such a loveable character but the show really did their best to try and ruin him and his reputation.

Sorry for the long rant but it gave me an excuse to dish out this information. I don't think everyone realizes just how intentional the mockery of Hoagie was.

[teeth-cable]

You want to know how stupid the Helluva fandom is?

People still think Loona is a teenager. Like even if you missed Vivziepop's age confirmation they: sell sexy merch, nobody thinks Tex is a teen, Loona can drink alcohol in a show made by Americans, is at I.M.P. during the day and she has been adopted for at minimum 5 years.

Like did people legit forget about the sexy merch?

Though I will agree that they do write her weirdly because it seems that just by her behavior she's at max been stuck with Blitzo for 2 years.

Like she never calls him dad and is acting like she's in the phase "UGH YOUR NOT MY REAL DAD," and somehow she didn't make any friends for 5 years after she was put in a safe environment? Like Hell does apparently have an education system due to the cut Charlie comic so what's going on?

Also does that mean Loona never attempted to go outside by herself without Blitzo. I get he is overprotective but he had a job that he couldn't bring Loona too judging by the photos in his phone and mentioning he used to go after hellborns. We know she got a human disguise without Blitzo knowing somehow so....

Like what has Loona been doing besides working at I.M.P. for the past 5 years?

Like a way to fix this is something called adult adoption. Blitzo could find a homeless Loona and take her in which would fix a lot of plot holes.

And like when they write her in a way that makes sense they always find a way to undercut it. She shows up to hang out with Vortex which tells us the audience they are still on good terms despite Loona having a crush. They are mature about it and its her social awkwardness fucking her over with other people. Then Bee shows up who is being genuine and kind to her Loona acts like a bitch for no reason. I think we are supposed to think she's jealous but like its not clear. And even if it is she knew Vortex had a girlfriend ahead of time and even if she didn't know Bee was gonna be there one would assume Tex would bring his gf to a party. Even if you didn't know she was Bee. Like Loona is allowed to be slightly jealous but she isn't allowed to treat Bee like that.

Like Vortex is Loona's only friend and she isn't at least going to try to be nice to someone important to him.

Like Vortex never even told Loona to cool it or defend Bee so I'm confused about what's going on with him. Like realistically if I brought someone to come hang out with my friends and they acted like Loona we would be having a serious conversation or I'd drop them because like your giving this person a chance and they disrespect your loved ones immediately. If the show had good writing Vortex would pull Loona aside immediately.

Like Loona literally is acting like a child in this.

Then Loona acts like one again because she cares more about having fun than checking if her father is ok. Like Bee had to threaten her to check on Blitzo. I know Vortex probably doesn't know her situation but if I was him I'd think Loona and Blitzo hate each other or something.

Then Loona has the gall to act like she cares about Blitzo at the end suddenly? Its even more ruined by Seeing Stars. Like I feel there's two versions of Loona and the writers can't pick which one is the actual one. Like sometimes Loona actually acts her age and seems like a character with a hard shell but a softie but other times she doesn't act like an adult and is just bitchy for no reason. And it sucks because i love the former characterization but it gets dragged down kicking and screaming due to the latter.

I did read fan theory that Loona was originally a teenager but they changed it so they could use her as furbait and sell sexy merch.

And you know what a lot of plot holes and issues would be solved if she was around Octavia's age.

Like she can't go to the human world because she's a kid

Explains Blitzos protectiveness

Makes her bitchy attitude less egregious

Also explains why she's not in a lot of eps because she's at school

Would get rid of her inconsistent writing

But it would have to be before the pilot when this concept happened because they literally had her drinking and possibly get syphilis (im aware it can be inherited but since the show is a raunchy comedy...).

I actually don't blame the fandom for thinking she's a teenager. The lewd side of fandom is just a small part of it. As someone who is critical of HB, I easily forget too, Loona is supposed to be 22 and not a teenager because of how much the show treats and write her as one.

Almost all of her actions can be explain by trauma but I am very hesitant to say this because the times Viv has used trauma is to excuse characters’ terrible actions and she never hinted at Loona's trauma in Season 1.

But still, it can explain why she only stays with Blizto, never straying, it t’s because she doesn't feel comfortable being in public by herself. She had to stay in a crowded pound with Hellhounds who were jerks and mean to her through her life until she was 17. Loona doesn't like hanging around people because she's scared they will hurt her plus Blitzo can protect her. Blitzo is a person she can retreat to for safety so it’s important she has him around if something bad happens. People who have PTSD and trauma from abusive households tend to stay away from crowded areas because it's unpredictable and triggering for them also people with trauma tend to be closed off and distant towards others. The only reason why Loona went to the party is because Tex was there, another person she can rely on. If he wasn't there, Loona would have stayed home. It also would explain why Loona treated Bee like a bad person. Trauma can cloud your perception of others and second-guess them. Or maybe Loona got scared that Bee would take Tex away from her for the whole party, making her lonely in an environment and with people she doesn't know and she didn't feel safe with. Trauma make people act out and think irrationally to protect ourselves from experiencing the same form of trauma again or dealing more of it.

I wish Viv did relate Loona's actions in this EP to her trauma instead of making her jealous of Bee because she still has a crush on Tex. It downgrades her character into a petty teenager and doesn't make sense because Loona knew Tox for a few hours before he told her he had a girlfriend so she already knew and time has passed, why would she still have crush? Also if Viv did hint at Loona's trauma in this EP, it could be use as foreshadowing for Loona's pound scene in Season 2 and wouldn't make her trauma come out of nowhere.

It's very obvious, the writers have different versions of Loona and they can't pick a single one to stay with. I rather take this EP version of Loona who acted like a petty teenager and randomly felt affection for Blitzo than Seeing Stars’s Loona where she was an abuser to him.

[virtual-idoll]

tbh there's alot of strange things and inconsistencies and dumb shit related to the writing of p5 and royal like the way they treat ann and sexualize her, how they assume you're girl crazy and make ryuji and mishima stay girl crazy and dumb/termibally online throughout the story even if you max out their links, and how everybody constantly shits on ryuji

but like the thing that gets me the most is the stupid dating sim mechanics. you can date women that realistically would never want to or agree to date you, like kawakami. women just throw themselves at you. almost all of them. and I'm going to be honest. the women kind of suck. I'm not dating their asses. and even if I did want to date one. there's alot of fake dating and other shit the game makes you do with other characters and the shit with akechi and like. dude if I was dating the player. I would tell him to cut that shit out. why are you as my boyfriend making promises like that with another man? huh? why are you hanging out with haru so much? WHY DID SUMI THINK SHE COULD CONFESS TO YOU? HUH???

[perpetual-fool]

-

This one is particularly ramble-y. I've noticed that my thinking is disorganized.

I had a moment of feeling pretty good. Was watching someone play this game, Lunacid. It's uh, an action RPG, not quite like anything I'm familiar with but the closest comparison I have would be Demon's Souls. Anyway, I think the deal was that what I saw all made sense? The world is sufficiently fantastical and nonsensical that it didn't create any expectations to be betrayed, and the path of progression was very straightforward. There's a lot of standard RPG mechanics: there are enemies which respawn, killing enemies gives you XP and sometimes loot, leveling up makes your character stronger. But in particular, weapons level up too. (Not really how it works, but it seemed like it based on the first few minutes of gameplay.) And I feel this is significant, weapon XP is also gained from destroying breakable objects. So for instance, you could load into an area, break a few boxes lying around, reload the area and repeat until you've maxed out your weapon XP. That is, things are allowed to work the way they appear to work; no big list of exceptions because the consequences didn't work out the way the developer intended. ('Intent' is something I'll get to.)

But yeah, I was feeling uncharacteristically good. And I was having a wave of reasonable thoughts about some issues I had been ruminating over. Like, a lot of the stuff I feel about about, I shouldn't, because it was a direct response to how I was being treated. (Which is tangentially related for reasons I don't know how to explain.)

So I bought the game. I feel okay, but it's not the high I was hoping for. Largely, the game does actually 'make sense' by not having enough structure to be 'wrong'. Like, their isn't enough (explicit) lore to be inconsistent. And it's somewhat rewarding to be playing for an experience that doesn't feel like you're supposed to win. Verisimilitude. Say, there was this.. magic combination maze* with this mysterious book at the end. And I'm not sure what the issue was, maybe my character didn't have high enough INT to read it? But I just couldn't read it. I didn't have whatever it was I needed to unveil this secret, so the game just wouldn't tell me. It kept its secrets. (*combo maze: there is a room with multiple paths, each path leads you back to the same room, if you take the correct sequence of paths then you will be led to the exit instead. For instance: Zelda 1 lost woods) Similarly, there are enemies immune to physical damage, and there's no guarantee that you'll have a weapon which deals non-physical damage. The game will happily let you get in over your head and drown. Though granted, they put up a sign to warn you and gave you a couple 'teleport to safety' crystals for free. But there are things you can't do and fights you can't win. Which brings me to the inciting issue.

I can't beat the final boss. Straightforward explanation is that I built my character poorly. The problem is that the bosses regenerate heath. I think that's a brilliant game design choice for unrelated reasons, but my character just doesn't have the DPS. I went all-in with Dexterity to use bows, but the bows aren't particularly good.

Now I'm confused. And it's not really the game that I'm confused about. Like, it's pretty clear the developer didn't ensure every build was equally viable, and I just need to make a new character. And it kind of seems like what I'm really confused about is my default assumption that the game is right and I am wrong. If I think something is bad, I must just not understand it. (Which is a nasty bit of corrupt logic probably taught to me as a child.) But I think really really what I'm confused about is 'intent-result conflation' gaslighting. Like, it's been relatively common that I'll ask someone why they did something, laying out how they specifically took actions that would ensure that the bad thing happened, and they give a non sequitur non-defense like "well it's not like I wanted the bad thing to happen". Implicitly, "that wasn't my intent, therefore it didn't happen". So, 'surely the developer didn't intend for bow builds to be completely useless on bosses, potentially luring players into wasting 50+ levels on Dex and wasting 12 real-world hours of time for the actual human player, so it must not be happening'. Except, it's not laid out like that. The misfiring in my head is because intent and result is considered the same thing. Not that that's a new concept to me. But at the moment it's like my brain won't accept it unless someone else also confirms it. And I've literally never heard anyone admit something like "I wanted X, but I was wrong about Y, so Z happened'. Or heard any sort of discussion about making sure intent and result are aligned.

I dunno if needing others' approval for my beliefs is something I can fix on my own or not.

And tangent, I did some sorting of my computer files. Once I worked out where everything should go it's very fast. There's no going item by item pondering where each thing go, I just look at the type of thing it is, it goes with the other things of that type. Any my thinking should be equally fast, equally straightforward. But this simple problem spins into a tangent of a tangent and I don't even know what problem I'm trying to solve. And while that's happening there's three different things that need doing and I have no idea how I'm going to transition to that. And why anything?

At the least, I presume fixing my mental health is the most important thing right now. whatever that means.

[crystalelemental]

You know what? Fuck it. It's anniversary. Treat yourself.

We're maxing out Best Chatelaine.

General Overview Ohooooo man. Okay. Big fan of this one. Obviously personality clicked, I do have a type, but I'm kinda loving her kit too.

Dana's obvious benefit is SEUN, which is...I have mixed feelings. I think it's simultaneously really good, and over-hyped. Really good because a huge 50% bonus, which I believe is multiplicative, applied for an EX sync nuke or heavy DPS shot, is fantastic. But it's only applicable on-type, which is generally the least important way to deal damage in the Gauntlet/High Score meta. This is part of why I think we need more pairs with two attacking types. SEUN with a potential super-effective coverage move would be really good. But as it stands, a lot of options can't make good use of it.

Moreover, 1/5 Dana encapsulates an issue with SEUN appliers. Specifically, they tend to make for bad offense buffers. Red and Jasmine have crit rate, even though one does it better than the other, and some arguable benefits that are inconsistent at best and insufficient at worst. Dana takes this a step further by boosting no offensive stats at 1/5. You get SEUN, and only that. But pairs that cap all relevant offenses fast enough for that to matter tend to be so good that the on-type modifier is irrelevant. It just doesn't accomplish much.

3/5 Dana is an entirely different beast. Team Sharp Entry is a divine skill that saves a turn off any self-buffer with +2 crit. Which is a lot of them. Hype Up on her attack, especially combined with Cold Snap, is divine. Not only does she now have the potential to disrupt an action, she's buffing special attack routinely while doing it. On physical stages, Dana has literally nothing better to do but spam Frost Breath, which allows her to rake up the special attack boosts for the team easily. At 20/20, I admit I had zero issues keeping her alive, without ever touching X Sp Def All. First Aid 4, combined with a Max Potion/Damage Guard effect on her trainer move, makes her more than sturdy enough. SEUN applications are great, but two are more than sufficient in most scenarios.

I didn't do this, but another fun angle is that she can boost both defenses and has Synchro Healing. So she's a great stall support as well. Girl is versatile.

Vs. Bruno It's a bad picture because I was frustrated and just glad to be done. Gardenia is stupid frail, so any time he's set to use two Bulldoze, you have to take a turn early on to throw TM on Gardenia instead and hope Dana can handle it (she can). But then you run into the issue of Gardenia needing sun up or she loses special attack, and her missing sync crit, etc etc etc. She's really frustrating. Gardenia kinda sucks.

Vs. Will Poison is fairly hard to shop for, but Dana has one extremely funny option. H!Iris gets +4 Sp Atk/+2 crit, and is therefore perfectly salvaged by Dana. Lucian just makes the team invincible at this point, and covers all needed gauge concerns. This is a really easy setup to take -2 sync cooldown parameter as well, because Iris will obliterate this team. Following that, second SEUN on Hyper Beam, which can combo into Iris getting Super Victory for yet another, and just blasting a stage into powder.

Vs. Karen This is more a showing of how SEUN can offset lower offense boosted stats, at least in part. +3 Sp Atk on Lusamine with SEUN is more than enough to eviscerate the sides, and Lusamine only needs two trainer moves with Team Sharp Entry in play, so she can focus on pure sync power. This was a really clean win, despite how much Sp Atk Lusamine seemed to need. Dana was able to provide.

Vs. Koga There is an ice stage! Initially I was going to do Ghetsis or something, before realizing (1) accuracy issues, and (2) not a great showing of Dana's abilities specifically. I then considered BP Candice, before realizing mine is EX. So I ran Pryce. Who is not EX. We did eat the opponent's sync, Pryce absolutely cannot DPS his way out of this. He did get a denial thanks to SEUN, but I messed up the gauges and it caused problems. I don't know that it made enough difference. The point is, she carried non-EX Pryce. It's not quite Irida, but I will gladly take this.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

So I got this comment (name cropped out on purpose) about this post. And though I ended up replying in the comments, I've decided to put that reply I made here.

Sure, but the thing about Sonic canon is that

Most characters that aren't main characters appear in one or two games max

Though the games and adaptations aren't great with continuity (understatement I'm aware), they often will have threads from other games to pull from even on a minor level that affect well...why a specific story is like that. Like how certain games/adaptations will reference other ones, or they'll operate under the idea that you understand the origins of characters shown

Now, headcanons, playing with fanon, that's fine and dandy. That's what fanon fun is for.

But when you have characters that appear in like. One game's story mode (Chip, Infinite, Mephiles, etc) or in singular adaptations (Scourge, Eclipse, the variants from sonic prime, various characters from older tv shows (a few of which also do show up in the archie comics), Dr. Starline, Surge)

And people who are fans of these characters or who depict these characters refuse to engage with the source material whatsoever, we get people who base their ideas of those characters off of popular fanon and their character designs and some random shit they heard, popular fanon which was based off of testimonies from people on youtube who ragged on the source material/didn't take it seriously or people who haven't consumed the source material in a while/didn't take any of it seriously when they did consume it. Hence, the long game of telephone example

And on top of that, because these "interpretations" (which often have glaring contradictions if you check the source material) are considered to be accepted canon as far as the fandom is concerned (which means opposing this or pointing out inconsistencies means you don't fit in with the "in" group and are therefore considered "weird" or someone with poor media literacy. In some cases it can be a quick way to get a person who heard half what they know about a cutscene comps, or at the very very least whichever adaptation they claim to be a fan of), just going off of popular fanon (influenced by the long telephone game), or only engaging with any given game or adaptation canon so they can force it all to fit within the fanon they like, just so they can then claim this is all just intended canon.

Are they really even understanding the way the characters "look and should act" in this case?

Hell. I've seen people go on and on about how they refuse to watch the Knuckles series, but they believe whatever the popular fanartist who maybe saw it (or some of it) said is canon, and then use that to influence their rants. I've seen people admit that they haven't read any of Archie Sonic, but if you dare say anything that goes against what they believe is canon and insist is canon about X Archie Sonic original character, then well...

And to this day no matter what happens in recent game or adaptation material, fandom members treat Tails like he's canonically a small baby who needs taken care of by the whole cast and is a little guy who says some smart things sometimes but is ultimately motivated by wanting a big bro to take care of him (which happens even if you put a specific recent game/adaptation in a vaccuum and consider only what was shown, said, and implied within it to be canon)

In the end the problem is not anyone playing fast and loose with canon, it's that people don't consume source material or don't consume source material with any genuine intent of meeting it where it's at, and so they only accept popular fanon as canon, and can get wildly angry at anyone who dares disagree with "the majority". Even in cases where we should be able to converse about differing interpretations

That's what this post is referring to. I just wanted to make my meaning more clear

Every time I consume another Sonic game I become more and more aware of the extent that which the Sonic fandom has played a long game of telephone for canon (or "accepted as canon" for fanon) knowledge with like. Maybe 1% having actually even watched a cutscene comp at least for the thing

[sirlewismybeloved]

i don’t usually do this, but i cant stay quiet anymore and please forgive me in advance for the long post —

dear Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team

if you drop the appeals then you’re missing the whole point of appealing — the “reputation” of f1 has already been ruined the moment they started being inconsistent. what this appeal is doing is setting a precedent of how unacceptable it is that something that has been written to be black and white is disregarded and interpreted as grey. it’s not “classy” to drop the appeals because your silence means complicity. don’t worry about tarnishing the win, it was dirtied the moment masi said “fuck the rules, i am the law”.

the moment you take back your appeal is when you lose credibility on wanting to race fairly and cleanly. why bother racing at all if you’re willing to stay silent to protect a reputation that’s already ruined beyond repair? why race when there’s always the worry that your efforts will be ignored if you’re too good? fight not for the championship but the future of f1, so that drivers will know they can’t expect assistance and need to win on grounds of merit and that any show of dirty driving will be dealt with properly.

lewis already won the championship, he was just robbed of his right to accept it because of those who are bitter, insecure and privileged enough to change the narrative for their benefit. you want the underdog? you want the true king? you’ve got him, but you’ve ignored him — lewis did that with the inferior car and the entire sport against him. he proved once and for all that he’s more than the car, that he��s truly worthy of being the goat. it’s not lewis’ fault that he’s just that good, it’s not his problem if the others can’t keep up.

and on that — this isn’t about the drivers, max deserving that win or not is a different story, it’s about the governing body manipulating the sport and ruining its integrity. Mercedes doesn’t need to worry about ruining f1’s reputation. the fia did it on their own when they decided they’d rather treat the “pinnacle of motorsport” as a cash-grab incentive to become more “relatable”. they ruined their reputation the moment they decided the attention they got from dts overruled proper racing. and now that they’ve had their fun, it’s about time they paid for their sins. because enough is enough.

so Mercedes, please don’t take back your appeals, instead take it as far as you can to fight for the integrity of yourselves as a team and drivers amongst the farce. do it for the kids out there who dream of one day racing in f1 and for the kids who’ve dreams to do great things. do it for the true fans of the sport who watch to see real racing and true title fights. do it for your mechanics, engineers and staff who spend hours upon hours perfecting everything to be the best. do it for the driver who’s going to another team so he can remember that a real team will fight for your accomplishments. do it for the incoming driver who’ll be the one carrying the narrative of your team into the future.

but most importantly, do it for the driver who believed in your potential when no one else did. do it for the driver who despite all the abuse chose to carry on and create an incomparable legacy. do it for the man who shows true class and sportsmanship, who drives cleanly and fairly to earn each of his wins. do it so his 103 poles and wins aren’t for nothing, so him equaling 7 titles means something more. do it for him so you can proudly and confidently continue as the Home of the 7x (8x) Formula 1 World Champions.

© @sirlewismybeloved 2021

please reblog to spread the awareness!

[claryfrayed]

lately, i’ve had such a love/hate relationship with nancy wheeler and it’s taken me a hot minute to figure out why that is.

originally, i absolutely adored her in season one. she was the embodiment of the “final girl syndrome.” but she was also sweet and kind and even a little bit naive. she wanted to be popular and go to parties, even if her best friend felt uncomfortable. but she also cared about her grades and when it came down to it, she never backed down from doing the right thing. even if that meant telling the cops about the beer they’d drank the night barb went missing.

in the first season, she had her own complete character arc. sure, she had love interests, but her main focus was on getting barb back and finding will. however, in season two is when i started to have a hard time with her character. i’ve seen a lot of people say that she became cold and jaded, though i don’t really think that’s the case. nancy’s main character arc in season two is learning to accept herself and dealing with grief. honestly, what i wasn’t a fan of, was how the narrative treated her like something to be won over. because this season is when her story starts to blend in with jonathan’s. and don’t get me wrong, i actually really like how they did jancy at first. but that issue doesn’t really start until season three. though for the remainder of this season, nancy is treated as somewhat of a “bad guy.” and the reason for that is because the writers want us to see steve in a good light. they want him to change and have good development and he did, his arc is one of my favorites i’ve ever seen play out. but this causes the narrative and essentially the way we view nancy to change, as it begins to favor the males around her.

this is extremely obvious in season three. where nancy is insensitive to jonathan about their class differences and at times, borderline ungrateful for what she has. it’s a mix between the writers trying to have her come off across as headstrong and accidentally making her seem like an unfeeling, privileged, “girlboss” so to say. and therein lies almost all the problems, the duffers have said themselves that they had intended to end the show after season one. and because of this, they had to add onto finished storylines. and the characters became less genuine because of this. making them seem two dimensional or even flat. during season three is when they all begin to have unshakable roles assigned to them. and nancy’s becomes the problem solver and the stubborn, always right, feminist, “girlboss.” and the thing that a lot of people have a hard time with, is realizing that women can be strong and badass and also still be wrong and fragile. it’s a common trend in a lot of media these days, though it’s gotten better.

and thinking back on how she was in season one compared to season four, i’ve figured out why i didn’t seem to care about her as much as i did max and robin. and that’s because the story allows them to breathe. it allows them to be messy and uncertain and to fuck up. it allows them to be something other than what the audience perceives them as. whereas, the duffers can’t seem to throw anything else at nancy other than relationship problems or her trauma and guilt over barb. instead of letting her have funny one liners and interact with her family. the best part about having her away from jonathan this season was her friendship with robin. but without that, honestly, her part in season four had gotten boring. and that is the root of my problem with her. it has nothing to do with her actual character traits and everything to do with the inconsistent writing.

this might be somewhat controversial. but i’ve read a lot of things about people hating nancy lately and it’s making me kind of sad.

[ickypuppi3]

what kisses me off the most is that. we’ve seen that they’re capable of good writing?? they just lack the fucking spine to follow through and acknowledge shit. i watched one interview where they were talking about how they haven’t killed any of the main cast because that would be traumatic and they would then have to show that trauma..but they don’t….have the time????? i dunno something like that. basically they’re more concerned with the big scary monsters than their actual characters and how all these events affect them. huge wake up call was how Max was treated in s4?? because it was so blatant. everybody wondering why she’s closed off and depressed and whatever and it’s like…..HER BROTHER WAS *JUST* IMPALED BY A GOOEY MEAT MONSTER WHAT DO YOU MEAN “WHAT’S WRONG?” this uh. got longer than i meant it to. 🙃

this !! they’re so inconsistent and as soon as they get a good storyline going they abandon it and the characters because… they don’t know what to do?

like there’s a good show right there, underneath all the other crap

it could genuinely be so good if they just tried

but they’re just so damn lazy and it’s like they want it to be a meaningless sci-fi series - which is valid - but they also want to include really deep topics like child abuse

and like yeah you can have both

but you have to do that part well or it just doesn’t come through

…and we all know they don’t do it well lmao

and no literally “what’s wrong with max” AS IF

as if that’s how people would act after max watched her brother die in front of her

[saby-chan]

Fire Lord Ozai: A blood thirsty monster or the less fortunate “Zuko” of his generation?

Hello again and thank you as always for clicking and allotting some of your time to read my humble post! Since I’ve happened to notice quite an increase in posts lately regarding the controversial character and nature of the former Fire Lord, the now imprisoned fallen prince Ozai, and I’ve personally promised in my previous post that I will share my own analysis on him if people asked me to do so (which actually happened), I am here to deliver my own take on this very intriguing man’s character, while also building a potential past for him based on stuff gathered from the show’s cannon.

I would like to start this essay with what I find to be my favorite quote ever: ”Monster’s aren’t born, they are created.” ~ Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto) What I like about this quote soo much and find very inspirational is the truth it holds within its short, yet powerful message. We are often fast to judge a “book by the cover”, to reduce others to what we assume of them by their appearance or latest actions that we’ve seen them do, but never actually take a moment and wonder where they come from, if this person we soo harshly look down upon really has been this way since their very beginning?

I’ve come across many comments on social media related to ATLA, especially on YouTube videos on which people would throw with harsh comments such as “Aang being a coward for choosing to spare the villain just because they saw a dumb baby pic of them” or “Ozai is the essence of evil and even as a baby he’d been a monster”. I can’t help but wonder who hurt these people to make them be so cruel? Like, how messed up must you actually be to say that a baby, a friggin baby, is the embodiment of all evils? Or that a child was a coward for choosing to see his opponent’s last bits of humanity and opted to spare them?

Aang was soo morally conflicted about the idea of killing Ozai not only because it contradicted the morals of his people, but because he himself understood that this man hadn’t always been the cruel beast he came to met in their first and final showdown. It’s important to note here the fact that upon finding that picture, Aang was actually convinced it had to be Zuko as a baby since it looked so innocent and cute and was actually surprised to learn it was Zuko’s father. And that’s the thing, Ozai was born like us all as an innocent and sweet baby. Babies aren’t in any way evil or twisted, they don’t even have the notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined in their small, still developing minds. In fact, the very choice of the creators to add this picture in the show is meant to tell us this very thing: this man wasn’t always like this. But if he wasn’t always like this, then what happened to make him become this way?

Well, in order to find out the reason, we must go back in time to the very beginning: Ozai’s childhood and upbringing. For this next part I am going to solely focus on the show cannon, as the comics aren’t the products of BryKe and have a lot of inconsistencies to the source’s cannon (you can go and read my other post on why they fail when it comes to Zuko’s character and his family).

 From what we know and can easily deduce by ourselves just from their appearances, Ozai and his brother Iroh have a huge age gap between them (somewhere between 10 and 15 years). This has to be our first red flag: isn’t it soo odd that this family opted to have their children at such a long distance between pregnancies? It almost feels as if Ozai hadn’t actually been part of his father’s actual family planning... In other words, he was a ‘mistake’ child (I actually hate having to use this terminology, but it will become relevant to when we expand on Azulon’s relationship with his sons). Sure, some may argue that Azulon actually decided to have two sons in case something were to happen to his first born, but wouldn’t it have been more logical to have his second born at 2-3 years max distance from his first? Why choose to have your second child when you are much older and thus risk having a baby with issues, if your sole purpose of this child is to serve as an insurance that you don’t ‘run out’ of heirs? It just doesn’t make much sense, so let’s go for the moment with the possibility that Ozai was an unplanned pregnancy.

This perspective actually gives way to another very interesting aspect: remember the infamous “Born lucky...Lucky to be born” quote? What if I tell you that there is a possibility that this quote wasn’t Ozai’s personal wicked invention, but actually something he himself heard from his very own father? It had been puzzling me for a long time why he choose to say “You were lucky to be born” to Zuko, which implies that Zuko wasn’t supposed to exist. I mean, it’s soo odd that Ozai went with something implying that Zuko was an unplanned pregnancy, since Zuko was the first born. So my theory is that maybe Ozai wanted to convey a different message to Zuko when he said that quote, but due to his anger he ended up replicating the same line he received from Azulon at some point in his childhood. We never got the exact flashback when the line was delivered from Ozai to Zuko, so we don’t have the exact context that lead to it (remember, we are excluding Yang’s take on the matter from the comics).

I mean, this feels like something that wicked old Azulon would have said to his least favorite child. Okay, so let’s go with the scenario that Ozai was an unwanted child, to which we could also add the possibility that Ilah’s health deteriorated after the first birth, which makes plausible the family’s initial decision of stopping at 1 kid.

Moving on, we know from the old ATLA character wiki’s that Ozai’s character design was made with Zuko in mind, being meant to be a grown up version of Zuzu, without the scar. An interesting choice indeed and even Iroh’s letter to Zuko on Ozai from one of the ATLA books describes Ozzy in a similar way to teenage Zuko in book 1: stubborn, feisty, determined and with a volcanic personality (easy to anger and competitive), so it means that these were intentional choices to imply that Zuko and his father are more similar than we were led to believe at first glance. Maybe Ozai was the “Zuko” of his generation. Also, in one of the interviews on the royal family, BryKe stated that Ozai worked very hard to get where he is in book 3, referring to his firebending specifically (we all know how Ozzy got the throne, so clearly, he didn’t “work hard” for that), so maybe he wasn’t always the strongest man alive, with the most exceptional firebending skills out there, like Azula who showed ease in her learning, but rather someone closer to Zuko’s weaker performance as a child, building his way to success through endless hard work until he became the prodigy we know today.

Continuing with our theoretical scenario, after his birth, the second child show’s lesser skills compared to his brother Iroh (by that I don’t mean that he wasn’t gifted at all, but that maybe Ozai wasn’t as fast and great of a learner like his big bro), so Azulon opts to just ignore him and continue focusing solely on his golden child. In my headcannon I actually think that Ilah survived the birth and so she was left in charge of the younger child’s education and upbringing. At this point Iroh is already 10 or older, so he is forced to focus on his development, which prevents him from spending time with his lil brother, but just for the sake of being positive, let’s assume that Ozai still had both his mother and his big brother to keep him sheltered from Azulon’s darkness for a small portion of his childhood.

I choose to believe that Ozai had his mother’s love for a small bit of his childhood due to his willingness in the show to allow Ursa (who mind you, as the granddaughter of Roku was considered a treacherous individual) to spend a ton of time with both Zuko and Azula and share her philosophy with the children, as seeing his wife playing with their children probably reminded him of his own bitter-sweet memories he had with Ilah. They also probably spent a lot of their time near the turtle-duck pond since that pond’s existence prolly dates long before Ozai and Ursa married and had their own children.

Unfortunately, Ilah dies and little Ozai remains all alone, to be influenced negatively by his father (and even by his grandpa Sozin, we don’t really know for certain when the old man died, so he prolly was there for a short time when Ozzy was still a child). Azulon most likely blames Ozai for his wife’s death as the second birth might’ve really had a huge toll on Ilah’s already fragile body, bringing her closer to death, so he still neglects and ignores the child, if not straight out bullies and abuses him for not being on par with Iroh. This prolly leads to Ozai becoming jealous of his brother since Iroh has their father’s love, pushing them further apart. I headcannon that this jealousy between the siblings led to Ozai complaining to his dad when he finally had too much of their father’s discrimination (at a similar age to when Zuko prolly did and got the infamous line, if not younger) only to get the “Iroh was born lucky, you were lucky to be born!” line with the sole purpose of hurting him since now the child knows that he was never wanted.

When Azulon scolds very furiously adult Ozai in Zuko’s memories for daring to ask to be named crown prince, he literally says something like “What, you dare ask me to betray MY own son?!” (this is like red flag number two), line that pretty much testifies how Azulon chose to pretty much treat Ozai as if he wasn’t his son too, showcasing how much he despised his second born and favored the first child over him. Since we are on the topic of their last conversation, the punishment Azulon gave to his son alone proves this man’s level of sadism, which leads me to be believe that Ozai’s childhood was full of this type of punishments for bad behaviors that could be easily corrected trough a long serious lecture or a lesser punishment focused more on teaching him an actual lesson. 

The old wikis also mention on the page about the hall with portraits of the previous Fire Lords that it was the place where Ozai chose to spend most of his time in his youth, seeking advice from his ancestors. I mean, seriously now, if he had a good and supportive father and a present brother in his life, would Ozai had chosen to seek guidance from the dead instead of his living family? That piece of information that was easily overlooked by many proves how lonely this man was in his youth.

So for the most part of his life, Ozai grew up under the toxic influence and abuse of his tyrant father who refused to acknowledge him. Yet he managed to grow up still full of determination to one day prove his worth to Azulon and gain his acceptance (just like we saw with Zuko in book 1, who was desperate to regain his honor and be accepted by his father). But unfortunately, no matter how strong he became or how good of a firebender he was, Azulon was unmoved and unphased by his second son’s performance.

From what we could gather from the little info we received in the show, it seems that Ozai was never sent to the battle field to aid his older brother, being kept as a stay home prince, with the only occasion he actually left home being to search for the Avatar (I don’t think Iroh was sent to do his part on searching the Avatar since he strongly believed that there wasn’t going to ever be one, so it’s safe to assume Azulon assigned Ozai with this mission just to get rid of him for a few years) and the only purpose he ever served to his father was to become part of the old man’s genetics experiment in order to create strong unparalleled firebending offspring (which I am pretty sure were meant to be ‘biological war machines’ used by Azulon in the war, as he didn’t really seem to give a shit about Ozai’s children compared to Lu Ten). So just imagine the level of disappointment and dishonor Ozai must’ve felt as a man and young aspiring soldier to find out that he was going to be used like a ‘non-bending daughter’ in a strategical marriage and never get to serve his country in what he’d been taught was the greatest and most important war for their Nation.

All in all, this marriage didn’t really end up that badly because it seems he and Ursa were actually very compatible. The old wiki for Ursa states that she was a noble woman and the perfect match for Ozai, which leads me to believe that show Ursa was intended to be a very strong willed and determined woman who earned his respect. The show never stated that Ozai never wanted his first born or that he was disappointed with Zuko from birth like the comics say, so it’s safe to assume that Ursa and Ozai actually ended up falling in love at some point since they had not one, but two kids with relatively a short time in between pregnancies. 

There are actually many signs in the show that actually prove that these two loved each other and Ozai didn’t abuse his wife: from the fact that they went every year to see Ursa’s favorite play despite Ozai hating the poor performance of the Ember Island Players (I mean, what man would do such a sacrifice as to endure the same torture every single year just to make his wife happy if he never loved her?), Ursa’s undeniable and sincere love for their children (in the show it was never stated that Ursa saw Zuko and Azula as someone else’s children, so if she were indeed an abused woman who was forced to have these children, she wouldn’t have ever loved them to such an extent, especially Zuko who resembled his father the most physically), the fact that Ursa had equal rights in their marriage and raising of their children (her even scolding and grounding Ozai’s favorite child without hesitation), to the most significant scene to the Urzai ship in Zuko’s flashbacks: Ozai sitting troubled all alone in Ursa’s favorite spot by the pond, in a sad and brooding atmosphere, after he lost her, instead of celebrating what had to be the happiest day of his life since he was finally crowned Fire Lord (it’s clear who had more importance in his heart: Ursa meant more to him than the throne, so losing her outshined his achievement). In fact, Ursa must’ve been the only thing that still kept him outside of the darkness that threatened to swallow his heart and once he lost her, Ozai had nothing else to keep him on the right path.

And even as a father, it seems that Ozai wasn’t always cold and distant to his children, as his true self depicted in Zuko’s memories on Ember Island shows him caring for both of his children, even holding Zuko close to him with a protective arm on the boy’s shoulder. Except the Agni Kai, there don’t seem to be any instances in which he was physically violent towards his son before the banishment (Iroh literally let Zuko in to join that faithful war meeting willingly. Would’ve he done that if he knew his brother to be very violent towards his children in case they disobeyed? If yes, then it would make Iroh actually very questionable on a moral standpoint) and even on an emotional level, I don’t really think that he was actually abusive to him (at least while Ursa was there) because from Zuko’s conversation with Zhao, he’s adamant that his father will take him back and even states "You don't know how my father feels about me. You don't know anything!", meaning that the father he used to know showed him a level of respect and genuine affection (if Ozai were to bully Zuko since the boy’s very early childhood, do you think this kid would grow up to be so sure that his father wants him around and would he defend this bully when someone badmouths them in front of him?).

Even with Azula, despite people demonizing her from early childhood and saying that she was manipulated since birth by Ozai to become a war machine, I do believe that she shows genuine love and affection towards her father. I do choose to believe that back in the good times when the family was happy, Ozai spent quality time with his daughter, filling in the gap left by Ursa’s neglect. I theorize that the reason why kid Azula badmouthed her grandpa and uncle was because she was being very protective of her father: since she used to like spying and eavesdropping, it’s safe to assume that she prolly witnessed many instances in which the old man bullied or insulted Ozai, favoring Iroh over him. It’s a bit harder to see it that way since her snarky comments involve dark topics, but since they live in a society governed by power and war, I see them as something similar to if Azula would’ve said “Uncle sucks and he will surely be fired from his job!” or “Grandpa is old and weak, he should leave the family business to dad!”. Even the fact that the only thing capable of shattering her to pieces was her father leaving her proves how much she cared for him. Ty Lee and Mai’s betrayal was a big blow on Azula’s control and sanity, but she didn’t breakdown until Ozai discarded her after his coronation as Phoenix King. There’s nothing more painful in this world than to be left behind by the person you loved the most and was there by your side your whole life, whom you wanted to follow to world’s end and back. That was the moment Azula finally realized that the father she used to know and love was actually gone and had been in fact, long gone for years at this point.

But if Ozai cared for his family what made him change? Easy, it all comes back to the fact that his father never acknowledged him. The throne doesn’t seem to be his ultimate goal in life since Ozai discarded of the Fire Lord title very easily, tossing it to Azula without any remorse or hesitation. It was more about the meaning behind getting the crown: replacing Iroh in the line of succession was the ultimate proof of his father’s acceptance, that he wasn’t only a “mistake” and “failure” in his father’s eyes, but since Azulon ended up saying and doing what he did, backfired Ozai and made him understand that no matter how hard he tried, the old man will never see him for what he is. So yeah, for a proud man like Ozai this was a hard defeat to swallow, which in turn sparked his strong desire of winning the war and becoming the king of the world: if Azulon wouldn’t accept him even in death, then Ozai will prove to the whole world that he was above his father and his “perfect” brother by accomplishing what they never could and even better and no one was going to stop him, not even his own family.

This is what differentiates Ozai from Zuko: while both had similar upbringings, Ozai never broke away from his obsession of gaining his father’s admiration, allowing himself to fall prey to the darkness left by Azulon in his heart and abandon his true self, only to become the copy of his abuser, while Zuko stood up to his dad and chose his own destiny. If Aang were to come back around 20 or 30 years earlier, then he might’ve actually been able to save Ozai just like he saved Zuko, but unfortunately it wasn’t this way.

Do I think that Ozai could still be saved and redeemed even after the events of book 3? Definitely! Since he’s actually a broken man and still has a tiny bit of humanity left within, I think he still has a chance to change his heart. The only thing is that it’d be a long lasting process: first off he needs to spend a long time in solitude and reflect on his life’s choices and his past, understand where he went wrong and that what happened to him in his childhood is called abuse, which he ended up replicating on his own children. After he understands his wrongdoings and becomes willing to rediscover his true self, he needs to understand the truth about the war, that everything he’d known was fake propaganda and that there was nothing glorious in what he, his father and Sozin did under the excuse of “sharing their Nation’s greatness with the rest of the world!”. But most importantly of all, the only remedy that could possibly save him is love. It sound cliche, but by responding to hatred with more hate like Zuko did in the comics would never change the world “for the better” or bring it “to reality”. The only way to save both Azula and Ozai would be trough showing them the power of love, hope and empathy, how they don’t have to struggle alone and push everyone away. And especially by redeeming Azula, she would be a very important piece in Ozai’s redemption: since he had a closer parent-child relationship with Azula and cared for her the most when he did care, realizing how much he made her suffer through his actions, that would probably break Ozai enough to make him admit that he was wrong all along.

So yeah, this is my analysis on Ozai’s character using the cannon information from the show and old wikis and why I think he is just the product of a very bad environment and an abusive parent who never showed him love (if there’s a reason for why Ozai might be uncapable of showing a healthy parental love to his children is because you can’t show what you’ve never learnt yourself), being the Zuko of his generation who never got to experience the positive influence of an “Uncle Iroh” to guide him on the right path. 

You can agree with me or not on this one, but this is what I choose to believe. Maybe I am way too good by choosing to see any potential good in anyone, but I feel it’s a better way than to counter hate with more hate like Yang did in his monstrous portrayal of Ozai in The Search.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you agree with anything I’ve said, feel free to leave a like and to reblog this post.

See you next time and stay safe! Bye-Bye!

Saby out.

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Nothing Left to Say Now

Tag: @thesunanditsangel @magicalfirebird @anastasian-dreamer 

Marinette wondered why she even bothered to smile at her class anymore. None of them were worth it. She should have known better than to trust them.

 Hadn’t they left her to the mercy of Chloe for years? Hadn’t they shown that they were no true friends with their refusal to side with her?

 It’s easier to have a scapegoat, someone to take the hits. When you’re not in danger.

 Marinette stared at the class as Alya sneered out they weren’t friends anymore.

 For a second she wanted to beg for them to take it back. She felt like her soul was an engine, collapsing under the pain that came from losing them.

 But even so she didn’t. She looked them in the eye and gave up.

 “I suppose there’s nothing left to say then.” She told them, before she turned away from them, heading to the back of the class. She sat down and refused to speak for the rest of the class despite the confused looks she got and the annoyed ones. Even a few hurt ones.

 Like they had any fucking right to be hurt.

 After class Marinette stopped by Bustier’s desk and said loudly,

 “As apparently no one wishes for me to be their friend or to interact with me I resign as class president.” She kept walking after that, ignoring the shocked looks from Bustier and the class all talking behind her. 

 She ignored Tikki’s nudges from her purse. She didn’t care if it was wrong. She was just going to push on. 

 She did stop to tell her parents that the class had declared they were no longer friends. They had been confused until her mother asked,

 “Is it because of that liar girl?” Marinette gave a short nod and her parents frowned. 

 “... I would say we should speak to the school but that does nothing.” Tim said in an angry voice. 

 “Agreed.” Sabine huffed. “Marinette honey, we’ll excuse you for this afternoon. You take some time to meditate and think okay?”

 “Thanks,” Marinette said to her parents. She went up to her room where Tikki left her bag.

 “... I’m sorry Marinette.” Was all the Kwami could say. “I’m so sorry.”

 “There’s nothing left to say about it Tikki.” Marinette breathes out. “I’m done. I’m done… drowning. I’m done with them. Guess it’s time to move on…” she turned to the various photos on her walls. “For good.”

-0-

 Marinette kept to herself after that. At least in class. She still talked with Luka and Kagami. Still went to art club. She just didn’t interact with her classmates. 

 Luka made it clear to Juleka while he respected her choices he wasn’t going to give up his friendship with Marinette and it wasn’t fair to him to ask. He did make sure they didn’t have to see each other.

 Kagami said the same to Adrien who protested it hadn’t been his idea.

 “But you did nothing to stop it.” She told him. “And you haven’t tried to be her friend still. You’re a selfish person Adrien. I’m glad we never started actually dating.” 

 Marinette made friends with people from other classes- Marc, Aurora among them.

 She was happy again with them.

 She felt like the engine had restarted, and it was amazing.

 She got way more designing done, she had way more fun just sitting around and laughing with her new friends then she had been dragged around by Alya, forced to confess or being told all about her friends hobbies while they barely paid attention to hers.

 She’d said for years she liked video games. 

 Why had Max been shocked she liked them? Why was he so hurt over her winning when she had been the one to suggest the game to him? Why had everyone ever been shocked she showed interest in anything but design?

 Marinette was happier and smiled more. Moving on… had been the best choice.

 And from the looks Kagami and Luka shot her, there might be something more then friendship- something she would welcome with both arms.

-0-

  While Marinette was happy with the new status quo, her class on the other hand…

 They’d never seen how much Marinette did for them. It was small stuff at first-

  Like how she would ask to keep the art room open longer when Nathanael was on a creative roll. That stopped soon enough and he found himself often kicked out from the room when he stayed to long.

 Like when she would bring in treats from the bakery- day old stuff usually- for tests. She stopped that after they all told her she wasn’t their friend. Some of them couldn’t concentrate on the tests.

 Like when she would argue that skating in the halls wasn’t as bad as some of the stuff Chloe did in her bullying attempts. Alix was given detention six times before she stopped. 

 Like when she would argue to get more time allowed for assignments because everyone was pretty busy. Suddenly they were scrambling for said assignments.

 It was the small stuff.

 But it meant a lot.

 No one really reacted to her after they figured it out. They weren’t her friend anymore after all. It shouldn’t matter. She was a bully who had hurt Lila. Why would they want her back? Nevermind she had known how to talk to people and make her requests known. 

 And besides, other than then that what else did she do for them?

 When the big stuff started happening that was when they started really realizing it. 

 The class bake sale set up by Alya as the new class president hadn’t been as full of goodies as before. They sold out but it wasn’t as much…

 And then they realized Marinette had only brought three dozen cupcakes rather than the mounds of food she usually did. She hadn’t asked her parents to donate the food. 

 The raffle they held? She gave a gift card to the bakery but not the amazing custom design she had offered before- disappointing many people who were there only for that.

  The various gifts and free designs? Not dresses or actual clothes but just the designing process? Gone. She had refused to do any of it for free any more.

 The willing shoulder to cry on? She had taken one look at Ivan who had wanted a willing ear and told him to find a friend.

 They actually thought back to everything and saw how much she had done for them. How much she had given up for them, what she’d done for them all.

 Bit by bit the class slowly began wondering why they had believed Lila over Marinette when the proof was in their memories- she would have never done any of it.

 Alya held out though. The girl was stubborn and angry and didn’t want to back down. She wouldn’t.

 If there was no hard facts she hadn’t been wrong. She hadn’t abandoned her friend for a liar. She hadn’t fucked royally up. 

 But well, she forgot something she only remembered when an interview with Jagged came on one night.

Marinette knew him. 

 It was a scramble for information. Every lie, every inconsistency, all uncovered. The kingdom was gone. They could reach out to Marinette, make amends, be friends again-

 Only for her to look them in the face when they did.

 “There’s nothing left to say now.” she told them before walking away.

 And really, after everything…

 They really couldn’t argue.

[kofixi]

What are they like in bed | MHA | Part 1.

A/N: When you’re inconsistent and suck ✌️😜. Anyway here is what my brain on school hours can shit out.   !!! CHARACTER ARE AGED UP !!!

Kastuki Bakugo

Stamina: Normally 1 round last about an hour and 15-35 with additional passionate rounds. He can do 3 to 5 rounds max but probably starts to lose it after his 2nd one. He sees sex as a way to show his love in a distressing way so he does take breaks in between sessions.

Size: A solid 7, VERY thick. There’s some veins that run along the sides. That shit is skilled!!! (Leaves you in PAINNNN, IF he’s topping)

Kink(s): I feel like he’s really into degrading, ESPECIALLY public degrading, but expect kisses afterwards, he isn’t that cruel. Loves bitting, scratching, and hair pulling. 

Hair down there?: Ehhh...It’s not a forest or anything but there’s hair alright. He does shave and trim down there, but its just a ᵗᵃᵈ bit fuzzy.

Positions: Doggy-style. That’s literally it. He just loves taking you from the back. But he also likes to wall fuck.

Bottom,Top,Switch?: Okay he’s a switch. He loves to top but when he just pisses you off it’s straight to shoving a vibrator up his ass till he’s a whiny bitch. He’d never admit but he likes it when you edge him, gag him, peg him, and just overall torture him.

Izuku Midoriya

stamina: Its kinda vanilla with you guys so maybe like 2 or 3 rounds BUT them shits be lasting 

Size:....6 1/2...This isn’t a Izuku hate page but...6 1/2 inches isn’t small tho. as far as girth...I’ll let you decide (*Wink wink* Medium on the thick scale)

Kink(s): HUGE mommy kink. Spanking! He likes when you correct his tiny slip ups with soft spanks. praise Him! he likes being a good boy for you! BONDAGE! He may seen innocent but he want’s you to treat him rough then pat his head while he comes down.

Hair down there?: No, He tries to keep it nice and smooth down there so that it comfortable and your not feeling his hair while riding him.

Positions: Cow-Girl. Maybe missionary if you feel too tired.

Bottom,Top,Switch: BOTTOM!!! He’s a good little baby. Veryyyy good listener. LOVES when you ride him till he’s on cloud 9.

Shoto Todoroki

stamina: AHAHA...aha...so um...I fucking hate this man, believe it or not. I’m gonna still be nice and just say 1-LONG-ASS-ROUND. We aren’t gonna talk about how many rounds actually make-up that 1 round, Side note they are also long...6 rounds that last 45-59 minutes. 

Size: Like I said, I hate him, but bitterness aside, 8 inches with girth the equivalent of a visa card snapped 3/4 the way. Damn..that was a strange comparison but okay ig.

Kink(s): Overstimulation, No questions. Okay, Ice. He likes watching you squirm whilst the ice melts slowly inside you. Maybe when he gets a bit more comfortable with his partner, he’ll get some toys just for you (gags, vibrators, handcuffs, etc.).

Hair down there?: YES! In fact it’s so hairy that- No, It’s trimmed and short. I have nothing else to say...lets’s move on.

Positions:..Spooning and CAT. Why? Idk...It just feels right.

Bottom,Top,Switch: Top...But don’t think that the roles can’t be reversed. Not tips or hints but, don’t be shy, squeeze those balls!