#yeah I don't know what those are

[justatalkingface]

Breadth and depth.

You know, I was going to talk about the villains, but I realized it was going to bleed into this if I didn't get this off my chest, so... await that another time, I guess.

As time has passed more and more people are starting to call Hori a bad writer, and... I'm not sure they're wrong, but I don't think that's right, either. My Hero, for all of its flaws, is huge. If Hori was a bad writer, it never would have gotten this far.

What I've come to realize is that Hori is... for lack of a better word, an incomplete writer.

Let me explain.

First off, yes, I realize the manga isn't over yet. That's not point. When something in the story reaches a certain point in it's arc, a climax, big dramatic moment, whatever, there has to be build up. Let's look at AFO's big Kaminio intro, for example.

Hori didn't just throw AFO at us, he built up to that moment. First, he introduced him, with All Might and the face in the TV directing Tomura. But after that All For One kept showing up, and that's the crucial bit. It wasn't all big things, most of it was some plotting or sinister laughing here, or some teasing shapes in the TV screen there, but it reminded us, the audience that, A, AFO existed, B, that He Was Important, and C, we should really be afraid of him.

Then he showed up in Kamino and that build up? All the time Hori spent subtle reinforcing AFO's brand in our mind? It payed off in spades. All For One was epic. He was menacing. He dominated the scene.

All For One's intro was a great example of build up, A++, Hori hit that out of the park. The problem is that that is one of the few examples of build up done well. Honestly, Hori, for whatever reason, seems to have a lot of problem with that. I don't know why; maybe he can't focus, maybe it's lack of interest, maybe it's that unholy Japanese work schedule you hear so much about, but the fact of the matter is he flubs it more than he pulls it off.

In fact, I'd go so far to say that most of the things people criticise about his writing, ballpark of a good... 70% of everything before the War Arc (because that's where everything went to shit), is because of that.

Here's where I go back to my title though, breadth and depth. In general, breadth is about how broad your understanding of something is, how many topics you know about, while depth is about how deep your understanding is, how much you know about a topic.

For the purposes of this rant, these both apply to world building and character development, AKA how much of it there is, and how deep does it go.

The thing is? Breadth wise, Hori is golden. He, in the span of one chapter, introduced the audience to a wide, fascinating world that instantly grabbed the audience's attention, with vast room to build up off it in all sorts of directions. Depth, though, depth is what is holding him back.

Let's analyze a bad example of build up with that in mind: the mutant discrimination mob Spinner... thing. Yeesh. I'm going to burn two bridges with one torch and go over this, and rant about how shit it was, while also proving my point.

Interestingly enough, Hori had the start of this from as early as the first day of class: Shoji and his mask, who was afraid of scaring people with his face. It was a small mention, not big enough to disrupt the narrative but enough to be a good start of it.

Think of it as a seed. Hori sowed a lot of seeds in MHA early on; almost everything, even in the later arcs, probably has something somewhere that implies it was possible in the first... what, twenty chapters or so?

Hori sowed a lot of seeds, but he never watered them, though. We had Shoji, and we had Gang Orca (and oh, he had some potential, he did, but let's wait a bit before we go back to him), but after that? Mutant racism never came up again. The closest we've seen about that, really, until that mantle was shoved onto Spinner as Hori frantically backtracked, was if anything Shoto insulting that police chief. He called him a dog, I think? I've seen people bringing that and Dabi being a dick to Spinner as proof that the Todorokis, probably via Endeavor, are racists, but...

...Did the police chief care? Because if that was Shoto being racist, you'd think he be upset about that. He wasn't though, because back then, that wasn't actually a thing. Shoto was just being rude because he was upset. Dabi.... let's be honest, Dabi's kind of a dick in general. Him insulting Spinner really wasn't anything speical.

See, that's the thing: if you want to harvest your seeds, if you don't want them to die, you need to water them. More than that, you need to water them regularly. Hori didn't do that for the mutants, just as he didn't for so many other things; there was no depth to them.

So, when Spinner lead an angry army of mutants, we, the audience, weren't swept up in the narrative. We didn't feel for the poor oppressed people, or feel conflicted as the heroes faced them.

We wondered where the fuck that came from, because that wasn't a thing before.

Character wise, look at Shoji. We had that mask thing, but again, his big, overarching trauma wasn't a thing. He retroactively opened to his classmates about his horrible childhood, there were tears, apologies... all in a fucking flashback.

If that, if any of this, was something Hori had planned out, then he would of, or should of, anyways, have been hinting about for years now. We should have seen build up for this, and it wouldn't have been that hard. Shoji is afraid of showing his face; good, show that. Tell us, the audience, that it's there, and why.

Mutants are oppressed? Where? Where do you tell us about this? Where do we see it? Is it in the internships, when they patrol on the streets? Because that would have been a great time to start demonstrating that.

Remember Gang Orca? He's a high ranking hero, and he scares children because he's a scary mutant. He hates that, because he loves children. He's a mutant in a high level of power, when that should be hard for him. Here's something that I came up with a while ago, as a sort of primer introduction about the mutant thing: in the same way Hawks takes Tokoyami as his intern for being bird like, Gang Orca should have interned Shoji, and Koji, if he's part of all this, because they're mutants.

It would have been great for world building and character development; Orca could have explained how mutants have a hard time in the media oriented hero industry, that a lot of them end up as underground heroes due to lack of sponsors, how he struggled to get where he is now, and he that makes a habit of trying to help fellow mutants get off the ground in heroics. Then Shoji and Koji could have opened up about their experiences, which would have built up their characters, and given Hori an easy way to introduce both the characterization and world building to 1-A as a whole.

I came up with this idea after about ten minutes of trying to word how frustrated the Spinner hospital bullshit made me last month. How long has Hori had to prepare for this moment again?

So yeah, this mutant thing is incomplete. Hori's trying to collect the payoff for something that isn't there yet, because he never built up to it, the same way he did with the traitor, with Nighteye's death, with Mirio getting his powers back, with almost every character he's ever made.

Hori is an incomplete writer, who just doesn't finish one step in the process before he moves on to the next, and that's why everything he's trying to build keeps falling down around him.

And it's why My Hero Academy is a field filled with seeds left to die.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[inkskinned]

she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let

and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment

and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.

and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment

and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?

to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.

and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.

you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.

[acorviart]

It's almost time for my yearly winter shop hiatus! 15% off until Nov 17 with code SASALELE, and then I'll be closing on the 18th until February. I won't be open for holiday shopping, so get any planned presents now 🫡

SHOP

[sysig]

Chewtoy (Patreon)

[frownyalfred]

Do you think the Batfam has dressed up as vampires to an October/Halloween gala before? Rumors started going haywire for sure, right? Kinda like a, "haha no way.... but like maybe they are?? They do live in that giant mansion??" "But they went to the Bahamas last week?" "Or did they??"

The idea that no one is ever 100% sure that the Batfamily isn't a collection of vampires is so funny to me. And every single one of them, from Bruce to Damian, feeds this rumor simply by not outright denying it.

[hercarisntyours]

she's so, geometric

[seaverity]

Hal thing done

Song is Hello, World by Louie Zong

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[romanticatheartt]

You know why I love Feysand? One of the reasons is because there's a balance between them. In a way they complete each other.

Feyre is all forgiveness, love and a pleaser.

But Rhysand on the other hand is all revenge, hate and never forget.

Whenever he's drowning in hatred for himself, for people who wronged his loved ones, she's there to pull him up and shower him with love, respect and reminding him of goodness.

And whenever she is being too forgiving to the point she's forgetting herself or to put herself first, he's there to bring justice and be a shield for her from the injustice of it all.

That's why this is one of my favorite scene of them:

He's saying he can't forgive anyone who wronged her. But she remembers the ones who wronged him and notices he doesn't care about himself, his hatred for himself won't allow it.

She's saying he has to forgive at some point. He's there to remind her that maybe it's okay to admit that some people have made her suffer.

It's this back and forth between them. It balances them.

He's always self sacrificing himself to keep his loved ones safe, to make them comfortable, to be a shield. And Feyre came to his life, saw right throw all of them and let him to burden her with some of those duties he put himself up for them.

Sometimes it's a wrong trait but it's never out of malice.

And she is always too forgiving, putting everyone else first, always backing down when some times she needs to back up for herself and she let herself to forget them. But he won't, he will remember, he'll defend her if it's needed and when someone crosses a line, he's there to remind them to back down.

Sometimes she let people take too much from her and it might hurt her in the process. A wrong trait of her.

They're the definition of "I will give my love for the both of us" and "I will give my hatred for the both of us"... does that make sense?

[royalarchivist]

[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]

Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?

[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*

–

Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.

Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!

Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.

* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.

[scoriarose]

The Language of Love

If you are already convinced snakes are incapable of love, this post is not for you. But if you are open to the possibility that maybe they do, and maybe they love us too, this post explores that thought. Perhaps snakes feel it differently, perhaps they feel it the same humans do- though even humans experience love, be it platonic or romantic, differently from individual to individual. Different people also show their love in different ways as well! Yet still even with a divide between species most of us have felt love from our furry and feathered friends. Perhaps our scaly friends are also telling us they love us, we just might not understand.

When I first got my girl Scoria, if I could tell her only one thing it would be, "I love you." When I held her, I wondered if she understood how much I cared about her, and would do anything to protect her. When I pet her, I wondered if she knew how amazing I thought she was and enjoyed spending time with her.

And then I started watching livestreams of wild snakes, and how they act toward each other. (The above still is from Project Rattle Cam!) When the babies see a trusted adult, they slither all over them! How many times had my girl happily slithered all over me going no where in particular? I imagine that my finger petting her soft as a feather was probably quite similar to another snake greeting her in such a way.

Sakura is much more shy, yet wants to form a bond with me. I see it when she fights her fear to vibe with me. Sometimes she'll sit for hours at the edge of her tank nearest me, not wanting to come out, but just be near me.

Snakes like rattlesnakes and garter snakes will vibe peacefully with each other, with baby rattlesnakes sleeping near the adult rattlesnakes they trust to keep them safe.

Perhaps, when our shy snakes sits with us, facing their fears they're saying, "I'm scared, but I want to be closer with you." And maybe when our snakes slither all over us, going nowhere in particular, like their wild counterparts do with each other they're saying, "I'm so happy to see you! You're my favorite to be with!" I wonder if they could tell us one thing it would be "I love you, best friend!" And it's okay, best friend. I love you too, and already know. <3

[forgettable-au]

As someone starting up their own Undertale AU, what’s the best way to like…get people to see it. Is there a method?

So...like...

The method that worked for me was making mini comics, people really like those! Slowly introduce people to the idea lol

I gained like 2000 followers here BEFORE starting the official comic just doing that :>

Uhm, my AU was easy to introduce because it's not THAT different from normal utdr content

So people saw my posts and and thought, OH! UNDERTALE CONTENT YAY! wait... what do you mean Papyrus is Gaster?

That's where they might catch interest and scroll through the blog

But I think that worked for me because of how similar my au is to regular undertale, people fell right into my trap lmao

[ineed-to-sleep]

It honestly baffles me that some people are so casually dismissive of animals' feelings. Istg some ppl only see pets like toys and are barely able to hide it

[aerithisms]

i think my problem with this dw season arc accusing the audience of fanbrain for theorising about ruby is that it both feels deceitful and isn't actually that compelling from a character perspective. the season goes out of its way to build up supernatural mystery around ruby and even invokes susan more heavily than ever before in a way that is deliberately trying to get the audience to make those connections. and then it turns around and says you stupid idiot why would you ever try to connect these dots i have deliberately tried to get you to connect.

building up a mystery only for the character to be ordinary is an impossible girl arc redux only this time accusing the viewer of failing to see the humanity of the companion, whereas the impossible girl arc was turning that accusation on the doctor. 7b didn't really blame the audience for viewing clara as a puzzle and in fact several times spells out the fact that clara is perfectly ordinary before the big reveal to give the audience a chance to catch on. as 7b goes on, instead of laying the mystery on thicker, the audience just gets more and more affirmations that clara is a normal human being (rings of akhaten, journey to the centre of the tardis, hide). i found this approach compelling because it was rooted in character, focusing on the doctor's disconnection from humanity/the gendered dynamic of a man treating a woman as his manic pixie mystery to pull him out of grief. s14's meta approach of accusing the viewer feels both unfair, given it has deliberately led the viewer towards theorising, and personally less compelling to me because it wasn't tied into character in any way.

the thing about rey's parentage in tlj is that the reason rian johnson chose to go for that reveal was that it was the only answer that was interesting. none of the theories - rey is a skywalker, rey is a kenobi, and even the eventually canonical rey is a palpatine - were interesting or satisfying because they brought nothing compelling to the table for the story being told. the only satisfaction to be gained from those answers was a fanbrained "omg rey is important because she's related to that guy from the other movie." on top of that, rey desperately wants her parents to have been important, to give her life and her abandonment some kind of significance. so them being ordinary provided the most compelling trajectory for her character because it was the thing she least wanted to hear. it forced her to do the most introspection and growth, as well as tying into the film's themes about the capacity of ordinary people to be special. it wasn't just a choice made to "gotcha" the viewer, it was rooted in character.

i don't think ruby's mother being ordinary accomplishes the same thing. by invoking susan, s14 is engaging with the most egregious example of the doctor's streak of abandonment, which has potential to be very compelling in relation to ruby (and now also the doctor's) own abandonment issues. theories that ruby might be susan, or be somehow related to susan, or somehow related to the doctor, weren't just fanbrained "omg she's related to that guy i know from the classic series." they were theories genuinely rooted in character and the potential to explore both the doctor and ruby's issues with abandonment. and this is something the show willingly led fans towards by invoking susan so much in the first place. so for the show to turn around and act like they were shallow out of nowhere ideas when they were not shallow and were based on potential character conflicts the show itself deliberately invoked, feels misguided.

as well as that, ruby's mother being ordinary does not require that same growth from ruby as it did for rey because it is exactly what ruby wanted to hear. she never wanted her mother to be important, she just wanted to know who her mother was and have a connection with her. so finding out she was a normal woman who still loves her and wants to be a part of her life is everything she's ever wanted. it doesn't introduce interesting conflict for her the way rey's parents being ordinary did for her, because they were written as different characters with different hangups over their abandonment.

tl;dr i don't necessarily dislike ruby's mother being ordinary as an idea but compared to the things it was inspired by - 7b and star wars - it is not nearly as compelling in terms of how it relates to the characters or themes. and the meta angle, while conceptually interesting, doesn't quite work for me because it feels a little manipulative of the audience.